Gawker's journalism will be preserved online
When a billionaire bankrolls lawsuits to shut down a news outlet that they don't like, it's a pretty big deal for how we treat journalism. It's why the Freedom of the Press Foundation has announced that it will launch an online archive for news sites, starting with Gawker . The project, in partnership with the Internet Archive , has crawled every page of the disputed site, as well as others like the L.A. Weekly , for preservation. Parker Higgins, the foundation's director of special projects, explains that certain news outlets are at risk for what he calls the "billionaire problem." This is where members of the super rich can use their financial muscle to censor politically or personally inconvenient material. Gawker , famously, earned the ire of one prominent venture capitalist after broadcasting details of their sexuality without consent. Univision purchased the Gizmodo Media Group , which contained the other sites in Gawker's stable, but the main...