Gawker’s Nick Denton Has ‘a Surprising Amount of Respect’ for Roger Ailes

By Chris Ariens 

There’s never been much love between Fox News and Gawker.

In 2012, when Gawker paid then-Fox News employee Joe Muto $5,000 to be a mole (which lasted about a day), FNC CEO Roger Ailes dismissed the site saying, “What is Gawker? Is that that pornographic website?”

Ailes added: “I don’t care if they have a mole because we aren’t doing anything wrong, so it doesn’t matter. They hate me because I make money and I do it legitimately and they don’t like my politics, and that’s America.”

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Well, today in an interview with Time, Gawker founder Nick Denton was asked what media mogul he identifies with. “I’ve always had a surprising amount of respect for Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes,” Denton said. “I respect publishers and media executives who’ll put out good, true, provocative stories and deal with the blowback.”

Denton’s Gawker filed for bankruptcy earlier this month after a jury awarded $140 million to former wrestler Hulk Hogan in a defamation suit.

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