The name “Gawker” and “Gawker Media” has been tainted in the media space. Too many sorded stories and gossip-quality pieces of a tawdry nature have sullied the name of Gawker. The new CEO of the company – following the Univision acquisition that took place after Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit killed Gawker Media – decided to rename Gawker media to Gizmodo Media.
CNN Money is reporting that Raju Narisetti is the new CEO of Gizmodo Media and he comes from the oftentimes loathed but imperial-sized News Corp., owned by Rupert Murdoch. Narisetti was News Corp’s senior vice president of strategy, and will now be moving into the Gizmodo Media space starting in October.
CNN reports that Narisetti commented on his new role and the new role of Gizmodo Media, saying…
“As part of Univision, we will now be more ambitious in deepening, broadening and sensibly scaling the passionate digital communities” the sites have attracted, “by offering accurate, responsible, edgy and engaging journalism, as well as through relevant, related content and commerce,”
Recently Univision had six articles deleted under Gawker’s wing; articles that were either trapped in a litigious circle of controversy or were prime bait for litigation. The company also had a Kotaku article quickly modified after a user went through proper channels to complain about copyrighted photos being used in the piece.
Most interesting is that many of Gawker’s writers were disappointed at the more ethical stance being imposed upon the staff at Gawker – now Gizmodo Media – by Univision, as reported by Politico. Some of the tweets from the disgruntled writers can be viewed below.
https://twitter.com/katiedrumm/status/774579049070989313
https://twitter.com/jordansarge/status/774467409260544000
It was Gawker’s unethical practices that landed the in hot water with Hulk Hogan (which eventually led to their downfall) and it was also their unethical practices that cost them some million(s) after a run-in with #GamerGate, where executive editor Max Read lamented how the grassroots movement helped tank the multi-million dollar empire.
It was also later revealed that the FTC utilized more than 50 pages worth of documents from #GamerGate operations to use in their ongoing investigation into Gawker Media, now known as Gizmodo Media.
With Univision picking up the liabilities of Gawker’s assets, one has to wonder how they’ll deal with the FTC and any future disclosure complaints that come from the community? It was Gawker’s brazen and haughty response to #GamerGate that resulted in the consumer revolt getting as big it did and becoming financially dangerous toward Gawker.
