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No media company does. But as Spanfeller began to implement his vision, that hope was replaced by employee frustration and skepticism over his hiring practices and interference with the companys journalism. Employees across editorial, sales, and tech have left, but many of these positions, even mission-critical ones, have not been filled. When one reviews the actual questions one might feel even more uneasy. In late July, more than a month after the womans conversation with Spanfeller (and after the Daily Beast and New York Post published stories about his rocky early days at the company and he became aware of the reporting process for this story about his hiring practices), that same VP was given what management called a promotion, which Spanfeller noted in his responses to Deadspin, saying that she has been promoted to VP Marketing under Bruce Rogers with wider responsibilities., I am at the same level and performing the same duties now as I was before I got this supposed promotion, the VP said. In the email, Spanfeller said he was "greatly concerned about the objectivity and core intentions of this piece," and questioned the editorial standards of Deadspin's editors. I think the thing thats most strange about it is that they didnt coordinate with the editorial side of the business. "You can write a blog, just don't publish them here.". A source at the company familiar with the situation said Thompsons hire had been flagged to upper management as a potential problem. The other is still in college.. in English Literature in 1979 and went to work as a reporter for the SoHo Weekly News. I hired Katie who accepted the job, he wrote. [He] wasnt interested in hearing what someone with 20 years of experience would say.. In conversations with Deadspin, more than 20 employees from across the business, tech, and editorial departments of G/O Media expressed frustration with Spanfellers approach to hiring and his new executives lack of knowledge about the company combined with their seeming unwillingness or inability to get up to speed. Spanfeller was hired by private equity firm Great Hill Partners to run the company after it was purchased from Univision. Oberlander actually left last week. (Spanfeller told Deadspin that he and Callahan had only been in a single meeting that I recall.). G/O Media shuttered its politics site, Splinter, in 2019. Now that we are closer to stabilizing the company, there can be a more deliberate recruitment and hiring process. Heres The REAL Clip, Christian Walker GOES OFF on Predator Matt Schlapp for Allegedly Groping Male Campaign Staffer: Hes Done This Before, Im Sure!, LOL. 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. As the former publisher of National Geographic, Mens Health & Maximmy successful presentation & leadership skills are evident.. Gov. But before a formal interview process could take place, Spanfeller filled the jobs with his ex-colleagues. I have definitely given positive feedback to numerous women, including senior executives in edit, sales, and marketing, he offered instead. 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. I was sorry and that is accurate, he said. (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. Another former Daily Meal staffer said that management was straight-up scared of Spanfeller, adding, I can see why. When Rogers was hired less than a week after McAvoy told the SVP that she would be able to interview for the job, she said, she realized that he must have been chosen well before. It was placed there without consultation or even simple communication to anyone on Deadspins staff. 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. In the months that followed, without posting the jobs publicly, Spanfeller, 62, hired a stable of white men to fill executive positions overseeing nearly every facet of the company. 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. "People are scared of him. It also wasnt communicated to me as a promotion until the day it was emailed out to the company.. In this specific case, I have committed to the current story being fully reported and submitted for external review and, if it passes that review, it will be published. Spanfeller said that he wasnt preventing, just delaying analytics from being implemented, on the grounds that its not particularly useful information at the moment. (The day after Deadspin contacted Spanfeller for comment, the tech team was given the green light to roll out video analytics. They include: (Spanfeller declined to be interviewed in person but answered emailed questions. Text. Club, and Splinter, was purchased by the firm in April, along with the satirical news site The Onion, which led to a massive shift in the companys culture and considerable turnover in the top ranks or, as one G/O Media employee put it, Spanfeller has brought in a bunch of white dudes to change the company. I had experience and confidence in the people who were hired. They are parti pris, which is why the overwhelming majority do not do so and many will not even report on rivals for the same reason. Jun 8, 2020, 7:03 AM. These men, and others who now hold C-suite positions at the company, were each hired without a public recruitment process, and several were installed over high-ranking women who had been successfully performing those jobs at the company for years. It wasn't Great Hill's first foray into the media business it had previously invested in IGN and sold Ziff Davis but the G/O deal was a tiny one for a firm that describes itself as "targeting investments of $25 million to $500 million.". In reality, this story started with a tip the site received about Spanfellers hiring practices, and grew from there thanks to sources accounts. Computing. He would stop into peoples offices with the doors open and scream at them, so everyone knew what was going on., 5. I thought she was going to be great, and it didnt work out by her own assessment., In response to follow-up questions, Spanfeller clarified that there was never a signed offer between Pontius and the company. The private equity firm was able to snap up the deal for only about $25 million, according to a person with direct knowledge of the figure. Clashes between the Gawker Media editorial culture and the company's new private equity owner seemed inevitable from the start. 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. Jim Rich, the former top editor of the New York Daily News, will start as editor-in-chief of Deadspin on Monday. Spanfeller was hired by private equity firm Great Hill Partners to run the company after it was purchased from Univision. 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.". As I said in the article, some of the celebs I mentioned could have changed their political leanings. Traffic has fallen across G/O Media's portfolio over the past two years, which Spanfeller pinned on industry-wide struggles to generate audience plus the loss of Deadspin and Splinter. 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. I think it makes him a bad role model for the rest of his team.. The Daily Meal Founder G/O Media Chief Executive Officer Board and Advisor Roles Number of Current Board & Advisor Roles 3 Number of Past Board & Advisor Roles 2 1. "[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. Three and a half hours later, Maidment told us to put the story on ice, but both Spanfeller and Maidment maintain that Spanfeller never explicitly or implicitly directed the story to be killed. While these high-ranking women were being overlooked and bypassed, Spanfeller evidently was concerned about retaining at least one other VP on the sales side. In other words, G/O media had effectively broken the redirect at Deadspin2.com, so that the site now redirected to a dead link. 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. In all of those cases Jim listened to my arguments and in many cases agreed with me and the issue was settled, he wrote in response to one question. For the last two questions, the options were the same: Uncompromising commentary, sports stories I cant find anywhere else, knowledgeable writers, broad scope of coverage, political coverage and strong political point of view, and criticism and coverage of other media companies.. "You're not a 'blogger,' you're a professional journalist. We sent a request for an explanation and did not receive a response. The detection of possible errors in a person's voter record as well as instructions on how to update it. 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. A source said Spanfeller told editors-in-chief of the companys websites that he had chosen Maidment, 68, for the job before the sale was completed and did not interview other candidates, including Banikarim. 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. Asked about the contract, Spanfeller responded, I firmly believe in editorial integrity. Six of these hires were Spanfellers colleagues from his previous jobs at Forbes, Playboy, and Ziff Davis. He is currently the CEO of G/O Media which consists primarily of sites that were previously part of Gawker Media. The union said that it wants the money to translate into higher salary minimums, trans-inclusive healthcare, and a focus on talent retention. The job, however, came with a condition, they said: Pontiuss first order of business would be to fire newsroom editorial director Susie Banikarim. According to multiple sources inside the company, the post even joined the leading posts from official G/O sites on the big board, a large screen in the companys New York headquarters that displays that moments most highly trafficked storiesan unusual feat for a user-generated post. 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. Before he started full time in early June, Flanagan was brought in as a consultant just after Spanfeller took over G/O Media. James J. Spanfeller serves as President & Chief Executive Officer of Forbes.com, a leading media Internet company, and as Executive Vice President of Electronic Publishing for . Its hard to imagine what one would not like on that list of items, Reibstein said of the third question. On Glassdoor, a website where current and former employees can submit anonymous reviews of their workplaces, reviews of The Daily Meal are overwhelmingly negative. 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. What Spanfeller says is normal is, of course, a reflection of his own values, which evidently rank transparency, diversity, and inclusion as secondary concerns to financial success. G/O Media, owner of Gizmodo and The Onion, will post an eight-figure operating profit this year, CEO Jim Spanfeller says. [4] He soon switched to the business side of the paper, and later took a tour through Europe. 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. 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. In that 30-minute meeting, the woman told Deadspin, Spanfeller told her that Univision had been a bad owner and that he saw an opportunity to make improvements and turn a profit. Jim Spanfeller, Ad revenue rebounded, Spanfeller told Insider last year. While G/O Media has often placed importance on diversity among their staff and in their coverage, these executive-level jobs went to white males. Emma Carmichael is a friend of mine, and we both worked at Gawker Media and, as it was later named after being purchased by Univision, Gizmodo Media Group, or GMG. After two years of mainly working from home, the company wants everyone back in the office four days a week. Never mind the flood of negative stories about staff blowback over the company's editorial direction. 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 . This guy just seems like he doesnt like women, another added. [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. Details may include related records, political party, location, and more. The company is also on the hunt for acquisitions, according to Spanfeller. Katie then refused to assume the HR lead role around other wider layoffs at the company. . This is normal in situations like these where a new group is coming in and is facing a near term challenge. Mr. Spanfeller has a BA in English Literature from Union College, Schenectady, New York. That is absurd. Mad Money Twitter - Jim . Jim Spanfeller Biography. [10] Spanfeller was also responsible for advertising sales on the magazine's website and that of Yahoo! The VP, who said she now reports to Thompson, said all of her previous reviews from her managers have exceeded expectations, and that she was able to more than double revenue for my region in less than a year. The person hired was Bruce Rogers, who most recently ran the institute arm of SITO Mobile, a mobile data company. I have communicated our timeline concerns to Jim and he understands that development is not an exact science and that goals may not be hit, Knight told Deadspin. Spanfeller, a man who is regularly and perhaps euphemistically referred to in press accounts as a digital media veteran, has so far hired a slew of his former colleagues at Forbes.comwhere he was CEO from 2001 to 2009and Playboywhere he was a senior vice president from 1989 to 1993. 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. 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. Never mind the recent exodus of company leadership under his tenure, including the editorial director, chief financial officer, and chief revenue officer. Before we go any further, I feel compelled to acknowledge that nearly everything about this item is a conflict of interest. We could have video analytics today. We have no credibility in writing about ourselves. She said Spanfeller told her that he was unaware of what she did at the company, and that she replied: That doesnt help, because that says you not only didnt know what I did, but you also had no interest in meeting the only woman on the revenue leadership team who is an SVP who has been successful, according to meeting her revenue and finance goals. She said the conversation ended with Spanfeller saying, Im sorry, I dont know what else you want me to say., Spanfeller confirmed the womans account to Deadspin. 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. That the story has been submitted for legal review without the benefit of our responses leads me to the conclusion that the piece is already fully written and that our responses to questions are mere window dressing. [15][16] In January 2020 the GMG union, which represents the staff of G/O media, announced a vote of no confidence in CEO Jim Spanfeller citing, among other issues, a lack of willingness to negotiate for "functional editorial independence protections. Great Hill Partners and current CEO Jim Spanfeller, formerly of Forbes, bought these sites and the Onion from Univision Communications Inc. in April. [2][3], Spanfeller graduated from Union College with a B.A. Below are some of the biggest revelations outlined in Deadspins roughly 7,000 word report on their parent company and its new management, which they spoke to nearly two dozen G/O Media employees for. At the same time, working with the EICs to set a general editorial direction is clearly in the purview of any owner.). G/O Media, the company which ran Deadspin, was acquired by the private equity group Great Hill Partners, which installed Spanfeller as CEO and gave him one mission: Make them richer. Flanagan volunteered to go first, and what followed wasnt overwhelmingly inspiring, as one sales employee who was at the meeting put it: Flanagan read word for word what was on the slides, two people present confirmed. Successfully sold . He said the company was just profitable before the pandemic hit its business, and is now comfortably back in the black. Both lawsuits detail discrimination personally faced or witnessed by the plaintiffs from Jim Spanfeller, who became CEO of G/O Media in April after private equity firm Great Hill acquired Gizmodo Media Group. "We are happy to hear that the company is profitable and financially stable enough for Jim Spanfeller to consider further acquisitions, and look forward to welcoming more workers into our union," the G/O Media union said in a statement. Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. I was also hiring a good portion of these jobs before I actually took over day to day control of the company. Stay up to date with what you want to know. James J. Spanfeller Jr. is an American media executive best known for running Forbes.com from 20012009. ), This isnt the first time Spanfeller has been accused of micromanaging. Spanfeller declined to answer a question about whether he expressed these sentiments to Klancnik. I can see why. Everything theyve done in reaction to it is the herbiest shit I could possibly imagine. At an all-staff meeting this week, Knight told Spanfeller that August 15 is the target completion date, which Spanfeller told Deadspin he believes is achievable. Thats not reality, a tech staffer told Deadspin. In addition to the removal of the post itself, Carmichael also discovered that shes now unable to use her personal Kinja account at all. In addition to poor planning and communication around the video player, multiple sources say Spanfeller wouldnt allow the tech team to implement video tracking analytics on JW Player, so no one had any idea how many views videos were getting. 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. We shall have a discussion on the policy at the next EiCs leads meeting. To hear G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller tell it, everything at his digital media company is going great. Sources say that on the tech side of the company, Spanfeller has taken to micromanaging various aspects of developers work, holding meetings to ask what each one is working on, demanding detailed accounts of how they spend their working days, and mandating various projects based on his work at Forbes in the mid-2000s. He sent a message back about the importance of diversity and inclusion and a full hiring process. tips@mediaite.com, Caleb Ecarma was a reporter at Mediaite. Follow him on Twitter here: @calebecarma. It will post an eight-figure operating profit this year, he told Insider, and hunt for acquisitions in 2022. 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. Jim has a different recollection of the facts, McAvoy reiterated. LinkedIn is the world's largest business network, helping professionals like Jim Spanfeller discover inside connections to recommended . . These actions are clearly management attempting to target, and even intimidate, staff into changing their editorial stance in spite of our contract-protected independence, especially as it comes on the heels of managements repeated attempts to kill this story as it was being reported about the company. Endnotes [1] Statement from G/O Media: "Some reports have miscast Jim Spanfeller as a private equity businessman when, in fact, he has spent his entire career in editorial-driven businesses. A week after Spanfeller insisted to Varietythat he did not plan to cut our way to growth, the CEO fired 25 employees, including in top positions, such as axing former Gizmodo Media Group editorial director Susie Banikarim. He credited The Root for its journalism on the Black Lives Matter movement. In an email read to Deadspin, McAvoy agreed that she was qualified for the role and said he would talk with Spanfeller to ensure she was interviewed for the new opportunity, which had not been posted publicly. For the life of me, I am not sure how you can have a legal review without a complete story and I cannot imagine how you can consider your work to be objective without reviewing the answers to the questions that you have asked. 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. Or to keep it anonymous, click here. It has introduced real uncertainty in to stocks, and Trump's agenda has become shaky. Spanfeller responded that he would be happy to get together, but did not say anything about open roles. Ultimately, the issue of building a wall has raised political risk, Cramer said. I hold myself to a high regard and ensuring that Im respectful to others and create a community of camaraderie, hire for diversity, and that there is a work life balance, she told Deadspin. It became clear that she was not a good fit for this position and we both agreed on this. This particular set of troubles all started when private equity firm Great Hill Partners purchased GMG and hired Spanfeller, a former Forbes.com CEO, to guide the ship. While cleaning house and bringing in some trusted former colleagues is not entirely uncommon in private-equity acquisitions, Spanfeller filled nearly his entire top layer of management without any public recruitment process; the only woman hired as a department head, head of talent Angela Persaud, was also the only person at that level whose job was posted publicly. Indeed, two former G/O Media staffers blasted Spanfeller for being stingy with resources. Unlike private equity investors who financially engineer acquisitions, burdening companies they buy with debt and massive . I read that she's a registered Republican in Texas. The anti-herb agenda is being suppressed.. Im not building a club, we are working to build a successful companyand that depends on great women and men.. After Gawker's high-profile legal battle with Hulk Hogan, Univision in 2016 purchased its other media properties out of bankruptcy for $135 million, but struggled and sold the assets, including add-ons like The Onion, to Great Hill Partners in 2019. It is ridiculous to launch a management survey questioning the editorial value of the site. I am a father of three wonderful woman, Spanfeller wrote in a statement. (The people I work for and the people who report to me know what I do, Rogers, 63, told Deadspin in an email.). G/O Media, from a business perspective, has turned a corner, Spanfeller says. In the midst of the fallout, former Deadspin, Gawker, and Jezebel editor Emma Carmichael had a spirited discussion with [former Jezebel writer] Clio Chang on the overwhelming herbishness of Jim Spanfeller, she told me over the phone. I found this troubling but was okay with it given the circumstances. I had experience and confidence in the people who were hired. These conversations reveal that Spanfellers biggest effect on the company since taking over has been a deflation of morale. 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. Its something that Im working to improve. G/O is still wracked with internal tensions ahead of contract negotiations with one of its editorial unions. "There's a fly and he's a swatter, and that's it," the former executive said. Internet Life, a joint publication of Ziff-Davis and Yahoo!. These two highly talented HR executives then met with a number of people around our company including representatives of the unions., When asked why Spanfeller didnt follow this thorough search process before filling seven key positions with his former coworkers, he blamed his hiring practices on the financial shape of the company. He started screaming at me, Who told you you were allowed to speak about audience? 12-Year-Old Prankster Throws Dead Snake on Woman's Car and Gets Flattened by Husband 15,743. The employees, nearly all of whom requested anonymity because of fears of retaliation from company management, are angered by a lack of communication regarding company goals, seeming disregard for promoting diversity within the top ranks of the company, and by repeated and egregious interference with editorial procedures. But those efforts did not go very far, the people said, and the company has yet to mount a takeover. I expect to be treated the way I treat people., This pattern played out three more times in Spanfellers first few months as CEO. Club executive editor Laura M. Browning and former A.V. The post, published Tuesday evening, proved wildly popular on Twitter. When she tried to edit the post, she was greeted by the following image: Attempts to create a new post were similarly thwarted. As Spanfeller increasingly insisted on directing editorial coverage in what he believed to be more advertiser-friendly directions, clashes between him and the companys writers and editors have escalated. Laura M. Browning and Caitlin PenzeyMoog, the A.V. He sits on the Board of Directors of The New York Chapter of The National Foundation for Teaching .