Gawker Shuts Down for Second Time in Nearly Seven Years, Editor Says

Gawker will be shut down by its owner Bustle Digital Group, its top editor announced Wednesday on Twitter.

“Well, after an incredible 1.5 years, BDG has decided it is done with Gawker 2.0,” editor-in-chief Leah Finnegan tweeted. “Can’t say enough about how proud I am of the site and all the brilliant people who worked to create it, and what a staggering shame this is. I had an absolute blast, and I love you.”

BDG did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The decision was part of BDG’s plan to lay off 8 percent of its workforce, CEO Bryan Goldberg wrote to staff on Wednesday, according to Semafor. “These changes will give us the flexibility to re-prioritize and further invest in our strongest areas of the business in 2023,” he wrote.

“We are proud of the site that Leah and her team built,” Goldberg continued. “But in this new reality, we have to prioritize our better monetized sites. It’s a business decision, and one that, reluctantly, must be made.”

Gawker’s domain was bought by Goldberg during a bankruptcy auction in 2018, two years after a multimillion-dollar lawsuit won by Hulk Hogan forced the original gossip outlet to shut down. After years in editorial limbo—and of editorial infighting—the website relaunched in 2021 under Finnegan’s leadership, where it hardened its focus on celebrities, politics, the media industry, and Chrissy Teigen.

BDG’s layoffs are the latest in a media industry recently rife with them. The Washington Post, NBC News, Gannett, Vox Media, and Dotdash Meredith (owned by IAC, which also owns The Daily Beast) have all announced layoffs within the last two months, a small sampling of even more cuts throughout the tech and media sectors.

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