Im not building a club, we are working to build a successful companyand that depends on great women and men.. Former Daily News Editor in Chief Is Tapped to Run Deadspin (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. Jim Spanfeller, Spanfeller said no one told him that a female VP was already successfully performing that job before he hired Thompson. Political party affiliation trends based on location. While Carmichael was on a plane to Paris, I discovered that G/O had changed her accounts URL from emma.kinja.com to lajskhclsahkchkad.kinja.com, while going to emma.kinja.com now redirects to the new URL, at the time of the change, it simply showed a broken page. When I followed up about the meeting the next day with Spanfeller, I was told it was canceled. It will post an eight-figure operating profit this year, he told Insider, and hunt for acquisitions in 2022. Jim Spanfeller - Big Think This has led to some protest among employees, as one staffer told Deadspin, It definitely feels like its the old boys club. A second employee told the site, This guy just seems like he doesnt like women.. A leading digital publisher producing category leaders The Daily Meal and The Active Times. (10 is very satisfied, 1 is very unsatisfied); What do you like MOST about Deadspin? 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. Multiple employees on the tech team say the chief technology officer, Jesse Knight, has repeatedly shown himself unable or unwilling to stand up to Spanfeller and advocate for his team and best practice standards. 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. 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. 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. 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. Email us. 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. Spanfeller also said that he did not ask Katie to fire Susie, only to be in the room while I had the conversation about Susies future with the company., Spanfeller ended up firing Banikarim himself, and then, months later, hiring Angela Persaud for the chief talent officer job after a public search. The post, published Tuesday evening, proved wildly popular on Twitter. 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. Views. Whats left of that company is currently called G/O Media. G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller: Company Will Be Profitable by - Insider The mess at G/O Media - Columbia Journalism Review (The people I work for and the people who report to me know what I do, Rogers, 63, told Deadspin in an email.). 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,. 1. Spanfeller Media Group - Wikipedia Maidment never responded to my questions directly; the first time I saw his answers was when they were included in Spanfellers company-wide email, but he had this to say about his role in the newsroom: I have always shielded the editorial teams I have managed from commercial or business-side interference in what they write, which to my mind is the essence of editorial integrity. 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. (Pontius declined to comment. Shortly after the sale in April, she said, she met briefly with Spanfeller and explained to him her role and responsibilities in the company, which was primarily to work directly with clients to secure partnerships, instead of going through media ad agencies. Never mind that employees called for his resignation last year. 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. Deadspin Editor Fired Amid Pushback Over 'Stick to Sports' Memo Takeaways From Deadspin's Expos of G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller Multiple sources say Pontius declined to go along with the plan, angering Spanfeller. [1] He is also a past Chairman of the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) and longtime executive board member of Digital Content Next (DCN). (Spanfeller denies this claim.). Two are now successfully navigating careers in the digital advertising space. 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. Gizmodo Media Staff Enraged at New CEO's 'Insane' Direction 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. About their hires, he wrote, I introduced Steve and Lance to Mike McAvoy, but I did not make the hires. Jim Rich, the former top editor of the New York Daily News, will start as editor-in-chief of Deadspin on Monday. Mr. Rich, who will report to G/O Media Chief Executive Jim Spanfeller, . Stay up to date with what you want to know. 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. "We closed Splinter because it was a liberal political site that was losing audience in the middle of a liberal moment," he said. When confronted with this negative feedback, Spanfeller insisted that he cannot be sexist because he has daughters. Spanfellers cronies now fill the G/O Media positions of chief financial officer, editorial director, senior VP of marketing, VP of west coast sales, VP of east coast sales, and VP of southern sales. Have a tip we should know? In two cases, women asked for and were promised the opportunity to interview for executive-level positions for which they were qualified, only to see Spanfeller hire one of his former colleagues before they were given a chance to interview. 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.". Six days after the SVPs exchange with McAvoy, Spanfeller sent an email to the entire staff announcing G/O Medias new company values. You wrote a 'story,'" Spanfeller recalled telling staff. "You can write a blog, just don't publish them here.". Jim Spanfeller Analyzes Public Policy - Big Think John Taggart for The Washington Post / Getty Images. This is the same thing that has also happened to Deadspin. McAvoy told her she would be able to interview for a bigger role, she said, only to follow up a few weeks later and say that Rogers had been hired. Spanfeller Hired Media Friends/Former Colleagues to Fill G/O Media Roles Just After Claiming He Had No Plans for Major Turnover. 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. View Jim Spanfeller's professional profile on LinkedIn. Former CEO of http://Forbes.com, Chairman Emeritus, IAB, Sec OPA NYCJoined April 2009 266Following 1,878Followers Tweets Tweets & replies Media Likes Jim Spanfeller's Tweets Jim Spanfeller @JimSpanfeller Mar 13, 2020 Good News! 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. G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller says the company is profitable and ready . "We have billions of dollars available to go out and buy and make this a bigger company, and that would really be our desire," Gaffney said. 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. 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. 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.. [5], In 1984, Spanfeller was named publisher of Newsweek On Campus magazine. 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 . James J. Spanfeller Jr. is an American media executive best known for running Forbes.com from 20012009. 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. The next day she refused to join me in communicating our plans to Susie. We have no credibility in writing about ourselves. 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. Unlike private equity investors who financially engineer acquisitions, burdening companies they buy with debt and massive . G/O Media, from a business perspective, has turned a corner, Spanfeller says. Dead and spun: a story in three meetings - Columbia Journalism Review 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. The other is still in college.. 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. He would stop into peoples offices with the doors open and scream at them, so everyone knew what was going on., 5. That said, I and the management team received a list of questions from the reporter working this story for Deadspin and those questions left me greatly concerned about the objectivity and core intentions of this piece. 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. 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. 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. And Fake. "[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. When pressed, Knight admitted the deadline may be unrealistic. Search over 95 Million Voter Registration Records. 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. A source at the company familiar with the situation said Thompsons hire had been flagged to upper management as a potential problem. 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 . "I think that most media company CEOs probably are as involved as I am," Spanfeller said. 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. 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. The Daily Meal was acquired by Tronc in 2016. I intend to continue supervising the reporting process, including legal review, and then publish a thorough and fair story, which of course would include responses from people we spoke to. These vacant roles have yet to be filled and Spanfeller has not announced an interim editor. Its something that Im working to improve. Never mind the flood of negative stories about staff blowback over the company's editorial direction. Political affiliation Definition | Law Insider I have definitely given positive feedback to numerous women, including senior executives in edit, sales, and marketing, he offered instead. Its Extremely Revealing. 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. 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. 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. G/O Media lawsuits: Two former exec allege discrimination - CNN G/O Media, owner of Gizmodo and The Onion, will post an eight-figure operating profit this year, CEO Jim Spanfeller says. That is absurd. So put this piece on ice. In the culmination of a dayslong struggle to suppress a post that repeatedly referred to its CEO, Jim Spanfeller, as a herb, G/O Media has taken the drastic step of removing the article from its Kinja platform entirely. 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. In other words, G/O media had effectively broken the redirect at Deadspin2.com, so that the site now redirected to a dead link. 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. Thats not reality, a tech staffer told Deadspin. The anti-herb agenda is being suppressed.. Jim Spanfeller Biography. Top Women at the Company Expressed Interest in Filling Executive Roles and Were Promised Interview Opportunities Prior to Spanfeller Hiring His Friends, Two G/O Media employees Deadspin spoke to, who are women who have an experienced track record with the company, say Spanfeller promised to give them a chance to interview for upper-level roles. [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. Another was more direct: Thats Jim wanting to be in control. 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. View details on more than 95 Million registered voters across the United States. Asked about the former employees accounts, Spanfeller said he has no idea what this refers to and it is not my recollection of working at The Daily Meal, adding that he doesnt recall screaming at anyone. He would stop into peoples offices with the doors open and scream at them, so everyone knew what was going on., A fourth source, a former senior staff member at The Daily Meal who worked with Spanfeller, confirmed his temper issues and the dysfunctional nature of the workplace. 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. Asked about the meeting, Knight initially didnt answer. Reverse Phone Search Tool And much more all for free! 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. Find Out With This Weeks News Quiz. 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. Where people are registered to vote. A G/O Media spokesperson said the company plans to grow the 174-person editorial headcount to 200 by the end of the first quarter next year. 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. (Spanfeller says this is inaccurate and that he did consider other candidates for the editorial director role, but Paul quickly rose to the top after he expressed an interest in the position.) Three of the men Spanfeller hired were installed over successful women who had been at the company for years. Six of these hires were Spanfellers colleagues from his previous jobs at Forbes, Playboy, and Ziff Davis. These conversations reveal that Spanfellers biggest effect on the company since taking over has been a deflation of morale. "We want to do it in a way that's a little more buttoned up," he said. He is currently the CEO of G/O Media which consists primarily of sites that were previously part of Gawker Media. The fourth known instance of Spanfeller overlooking a woman at the company in favor of a white male former colleague also happened on the sales team. The four women who Spanfeller counts as major hires include two he hired (head of talent and deputy counsel); one he promoted from within to executive managing editor; and a yet-to-be-filled position he says he plans to offer to a woman. 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. Celebrities Who Are Republicans/Conservatives - HubPages 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. 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. Ad revenue rebounded, Spanfeller told Insider last year. G/O Media workers went on strike today in part to protect remote work. [5] Upon returning from Europe, Spanfeller took a position at AMP Marketing Systems. 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. [1] In 1964, Spanfeller recieved the title of Artist of the Year from the Artists Guild of New York. 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. I think it's all good," said Chris Gaffney, co-founder and managing partner at Great Hill. Spanfeller said the company hopes to expand into areas like travel, music, business, and news. 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. On July 30, the day after I emailed reporting questions to Spanfeller, Maidment, Rogers, Jesse Knight, and Sean Flanagan, Spanfeller sent a company-wide email under the subject line Reporting on Ourselves; Deadspin Reporting On The Company and Our Executives. In the email, excerpts of which were published by media reporters from the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, Spanfeller voiced his opinion on how coverage of the company should work: I believe the solution is to have that reporting reviewed by an impartial outside editor a Public Editor, if you will [] and not just for these situations but for any situation where someone within or without the company has issues with our coverage or reporting. Spanfeller Has an Alleged History of Screaming at Women Employees. Another former Daily Meal staffer said that management was straight-up scared of Spanfeller, adding, I can see why. The former staff of Splinter later launched the worker-owned Discourse Blog. Fuck Jim Spanfeller and Paul Maidment. 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. Before we go any further, I feel compelled to acknowledge that nearly everything about this item is a conflict of interest. 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. Enter Jim "Herb" Spanfeller. Opinion | A clash of values at former Gawker Media sites "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 . We have also learned the tech team has been asked to post the survey again. 3. 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. 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. Spanfeller Media is working to redefine content for the digital era. Employees in G/O Media's editorial union urged the company's private-equity owners to replace G/O Chief Executive Jim Spanfeller in a letter Monday, saying a change in leadership was . 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.

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