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Gawker Set to Relaunch Under New Owner Bryan Goldberg (EXCLUSIVE)

Amanda Hale hired as publisher for new iteration of the media gossip blog

by TODD SPANGLER

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Gawker will rise from the ashes in a new iteration of the website to be launched next year, Variety has learned.

The reborn Gawker comes under the ownership of Bryan Goldberg, founder and CEO of Bustle Digital Group, who was the winning bidder for the remaining assets of Gawker Media in July. Goldberg paid $1.35 million for the media gossip blog, which has been dormant for over two years after Gawker Media was sued into bankruptcy by Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel.

In a memo to Bustle staff Tuesday obtained by Variety, Goldberg said he has hired Amanda Hale as the new publisher of Gawker. Based in New York, Hale most recently was chief revenue officer of The Outline, the culture website founded by Joshua Topolsky (who previously worked at Bloomberg Media and The Verge) that recently laid off one-fourth of its staff.

Goldberg is targeting the Gawker relaunch for early 2019. “We won’t recreate Gawker exactly as it was, but we will build upon Gawker’s legacy and triumphs — and learn from its missteps,” he wrote in the memo. “In so doing, we aim to create something new, vibrant, highly relevant, and worth visiting daily.”

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