“Gawker’s politics were progressive, but it shared the belief that the real world was staged. Gawker writers, plugged into the journalists’ gossip networks, looked for the story behind the story, the version that was shared over a drink but less frequently published.”— Nick Denton, gawker.com
“The embrace of unusual writers led one veteran to describe Gawker as the ‘island of the misfit toys’. We took that as a compliment.”— Nick Denton, gawker.com
“At the peak of our confidence, we saw ourselves as the freest writers on the internet, beholden to no one but our readers. Gawker was an experiment in journalism free of commercial pressures and the need for respectability, constrained only by law.”— Nick Denton, gawker.com
“Gawker’s remit was eventually so broad, news and gossip, that subject matter proved no barrier. And Gawker’s web-literate journalists picked up more story ideas from anonymous email tips, obscure web forums or hacker data dumps than they did from interviews or parties.”— Nick Denton, gawker.com
“Many liberals and journalists are alarmed by the ease with which a rich and powerful man—a Trump supporter—can use the legal system to destroy an outlet that criticized him and his friends. To my mind, Gawker’s ultimate fate was predestined.”— Nick Denton, gawker.com
“It is a fitting conclusion to this experiment in what happens when you let journalists say what they really think.”— Nick Denton, gawker.com
“Having spent years on a secret scheme to punish Gawker’s parent company and writers for all manner of stories, Thiel has now cast himself as a billionaire privacy advocate, helping others whose intimate lives have been exposed by the press. It is canny positioning against a site that touted the salu…”— Nick Denton, gawker.com
“Peter Thiel has gotten away with what would otherwise be viewed as an act of petty revenge by reframing the debate on his terms.”— Nick Denton, gawker.com
“Peter Thiel has achieved his objectives. His proxy, Terry Bollea, also known as Hulk Hogan, has a claim on the company and my personal assets after winning a $140 million trial court judgment in his Florida privacy case. Even if that decision is reversed or reduced on appeal, it is too late for Gawk…”— Nick Denton, gawker.com
“Gawker.com is shutting down today, Monday 22nd August, 2016, some 13 years after it began and two days before the end of my forties. It is the end of an era.”— Nick Denton, gawker.com
“As a public speaker, Thiel is like most of us: Interesting if you’re willing to pay attention. By contrast, Denton holds court like an aging movie star. He’s witty and ruthless. He’s Simon from American Idol.”— Paul Boutin, bloomberg.com
“Denton and I had a stare-down. He scared me staring at me, man. He just sat there staring. It was right after his cross-examination. He stood up and stared. It was like he was going to call me out at Wrestlemania.”— Terry Bollea, nypost.com