It looks like Gawker Media Group hasn't recovered from the knockout blow Hulk Hogan and his lawyers delivered in court earlier this year.
On Friday, Gawker CEO Nick Denton filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in an effort to avoid immediately paying $140 million in court-ordered damages to Hogan.
Hogan slammed Gawker with a successful invasion of privacy suit in March, stemming from the site's leak of a sex tape that featured the wrestler and a friend's wife. Venture capitalist Peter Thiel helped fund the lawsuit.
In 2007, Gawker blog Valleywag publicy outed Thiel with a blog post titled "Peter Thiel is totally gay, people."
Thiel told The New York Times in May, "I saw Gawker pioneer a unique and incredibly damaging way of getting attention by bullying people even when there was no connection with the public interest."
He insists funding the suit was not about revenge but preventing the company from ruining more people's lives.
Denton refuses to apologize for posting Hogan's sex tape and says Thiel's campaign against the company will set a dangerous precedent for journalism.
The bankruptcy filing will allow Gawker to maintain operations and keep from cutting jobs while a court-supervised auction is held.
Recode reports that publisher Ziff Davis has placed a bid to buy Gawker for around $100 million. Denton valued the company at up to $300 million before the trial began.
This video includes clips from BBC, Recode, Bloomberg and The Center on Capitalism and Society and images from Getty Images.
