(Spanfeller told Deadspin that he and Callahan had only been in a single meeting that I recall.). (Pontius left the company.) Gaffney said the firm was prepared to hold onto the investment for a decade or more and that Spanfeller, a former Forbes and Playboy executive, does not have a time frame for preparing the company for a sale. Everyone can seeit on the pageor at least, everyone could see it before the censorship. WV Gov. Justice switching political parties, returning to GOP Jim Spanfeller (@JimSpanfeller) / Twitter Announcing Persauds hire on July 10, Spanfeller wrote this of the process: After a very fulsome search where we interviewed dozens of qualified candidates we identified two finalists. Head of The Onion, Deadspin sued for sex discrimination - New York Post Before he started full time in early June, Flanagan was brought in as a consultant just after Spanfeller took over G/O Media. One major conflict arose over whether the company should build a video player in-house or pay for a third-party platform. G/O Media sites generated about 45.7 million unique visitors in October, according to Comscore, down from 47.8 million in October 2020 and 101.6 million in October 2019, right before the Deadspin exodus. When asked by Deadspin why he wouldnt name an interim editor while that search took place in order to stabilize the site and ensure that the people filling in were properly compensated for their work, Spanfeller said that the Onion union demanded that we immediately promote two people into those roles. Deadspin Is ZombifiedBut Gawker's Content Warriors Fight On Deadspin Editor Quits, Rails Against Bosses: 'I've Been Repeatedly Lied It became clear that she was not a good fit for this position and we both agreed on this. In April, the tech team was told to move the companys video operations off of MCP, which Univision paid for to host video content, and onto JW Player, a cheaper video system. A voter's representatives in government. A longtime digital media veteran, Spanfeller was an unconventional choice to lead the new Gizmodo Media Group sites (The Daily Beast's CEO, Heather Dietrick, once served as president of the . 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. Another was more direct: Thats Jim wanting to be in control. We had to move fast because the company was losing money at a rapid pace, Spanfeller wrote in a statement. 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. Asked for a response to the latter allegation, Spanfeller responded, That is absurd. G/O Media, from a business perspective, has turned a corner, Spanfeller says. Steve Riley on February 14, 2013: Just right off the bat. 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. In a follow-up meeting with Spanfeller about the story, she suggested that hard financial data might not be their audiences central interest. New York City. Holle Abee (author) from Georgia on February 14, 2013: Duff performed at W's inauguration. Have a tip we should know? 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. In addition to the annoying ads, G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller also wants Kotaku to only write about video games. Employees across editorial, sales, and tech have left, but many of these positions, even mission-critical ones, have not been filled. Multiple sources say that Spanfeller reached out to VP of media operations Brad Klancnik to tell him he was a valuable employee and that the new owners would like him to stay at the company, but female VPs say he did not relay such messages to them. The differences were as granular as whether to call published pieces "blogs" or "stories." In other words, G/O media had effectively broken the redirect at Deadspin2.com, so that the site now redirected to a dead link. This is the same thing that has also happened to Deadspin. My management style has been widely reported on over the years and the picture you are painting does not comport with that. He is currently the CEO of G/O Media which consists primarily of sites that were previously part of Gawker Media. When confronted with this negative feedback, Spanfeller insisted that he cannot be sexist because he has daughters. So put this piece on ice. The sales employee (who is not an SVP) wasnt surprised to hear that Spanfeller didnt know what she did. The person hired was Bruce Rogers, who most recently ran the institute arm of SITO Mobile, a mobile data company. These include a senior vice president of marketing who last week wrote a baffling reader satisfaction survey for Deadspin at Spanfellers behest; a sales executive who, sources say, appears unable to give an effective sales pitch; and an editorial director who repeatedly attempted to kill the reporting process for this story. 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. John Taggart for The Washington Post / Getty Images. 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. A spokesperson for G/O has yet to respond to a request for clarification, but we will update this post if and when that changes. Spanfeller, who became head of the digital media company when GMG was purchased by private equity firm Great Hill Partners, told staff that he expected the site's direct advertising to "take the. The tech team managed to execute the move in about a month, but before they had finished, Spanfeller changed course and decided that the developers should build an entirely new video platform and player from scratch, explaining the decision by saying that that was what he did at Forbes, according to employees involved. Like many media companies, G/O Media's advertising business was battered by the pandemic. Steve Thompson, 55, was installed over a female vice president who had been running west coast sales for two and a half years. Spanfellers pushed back against these internal criticisms of his questionably ethical hiring process and management style by blaming G/O Media for losing money too fast. Never mind the recent exodus of company leadership under his tenure, including the editorial director, chief financial officer, and chief revenue officer. "The fact that we could acquire it at a price that would make it one of our smallest investments is that good or bad? For instance, Rogers, who sits in a corner office in New York, still hasnt been formally announced as a new employee internally or externally, and sources who work in sales say its unclear what his job description is, though he evidently has plenty of time to contribute to Forbes, where he posted 14 articles in July. 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. In addition to clichs like we are ambitious and be passionate and have fun, the fifth value on the list said, We will be at our best when we embrace many different perspectives and experiences. Another former Daily Meal staffer said that management was straight-up scared of Spanfeller, adding, I can see why. 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. My territory has been cut in half. On July 25, a pop-up survey appeared on Deadspin asking three questions: How satisfied are you with Deadspin? Jack Crosbie, a former Splinter contractor and co-owner of Discourse, said that traffic declined at Splinter because G/O did not refill lost positions. Its hard to imagine what one would not like on that list of items, Reibstein said of the third question. Im not building a club, we are working to build a successful companyand that depends on great women and men.. Ive reached out to Spanfeller for comment multiple times over the past few days and have yet to hear back. When asked why he didnt consider the SVP, Spanfeller told Deadspin, I was unaware of her interest in the role and that Mike had made that commitment and Im sorry. This sites credibility is not dependent on who and what it reports on, but on its ability to report forcefully and accurately. I think the biggest problem was the leadership wouldnt get out of the way of everyone, one former employee told Deadspin. 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. 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. [5] Upon returning from Europe, Spanfeller took a position at AMP Marketing Systems. Ad revenue rebounded, Spanfeller told Insider last year. I read that she's a registered Republican in Texas. And I didnt know what Sean was doing. Spanfeller Media is working to redefine content for the digital era. That union's collective bargaining agreement expires in February. LinkedIn is the world's largest business network, helping professionals like Jim Spanfeller discover inside connections to recommended . Six days after the SVPs exchange with McAvoy, Spanfeller sent an email to the entire staff announcing G/O Medias new company values. One theory was that Spanfeller thought implementing analytics would take developer resources away from building the new video platform and player, though employees said implementing analytics is a relatively easy fix. A week after Spanfeller insisted to Variety that 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. [8] In June 1993, Spanfeller became associate publisher for advertising at Inc. magazine, replacing Kristin Norrgard, who left to become publisher of Working Woman magazine. Ultimately, the issue of building a wall has raised political risk, Cramer said. The mess at G/O Media - Columbia Journalism Review Email him here: caleb@mediaite.com
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. "I think that most media company CEOs probably are as involved as I am," Spanfeller said. It definitely feels like its the old boys club, a G/O Media employee told Deadspin. Answering a similar one, he seemed to contradict himself: This concern was expressed to me and I take it very seriously. That is absurd. The other is still in college., Four of nine major hires have been women, Spanfeller said. Jun 8, 2020, 7:03 AM. Youre not qualified. "People are scared of him. (The other woman on the executive leadership team, general counsel Lynn Oberlander, left the company this week.) These conversations reveal that Spanfellers biggest effect on the company since taking over has been a deflation of morale. "There's been a lot of pain in this, but it's worth it to get properties that are as great as these properties are," Spanfeller said of G/O's 11 publications, which include Gizmodo, Jezebel, The Onion, Lifehacker, The Root, and Kotaku. 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. Vacillating Wildly From Dispiriting to Exhilarating. [He] wasnt interested in hearing what someone with 20 years of experience would say.. Never mind that employees called for his resignation last year. The survey on Deadspin, however, had some serious issues, he said. I think the thing thats most strange about it is that they didnt coordinate with the editorial side of the business. 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. He started screaming at me, Who told you you were allowed to speak about audience? The CEO alleged. Spanfellers executive assistant set up a time for us to meet. Before we go any further, I feel compelled to acknowledge that nearly everything about this item is a conflict of interest. ), The internal reaction to these hires has ranged from confusion to anger. He credited The Root for its journalism on the Black Lives Matter movement. 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. Mad Money Twitter - Jim . The company is also on the hunt for acquisitions, according to Spanfeller. [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. According to multiple sources familiar with the situation, in April Spanfeller offered the job of head of talent to Katie Pontius, who until recently was the chief of staff for The Onion, Inc. Two are now successfully navigating careers in the digital advertising space. 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. Among the multiple Gawker and/or GMG and/or G/O websites I wrote for was, for a brief stint, Deadspin, which is currently without a staff after every single one of its writers quit en masse following the firing of beloved editor Barry Petchesky, who is another friend of mine. Thats not reality, a tech staffer told Deadspin. 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. 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 . 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. Nearly two dozen current G/O Media employees spoke to Deadspin for this story. Three and a half hours later, Maidment sent an email to Greenwell and me with the subject line, Reporting on ourselves. The body of the message read: This is a tradition that makes no sense. He also claimed to have hired four women for major roles though, one of these jobs has not been filled yet, as Spanfeller instead claims he plans to give it to a woman. Justice announced he was switching his party affiliation . 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. Club managing editor Caitlin PenzeyMoog, who both resigned on July 12. Im kind of a tipsy at a bar in Paris, she added. Then, in early June, former Onion CEO Mike McAvoy, whountil he was separated from the company on July 11had been leading sales across all the sites, told the SVP that Spanfeller had hired two new sales leaders, Flanagan and Thompson. Now that we are closer to stabilizing the company, there can be a more deliberate recruitment and hiring process. 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. 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 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. All contents 2023 The Slate Group LLC. The union said that it wants the money to translate into higher salary minimums, trans-inclusive healthcare, and a focus on talent retention. Its something that Im working to improve. The post was so popular, in fact, that it apparently gained the attention and ire of Spanfeller himself (perhaps partially due to the fact that someone registered Deadspin2.com and set it to redirect to Carmichaels post). The post, published Tuesday evening, proved wildly popular on Twitter. Ex-Deadspin EIC Jim Rich resigns in latest turmoil at G/O Media 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. Asked about the meeting, Knight initially didnt answer. As the former publisher of National Geographic, Mens Health & Maximmy successful presentation & leadership skills are evident.. Spanfellers all-staff email went on to accuse Deadspins staff of bias and cast doubt on the motives behind the story. 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. It will post an eight-figure operating profit this year, he told Insider, and hunt for acquisitions in 2022. Think Youre Smarter Than a What Next Producer? Most recently, after the latest edict that Deadspin stick to sports, its writers revolted, and Spanfeller retaliated by firing the top-ranking employee, Petchesky (Deadspins latest editor-in-chief, Megan Greenwell quit in August for many of the reasons described above). 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. 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. As you know, one reason that I dont believe that publications should write about themselves is because I fear it damages perceived external credibility in editorial independence, which, if anything, makes keeping advertisers at bay harder, not easier. In early April, Great Hill Partners, a private-equity firm, acquired Gizmodo Media Groupa collection of sites, formed from the assets of the old Gawker, that included Jezebel, Lifehacker, and Deadspinas well as The Onion, a satirical news site, reportedly at a fire-sale price.The company, renamed G/O Media, installed Jim Spanfeller, formerly of Forbes.com, Playboy, and Ziff Davis, as CEO. Reverse Phone Search Tool And much more all for free! Who even told you you were allowed to think about audience? the woman alleged. Spanfeller declined to answer a question about whether he expressed these sentiments to Klancnik. Computing. According to sources familiar with the situation, the tech team was instructed by Knight, who was directed by Spanfeller, to push out the survey without consent from anyone in editorial. This is normal in situations like these where a new group is coming in and is facing a near term challenge.. I Close-Read the 113-Page Complaint Trying to Ban the Abortion Pill in Texas. I think it makes him a bad role model for the rest of his team.. I am a father of three wonderful woman, Spanfeller wrote in a statement. In turn, Spanfeller hired a number of his old media friends and former colleagues from Forbes, Playboy, and other outlets to fill top roles at G/O Media, while also failing to make public job postings for many of these roles. The former staff of Splinter later launched the worker-owned Discourse Blog. Mr. Rich, who will report to G/O Media Chief Executive Jim Spanfeller, . He would stop into peoples offices with the doors open and scream at them, so everyone knew what was going on., 5. I am a father of three wonderful woman. [5], In 1984, Spanfeller was named publisher of Newsweek On Campus magazine. I told Mike, verbally and in writing, that I would be interested in taking on new responsibilities and opportunities within the organization and I would like to interview for whatever position would be a part of that, she told Deadspin. According to Great Hill Partners' website, Spanfeller "has led comparable media platforms and positioned them for successful strategic exit," which probably means something to someone, somewhere,. Neither Sean nor Jim ever reached out to ask, Hey, what are you doing, how are you doing it, how is it working? There was never a conversation about my role, she told Deadspin. He said the company was just profitable before the pandemic hit its business, and is now comfortably back in the black. G/O is still wracked with internal tensions ahead of contract negotiations with one of its editorial unions. Then, Thursday night, after Bernie Sanders tweeted in support of Deadspin, supporter collective People for Bernie tweeted the post at its new URL: After which, sometime today, the post disappeared, only to be replaced by this: Its not entirely clear which of Kinjas guidelines were violated, particularly considering that theres no agreed upon definition of what constitutes a herb. Additionally, Jim Spanfeller has had 6 past jobs including CEO at Forbes. 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 did offer to promote one female employee, former chief of staff for The Onion Katie Pontius, and make her the companys head of talent, but the position fell through after he demanded that she fire newsroom editorial director Susie Banikarimas her first management move, which Pontius refused, according to sources who spoke to Deadspin. "You can write a blog, just don't publish them here.". 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 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.". "We were a leftist site, not a liberal one, which gives you a sense of how closely Spanfeller followed our work," he said. 1. Vice president of sales for the south Lance Johnson, who worked with Spanfeller at Forbes (and most recently worked with Bruce Rogers at a company called SITO Mobile). DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION are core to our culture, and we expect all staff to advance and promote that. Heartened, the SVP emailed Spanfeller to remind him of their meeting in April and express her hope that women, people of color, and people who identify as LGBTQ would be considered as he hired his leadership team, and to say that she looked forward to discussing her role in the organization. (Spanfeller denies this claim.). At the time of publication, Carmichaels original tweet has been retweeted more than 300 times. (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. Two are now successfully navigating careers in the digital advertising space. Spanfeller said the goal was to find out what the key points of attraction are for our visitors.. Political affiliation. The job, however, came with a condition, they said: Pontiuss first order of business would be to fire newsroom editorial director Susie Banikarim. Takeaways From Deadspin's Expos of G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller Lastly, I firmly believe, personally, that Jim Spanfeller is a herb. 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. G/O Media workers went on strike today in part to protect remote work. "Jim Spanfeller Is a Herb": The rise and fall of a blog post. The G/O Media union sent the following statement regarding the survey: The GMG Union has made repeated good-faith efforts to cooperate with management in resolving the many outstanding issues currently facing the company, from workplace accessibility to a video player that lacks viable metrics.