(G/O Medias Collective Bargaining Agreement contains a clause that explicitly states that editorial decisions can only be made by editorial staff members, which Spanfeller is not. Why Ketanji Brown Jackson Split With the Courts Liberals in a 54 Decision, the firing of beloved editor Barry Petchesky, According to Great Hill Partners website, increasingly insisted on directing editorial coverage. The takeover of G/O Media, previosuly known as Gizmodo Media Group and Gawker Media, by former Forbes executive Jim Spanfellercontinues to throttle downhill, as one of the companys news sites, Deadspin, published a scathing expos on Friday detailing a litany of problems employees have faced since investment firm Great Hill purchased Gizmodo and placed Spanfeller in control. Voting precincts and districts. James J. Spanfeller Jr. is an American media executive best known for running Forbes.com from 2001-2009. In the meantime, Carmichael had her own message for Spanfeller: Congratulations on confirming your herb-ishness.. John Taggart for The Washington Post via Getty Images, NOW WATCH: WATCH: How advertisers can navigate the death of third-party cookies, according to execs from Mars Petcare, R/GA, The Washington Post, and The Trade Desk, Clashes between the Gawker Media editorial culture. The digital media and blogging network, which oversees websites like Deadspin, Gizmodo, Jezebel, A.V. While the archived version of the post did not preserve the original images, you can view a PDF of the original post below. That is absurd. Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. The two former staffers described Spanfeller as a micromanager who insists on approving minor budget items and sitting in on meetings far beneath his level, like editorial audience meetings with. Everyone can seeit on the pageor at least, everyone could see it before the censorship. Amid the chaos, someone edited Spanfeller's Wikipedia entry to read, "Jim Spanfeller is a fart-faced fascist best known for running Forbes.com from 2001-2009." (That language has since . The VP had a call with McAvoy and Spanfeller to discuss the process, asking Spanfeller why he hadnt even reached out to her about the position. James J. Spanfeller Jr. is an American media executive best known for running Forbes.com from 20012009. Who even told you you were allowed to think about audience? the woman alleged. G/O Media shuttered its politics site, Splinter, in 2019. He sits on the Board of Directors of The New York Chapter of The National Foundation for Teaching . Oh my God, thats so funny, Carmichael said when I informed her of this latest development. I think it's all good," said Chris Gaffney, co-founder and managing partner at Great Hill. Text. While we were given a 3pm deadline today to respond to dozens of questions, I understand that the folks at Deadspin have already submitted their story for legal review and plan to publish it on Wednesday all without ever seeing any of the responses to the questions that they asked. G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller Tells Employees to 'Brace for Impact' of He started screaming at me, Who told you you were allowed to speak about audience? Have a tip or story idea? "From the outset, CEO Jim Spanfeller has worked to undermine a successful site by curtailing its most well-read coverage because it makes him personally uncomfortable," the Gizmodo Media Group . The SVP shared her teams revenue goals and their success in meeting those goals, staying focused on numbers and her teams value because she knew her work would be key to profit margins. Its hard to imagine what one would not like on that list of items, Reibstein said of the third question. I hired Katie who accepted the job, he wrote. [1] The role was not posted nor was it communicated to me in time where I would have even been given equal opportunity to be considered, she said. That evening, the woman received an email from McAvoy telling her that the SVP of marketing job had been filled with someone who worked with Spanfeller at Forbes. 4 Dumb Ways Your Favorite Sites Are Dying | Cracked.com His skin got bright red, she said. Which he would do by turning Deadspin into a sports-only website. At the time of publication, Carmichaels original tweet has been retweeted more than 300 times. Asked about the contract, Spanfeller responded, I firmly believe in editorial integrity. I had experience and confidence in the people who were hired. I think the general sentiment coming out of that meeting, at least for some of the senior sales people, was like, these guys are going to lead our sales team? Former SVP of sales and operations Kurt Mueller had left the company, and McAvoy told the woman Spanfeller was hiring his replacement. "You're not a 'blogger,' you're a professional journalist. Sign up for notifications from Insider! One of the former staffers said that as companies sought to double down on diversity and inclusion during the summer of 2020, the branded content team received incoming requests from companies hoping to fund content for The Root, G/O Media's Black news publication. This former staffer said the team wished to add Black creatives to help create more representative branded content to meet the demand, but it was not given additional resources. Once it became clear that the sales department was being restructured in Kurt Muellers absence, another female vice president, who had been at the company for four years, asked McAvoy in early June for the opportunity to be considered for an expanded sales role, providing examples to show her success at the company. G/O is still wracked with internal tensions ahead of contract negotiations with one of its editorial unions. (10 is very satisfied, 1 is very unsatisfied); What do you like MOST about Deadspin? The Daily Meal was acquired by Tronc in 2016. ), The internal reaction to these hires has ranged from confusion to anger. The only person that I was aware of that was calling directly on clients was an SVP at The Onion and that was to sell creative services, he said. Reverse Phone Search Tool And much more all for free! G/O Media executives have discussed potential deal targets in the past, including Genius, The Hill, and HuffPost, according to two people familiar with the matter. A senior vice president who has worked for what is now G/O Media for four and a half years met with Spanfeller in the companys Chicago office shortly after he purchased the company in April. In an email, Flanagan disagreed with those assessments: Simply not true. [5], In 1984, Spanfeller was named publisher of Newsweek On Campus magazine. Jim Spanfeller, Jim Spanfeller . Jim Spanfeller - CEO - G/O Media | LinkedIn We shall have a discussion on the policy at the next EiCs leads meeting. But Spanfellers expectation that the process would be done in the next week or so shocked the tech team. G/O Media lawsuits: Two former exec allege discrimination - CNN And he made sure to make it clear that I just didnt get it in his mind that I just didnt get this whole digital thing, she said. Back to the Office, But Only to Picket - Curbed I first emailed Spanfeller on June 24, early in my reporting process, telling him that I was working on a story about the new hires hed brought to G/O Media in his first few months. Head of The Onion, Deadspin sued for sex discrimination - New York Post Ive reached out to Spanfeller for comment multiple times over the past few days and have yet to hear back. "[17], "Great Hill Partners Agrees to Acquire Gizmodo Media Group", "Great Hill Partners Acquires Gizmodo Media Group", "President & CEO, Jim Spanfeller Named as IAB Chairman", "Alumni Album: Helping Us Connect to the Web", "Advertising; 4 Young Executives On Move at Newsweek", "Playboy Hires 2 New Execs; Title of Publisher Goes to 1", "New Gizmodo boss Jim Spanfeller is an old school digital media vet", "After Days Of Resignations, The Last Of The Deadspin Staff Has Quit", "Deadspin Is ZombifiedBut Gawker's Content Warriors Fight On", "The Media-Sensational Rise and Fall of "Jim Spanfeller Is a Herb", "GMG Union votes no confidence in G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jim_Spanfeller&oldid=1074755870, This page was last edited on 2 March 2022, at 00:52. The post, published Tuesday evening, proved wildly popular on Twitter. McAvoy described the SVP of marketing job as a combination of sales strategy, account management, and managing creative teamsall responsibilities that fell under the SVPs purview. Vice president for west coast sales Steve Thompson, who worked with Spanfeller at, Vice president for east coast sales Sean Flanagan, who worked with Spanfeller at. I told him I had a few questions Id like to ask him, and asked if he had any availability for a meeting the following day. The job, however, came with a condition, they said: Pontiuss first order of business would be to fire newsroom editorial director Susie Banikarim. As the former publisher of National Geographic, Mens Health & Maximmy successful presentation & leadership skills are evident.. Holle Abee (author) from Georgia on February 14, 2013: Duff performed at W's inauguration. I realized that I wasnt communicating my advocacy for the department or our initiatives to upper management and other departments back to the team clearly enough. Im kind of a tipsy at a bar in Paris, she added. We could have video analytics today. G/O Media, from a business perspective, has turned a corner, Spanfeller says. But before a formal interview process could take place, Spanfeller filled the jobs with his ex-colleagues. During an internal sales summit meeting in New York on June 19, sales execs practiced pitching G/O Medias general presentation, a deck of about 15 slides that tells clients why they should do business with the company. G/O Media workers went on strike today in part to protect remote work. According to sources familiar with the situation, the Onions union sent a letter to Spanfeller asking that he help provide a plan for the site and fill the vacuum left by top leadership. Spanfellers executive assistant set up a time for us to meet. When pressed, Knight admitted the deadline may be unrealistic. This response, which Spanfeller emailed out along with the questions to and answers from every other executive to the entire company as an attempt to undermine this story, prompted this response from a third sales employee. G/O Media, the newly formed company comprised of the assets of the former Gizmodo Media, will lay off 25 employees, according to a memo that company CEO Jim Spanfeller sent to staffers on Tuesday. She asked McAvoy, then her immediate supervisor, for the opportunity to interview for the position, citing her leadership of the revenue division, her construction of a diverse team, and her renown in the industry. Or to keep it anonymous, click here. Its something that Im working to improve. It was a welcome refrain for employees all too aware of how the company had languished under Univisions doomed ownership. "I think that most media company CEOs probably are as involved as I am," Spanfeller said. (Deadspin reached out to 10 former Spanfeller employees at The Daily Meal; four consented to be interviewed, though all declined to be named because they fear retribution from Spanfeller or their current companies.) And as the only woman on the previous revenue leadership team, I started to wonder if women were being considered for leadership roles. Indeed, Spanfeller told Deadspin that he first contacted Rogers about the job on June 11. That union's collective bargaining agreement expires in February. Just two weeks after Spanfeller and Great Hill acquired the company, and less than a week after he said in an interview with Variety that he didnt expect any layoffs, Spanfeller fired 25 people across the 400-person company, including Susie Banikarim, GMGs widely respected editorial director, and the only person of color on the executive leadership team at the time. Spanfeller accused writers and editors of acting in bad faith based on a list of questions submitted to him before publication and the fact that a draft of the article had been sent for legal. In his email to the staff, Spanfeller described this story as one that had been commissioned by the site, and attempted to paint the reporting process behind it as haphazard and unfair. "People are scared of him. Everything theyve done in reaction to it is the herbiest shit I could possibly imagine. I Close-Read the 113-Page Complaint Trying to Ban the Abortion Pill in Texas. Spanfeller Has an Alleged History of Screaming at Women Employees. The JW Player was an interim step, Spanfeller said. We have no credibility in writing about ourselves. Computing. Spanfeller said he would go into negotiations "with an open mind and good faith," but a former executive at the company predicted conflict at the negotiating table between the union and the CEO, given their view of Spanfeller's heavy-handed leadership style. Since Spanfeller took over G/O Media in April, more than a dozen people have left the company voluntarily, in addition to the 25 people who were laid off. Spanfeller said he asked for the survey; Rogers said he wrote it; and editorial director Paul Maidment said he didnt approve it, but he told Deadspin editor-in-chief Megan Greenwell that he did not attempt to stop it from running on the site when he was filled in shortly before it was scheduled to go up. Before we go any further, I feel compelled to acknowledge that nearly everything about this item is a conflict of interest. He said the company was just profitable before the pandemic hit its business, and is now comfortably back in the black. On July 25, a pop-up survey appeared on Deadspin asking three questions: How satisfied are you with Deadspin? "You can write a blog, just don't publish them here.". Jim Spanfeller Analyzes Public Policy - Big Think Spanfeller Media Group ( SMG ), a subsidiary of publishing company Tribune Publishing, is a digital media company based in New York City. I was also hiring a good portion of these jobs before I actually took over day to day control of the company. Now that we are closer to stabilizing the companys finances, we can take even more time and be more deliberate in our hiring, which the SVP Talent is already doing.. When asked if she stood by the content of the since-disappeared post, Carmichael remained steadfast: I did really careful, thorough research, and the evidence is there. Political affiliation Definition | Law Insider James J. Spanfeller is president of The Spanfeller Group, a management consultancy focusing on digital strategy, audience development, revenue acceleration and talent acquisition. As for why that move was never announced, Spanfeller told Deadspin he believed Mike McAvoy would announce Rogers arrival, even though Spanfeller hired Rogers and he has announced other hires across the company since taking over. Sources say he was retained to consult on sales and how the department could work more directly with clients, which the now-former employee says was her job. Club managing editor Caitlin PenzeyMoog, who both resigned on July 12. Multiple sources say Pontius declined to go along with the plan, angering Spanfeller. I have definitely given positive feedback to numerous women, including senior executives in edit, sales, and marketing, he offered instead. Answering a similar one, he seemed to contradict himself: This concern was expressed to me and I take it very seriously. I was going on the input I had been given by Mike McAvoy that he had discussed the position with her and laid out why she was not ready for the larger role. From a womans perspective, I did feel very belittled. Editorial director Paul Maidment, who worked with Spanfeller at Forbes and The Daily Meal. In one case, sources say Spanfeller did offer to promote a woman to run human resources, but on the condition she fire another woman at the company as her first order of business. It is also worth noting that multiple internal candidates have expressed interest in the position of EIC of the A/V Club. The Onion union declined to comment, but a source with knowledge of the situation disputed that the union demanded promotions, saying its letter demanded action and used the words We ask for the following when addressing promotions. Jim Spanfeller - Wikipedia Deadspin cited an account from a former writer at The Daily Meal, a food and beverage site that Spanfeller founded in 2015, who claims her former boss once started screaming at her because she voiced concerns about writing a story on the websites earning figures, which she felt she was not qualified for. Email him here: caleb@mediaite.com My management style has been widely reported on over the years and the picture you are painting does not comport with that. [He] wasnt interested in hearing what someone with 20 years of experience would say.. Soon after Flanagan started, other members of the sales team began to question his ability to do the job he was hired forspecifically, his ability to represent the websites and the company mission. Spanfeller declined to answer a question about whether he expressed these sentiments to Klancnik. I think the thing thats most strange about it is that they didnt coordinate with the editorial side of the business. (Though the source spoke in great detail about her experience, she requested her name not be used because she didnt want it to affect her future employment opportunities.) He previously served as President & Chief Executive Officer of Forbes.com, a leading media Internet company, and as Executive Vice President . Jim Spanfeller - Big Think I can see why. Dead and spun: a story in three meetings - Columbia Journalism Review A leading digital publisher producing category leaders The Daily Meal and The Active Times. Multiple people who worked for him at The Daily Meal (part of Spanfeller Media Group) told Deadspin that Spanfeller couldnt cede any control. Im shocked he would call that a good presentation, said the employee who was in the meeting. As traffic dipped and employees headed for the exits, staffers at the company wrote a letter to Great Hill asking that Spanfeller be replaced as CEO. It's a culture of fear," said the first former employee, who added that staffers sometimes likened meetings with Spanfeller to the "boar on the floor" scene in HBO's "Succession," where media mogul Logan Roy orders his underlings to crawl and oink like pigs. When people came in with good ideas they were rejected., A woman who was hired at The Daily Meal after responding to a Craigslist post said she was once asked to write a story about a companys earnings, which she felt she wasnt qualified to write and for which she didnt receive guidance from her editors. Still, tensions between management and staff are high at the company as it prepares to enter negotiations with the G/O Media editorial union, one of the two unions representing editorial workers at the company. Have a tip we should know? Unlike private equity investors who financially engineer acquisitions, burdening companies they buy with debt and massive . During Jim Spanfeller's younger years, he lived in Pennsylvania and recieved his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1952 from the Philladelphia Academy of the Fine Arts. (Spanfeller denies this claim.). Shortly after Spanfellers email was made public, Deadspin editor-in-chief Megan Greenwell issued a statement in response to his accusations that the reporting process was unfair: We are in an ongoing reporting process and planning to publish the story when it is ready. Gizmodo and The Onion's New Owner Lays Off 25, Including - TheWrap New York City. This Is How Things Work Now At G/O Media - Deadspin I was unclear about what she did. Greenwell told Maidment she was unwilling to shut down an ongoing reporting process in response to management demands, and Maidment continued to make his argument against the idea of reporting on G/O Mediaa hallmark of the company since its earliest days, as well as a tradition at other major publicationsin several meetings with the editors and writers he oversees. We have also learned the tech team has been asked to post the survey again. (check all that apply); and What do you like LEAST about Deadspin? The appropriate thing to do would be to talk to the editorial side of the business and have a clear objective for the survey.. Spanfeller said the goal was to find out what the key points of attraction are for our visitors.. Made up mostly of the former Gawker Media sites, G/O Media has been in a near constant state of turmoil for the past few years. Sean Flanagan, 55, who was hired to lead east coast sales, was also installed over a female senior sales employee, who had been at the company for four years before she left in July. In its brief life, the postwritten by Emma Carmichael, a former editor at a former version of the companywas viewed nearly 100,000 times and was tweeted out by the official People for Bernie Twitter account. New York(CNN Business) Two former executives are suing G/O Media, the parent company of sites including Gizmodo, Deadspin and The Onion, alleging discrimination and negligence. [12][13], In 2011, Spanfeller launched The Daily Meal with an estimated $2 million investment. Who even told you you were allowed to think about audience?, My management was straight-up scared of him, said a staffer who worked at the site for two years and had responsibilities on both the editorial and marketing sides of the company. 1. In one instance in which Spanfeller tried to promote a woman within the company, his offer came with strings attached. The Onion Union, which represents AV Club staffers, told Insider in a statement that it hoped "this period of prosperity creates tangible benefits for all of our members especially those whose jobs are being moved to Los Angeles, one of the most expensive cities in the world.". Jim Spanfeller the beleaguered boss of G/O Media, which owns The Onion and Deadspin is being sued by two former executives who claim in separate lawsuits that he discriminated against . According to his LinkedIn, Thompson is the founder of Mediacentric Inc., a multi-media representation company., A man was hired with my same title [vice president for west coast sales] to be my boss, the VP told Deadspin.

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