Retrospective of Gawker Has a Gawker-Like Scoop

It's been 10 years since Gawker folded after billionaire Peter Thiel funded a massive lawsuit against the irreverent online news site. Frank DiGiacamo of the Hollywood Reporter takes a deep dive into the legacy of the site that helped define internet media, one that includes interviews with former staffers who recount the surreal experience of working in what could be a "morally queasy place," as former writer Cord Jefferson puts it. Gawker could indeed be "withering, puerile and gratuitously nasty," writes DiGiacomo, who adds this caveat:

• "But, at its best, it rebelled against media piety and the growing, often indiscriminate power of the digital world and the hubristic entrepreneurs who were shaping it. As print and television media fumbled their way online, Gawker used the internet to pull back the curtain on celebrity, mainstream media, politics and creeping commercialism."

The story provides an interesting oral history of the era, and it includes a Gawker-esque scoop: DiGiacomo reports that Jefferson and another former staffer, Max Read, sold a series to Apple called Scraper, based on Gawker. They and others were working on scripts when they got word that Apple CEO Tim Cook personally killed the project and reportedly referred to Gawker as filled with "vile human beings." Apple and Gawker had a testy relationship years ago, and it was a Gawker-owned site, Valleywag, that outed Cook under the headline, "Meet Tim Cook, the Most Powerful Gay Man in Silicon Valley." Cook did not respond to DiGiacomo's request for comment. Read his full story.