Wednesday 15 June 2016

Gawker's Bankruptcy is not about Press Freedom.





Gawker's filing for bankruptcy is on foot of the judgement against it for $140m in the Hulk Hogan case. Gawker intends to appeal.

It was an invasion of privacy action which may have other knock-on affects to US publishers and supposedly, bankrolled by Peter Thiel who was in turn, 'outed' by Gawker previously in 2007.  

It is seemingly facing a "barrage" of law suits.

It's Chapter 11 bankruptcy which allows Gawker not to pay the $140m whilst it pursues potential buyers or other arrangements. It was founded in 2002.

Let us all not scream Press Freedoms and understand that most publishers are private businesses driven largely by Advertising. In order to achieve more Advertising, they need more audiences. And in order to do that, more salacious stories to attract those audiences. In return, they make profits for themselves.

But that cannot include demeaning other people to achieve it.

They had in 2015, a rumoured €44m in revenues and 260 employees. More than 100m unique visitors a month, generating profits of circa 4-8 million a year. 

The sad part of this story is of course, those employees. Nothing else.

Streamabout.com

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