The $16,666-a-month precisely matches what Ziff Davis - the other bidder for Gawker - was willing to pay Denton to serve as a consultant for two years. What’s in it? Maybe there’s a clue from an older court document. A portion of Denton’s agreement with Univision is redacted - and it’s a secret section that explains which business activities he’s allowed to pursue notwithstanding his non-competition and non-solicitation obligations. ![]() In light of the non-compete agreement, his exit from the news business makes sense, though there could be some wiggle room. We hope to continue the productive relationship we established with management at Gawker Media, but the decision to remove these posts casts a significant pall over UniModa’s claimed commitment to the core values of our members employed by UniModa.Soon after, Denton sent a memo to staff stating that he would “move on to other projects, working to make the web a forum for the open exchange of ideas and information, but out of the news and gossip business.” Tn a separate statement, the guild said that “though UniModa has offered assurances that it is committed to robust, fearless journalism, this move seems to belie that claim. The staffers said they “now face the task of trying to rebuild trust with Univision and find a resolution that will allow us all to once again do the work that we were all hired to do without fearing that our parent company might fail to support us when we need it most.” We have seen firsthand the damage that a targeted lawsuit campaign can do to companies and individual journalists, and the removal of these posts can only encourage such attempts in the future.” This decision undermines the foundation of the ability of Gawker Media’s employees to do our work. The statement added: “Univision has said that it bought Gawker Media because it believed in the work that our publications do. That work, for well over a decade, was only possible because we knew that our company leadership would defend it if it came under frivolous legal attack.”īut Univision’s “first act on acquiring the company,” they said, “was to delete six true and accurate news stories from our archive, because those stories had been the targets of frivolous or malicious lawsuits. It is unacceptable for a publisher to delete legitimate and true news stories for business reasons.” “It sets an alarming precedent both for our relationship with our new owners and for the business of journalism as a whole. “We condemn this action by Univision’s executives in the strongest possible terms,” they said in a statement. Two of the deleted posts were about a guy who claimed to have invented the Internet two more were about former Major League Baseball pitcher Mitch Williams one was about conservative writer Chuck Johnson and the other was about a lawyer who was acquitted of rape. In place of each post is a now a note that tells readers: “This story is no longer available as it is the subject of pending litigation against the prior owners of this site.” On Friday, UniModa, the Univision entity that acquired Gawker’s assets, removed six archived posts – all of which were the targets of defamation suits – that had appeared on Gawker Media-owned sites Deadspin, Jezebel and Gizmodo. Gawker Media’s WGA-represented bargaining unit isn’t so sure about that now, however. ![]() “We could not have picked an acquirer more devoted to vibrant journalism,” Gawker founder Nick Denton said of the Univision acquisition. ![]() ![]() Univision bought the digital media company last month for $135 million after Gawker declared bankruptcy when a jury awarded Hulk Hogan $140 million in an invasion of privacy suit that had been underwritten by right-wing billionaire Peter Theil, who Gawker had outed as being “totally gay” back in 2007.Īt the time, many on the staff were happy that someone had bought the distressed company, even though its flagship Gawker site was shuttered. WGA East-represented writers and editors at Gawker Media are accusing their new corporate owners at Univision of abandoning the principles of good journalism by deleting six stories from its archives that are the subject of defamation lawsuits.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |