When Jim Spanfeller and a private equity firm called Great Hill Partners took over G/O Mediaformerly Gizmodo Media Groupin April, their stated goal was to make the company profitable. 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. Whenever a publication shuts down, as has happened more and more over the last few years, it undergoes a public eulogizing by its employees, the friends of its employees, the people who wanted to work there, and most importantly the readers, whose tributes are . Now that we are closer to stabilizing the company, there can be a more deliberate recruitment and hiring process. Mike hired Steve, and Steve hired Lance after conducting a process around each hire. Great Hill Partners vice president Eric Ahlgren and managing partner Chris Gaffney did not respond to Deadspins emailed questions. View details on more than 95 Million registered voters across the United States. Everything theyve done in reaction to it is the herbiest shit I could possibly imagine. Though neither Spanfeller nor Knight provided the team a hard deadline, they made clear that they wanted the task, which should have taken months, completed in a matter of weeks. 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. 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. Spanfeller said he did not recall the specific request. 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. The digital media and blogging network, which oversees websites like Deadspin, Gizmodo, Jezebel, A.V. 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. We could have video analytics today. The anti-herb agenda is being suppressed.. Follow him on Twitter here: @calebecarma. In one instance in which Spanfeller tried to promote a woman within the company, his offer came with strings attached. [2], In 2019, G/O Media's sports blog Deadspin received media attention when all of its writers and editors resigned after an edict given by upper management to "stick to sports". He started screaming at me, Who told you you were allowed to speak about audience? The post, published Tuesday evening, proved wildly popular on Twitter. Or as Carmichael explained, If you dont know what a herb is, youre probably a herb.. James J. Spanfeller Jr. is an American media executive best known for running Forbes.com from 20012009. I think it's all good," said Chris Gaffney, co-founder and managing partner at Great Hill. 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 . This conversation inspired her to write a post on the personal account she still holds on G/Os publishing platform, Kinja, titled Jim Spanfeller Is a Herb., Pronounced with a hard h, herbs are difficult to define, but typified by the individuals seen in this earlier Carmichael post about herbitude. He is currently the CEO of G/O Media which consists primarily of sites that were previously part of Gawker Media. 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. When pressed, Knight admitted the deadline may be unrealistic. 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. 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. As the former publisher of National Geographic, Mens Health & Maximmy successful presentation & leadership skills are evident.. Search over 95 Million Voter Registration Records. [9], In 1996, Spanfeller left his job at Inc., where he had become publisher, to become publisher of Yahoo! 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. 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. 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. Views. That union's collective bargaining agreement expires in February. I never changed my mind. When one reviews the actual questions one might feel even more uneasy. I had experience and confidence in the people who were hired. 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. 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. Initially, we had to move fast because the company was losing money at a rapid pace, he said. Six of these hires were Spanfellers colleagues from his previous jobs at Forbes, Playboy, and Ziff Davis. Two are now successfully navigating careers in the digital advertising space. It became clear that she was not a good fit for this position and we both agreed on this. Spanfeller responded that he would be happy to get together, but did not say anything about open roles. 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 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. (Pontius declined to comment. In an emailed statement to Deadspin, Spanfeller claimed that he did not make the hires, but admitted to making professional introductions for some of these new employees. 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. Steve Riley on February 14, 2013: Just right off the bat. She told Deadspin she was surprised that Spanfeller seemed to know little about her team, which last year won Digidays best content studio award.. 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. 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. [14] A subsequent Deadspin post mocked Spanfeller as a "herb"; after being widely shared on social media, G/O Media removed the post. 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 also wasnt communicated to me as a promotion until the day it was emailed out to the company.. Another was more direct: Thats Jim wanting to be in control. 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. Several high-ranking employees have left the company over the past three months, departments have been stretched thin, and those who remain say that Spanfellers micromanaging and inappropriate interference has hamstrung their ability to effectively do their jobs. 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. Before he started full time in early June, Flanagan was brought in as a consultant just after Spanfeller took over G/O Media. 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.. 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. Additionally, as you are reporting here, there are numerous outstanding people, both men and women who have worked for me on more than one occasion., By July, Spanfellers third full month at the company, questions about Spanfellers commitment to his journalists editorial independence began to dominate conversation in the office. Spanfeller said the goal was to find out what the key points of attraction are for our visitors.. 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. 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 former staff of Splinter later launched the worker-owned Discourse Blog. . 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. "We want to do it in a way that's a little more buttoned up," he said. "There's a fly and he's a swatter, and that's it," the former executive said. I Close-Read the 113-Page Complaint Trying to Ban the Abortion Pill in Texas. 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. Use this information as you see fit. Republican Strategist Goes Scorched Earth on CPAC Scam, Rips Professional Grassroots Huckster Wing of the GOP, Biden Has Worked More Days Than Congress: Fox Newss Jesse Watters Mocks House GOP Schedule, Nothingburger Probes, CPAC Crowd Stands and Cheers as Raging Steve Bannon Vows to Bring Down Fox News: Were Going To Fight You Every Step Of The Way!, Florida Bill Requiring Bloggers to Register with Government Wont Survive Court Challenge, Says UF Law Prof, CPAC Crowd Cheers Wildly as Matt Gaetz Demands Congress Defund Federal Law Enforcement, They Are Lying: Tucker Carlson Reveals Why He Will Air Hidden Surveillance Jan 6th Footage Next Week, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Please Just Shut the Hell Up: Michael Steele Tells Fool Congresswoman She Has No Clue, Former Federal Prosecutor Says Rupert Murdoch Agreed with The Worst Possible Sentence in His Deposition, CNN Anchor Asks Chuck Schumer If Democratic Senators Should Still Go On Fox News In Light of Dominion Revelations, DeSantis Snaps at Reporter When Pressed On What He Would Do Differently From Biden in Ukraine, Elon Musk Blames Media for Being Racist Against Whites & Asians in Defense of Scott Adams Racist Comments, WATCH: Malcolm Nance Lashes Out at Trump MAGA Cultists In Congress Who Literally Stand for Genocide, Musks Twitter is Failing to Remove Child Porn, Even Some of the Easiest to Detect and Eliminate: NY Times Analysis, Right-Wing Twitter Mocks MSNBC Clip on Racist Alt-Right Memes Except Its 5 Years Old. [12][13], In 2011, Spanfeller launched The Daily Meal with an estimated $2 million investment. Multiple people who worked for him at The Daily Meal (part of Spanfeller Media Group) told Deadspin that Spanfeller couldnt cede any control. "You can write a blog, just don't publish them here.". Before we go any further, I feel compelled to acknowledge that nearly everything about this item is a conflict of interest. "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. I can see why. Spanfeller Hired Media Friends/Former Colleagues to Fill G/O Media Roles Just After Claiming He Had No Plans for Major Turnover. In other words, G/O media had effectively broken the redirect at Deadspin2.com, so that the site now redirected to a dead link. That is clearly evident when you note the poor syntax and galling bias of the questions. The next day she refused to join me in communicating our plans to Susie. 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. I had experience and confidence in the people who were hired. Well keep fighting for whats right. Who doesnt like uncompromising commentary or sports stories you couldnt find anywhere else? 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. Spanfeller Has an Alleged History of Screaming at Women Employees. (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. When Spanfeller Offered to Promote a Woman to a Top Position, He Insisted She Fire a Female Editorial Director Should She Accept the Job. 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. 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 . The differences were as granular as whether to call published pieces "blogs" or "stories." Spanfellers executive assistant set up a time for us to meet. Im shocked he would call that a good presentation, said the employee who was in the meeting. Employees across editorial, sales, and tech have left, but many of these positions, even mission-critical ones, have not been filled. 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. Where people are registered to vote. You wrote a 'story,'" Spanfeller recalled telling staff. Find Out With This Weeks News Quiz. 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. Legal review is often a lengthy process involving multiple reads, so talking to a lawyer is certainly not an indication that we would publish without completing the reporting process. Im sorry that Mike didnt more clearly convey the information to me., McAvoy said, Jim has a different recollection of the facts., The SVP said she told Spanfeller that she wasnt the only person who noticed this pattern of hiring his former colleagues over women at the company, and that he should be prepared to address it. 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. It will post an eight-figure operating profit this year, he told Insider, and hunt for acquisitions in 2022. He sent a message back about the importance of diversity and inclusion and a full hiring process. It laid off 14 staffers in the summer of 2020. So put this piece on ice. Senior vice president of marketing Bruce Rogers, who worked with Spanfeller at Forbes. Who even told you you were allowed to think about audience? the woman alleged. Asked for a response to the latter allegation, Spanfeller responded, That is absurd. 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. Thats not reality, a tech staffer told Deadspin. Its motivation is simply to publish true and interesting stories, and to make sure the things powerful people would rather stay in the dark end up in the light of day. Spanfeller declined to answer a question about whether he expressed these sentiments to Klancnik. Other top employees who have left the company since the start of Spanfellers reign include former A.V. Elsewhere in the company, G/O Media has pushed staffers at its site the AV Club to relocate to Los Angeles from Chicago, according to a recent report in Gawker, which is now owned by Bustle Digital Group. The other is still in college.. Six days after the SVPs exchange with McAvoy, Spanfeller sent an email to the entire staff announcing G/O Medias new company values. Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. 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. Details may include related records, political party, location, and more. 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 was four days old. 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. Jim Spanfeller . Internet Life, a joint publication of Ziff-Davis and Yahoo!. They requested anonymity to speak candidly but their identities are known to Insider. According to Dave Reibstein, past chairman of the Board of Directors of the American Marketing Association and a professor of marketing at University of Pennsylvanias Wharton School of Business (where he teaches a course on market research), there are several problems with the survey. But Spanfeller said that he wants G/O Media to keep the voice and mission that made Gawker Media sites singular in the digital media industry. 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. 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. [4] He soon switched to the business side of the paper, and later took a tour through Europe. 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. 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 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. Mad Money Twitter - Jim . My territory has been cut in half. (10 is very satisfied, 1 is very unsatisfied); What do you like MOST about Deadspin? 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. The JW Player was an interim step, Spanfeller said. ), Spanfeller described the situation differently. While the archived version of the post did not preserve the original images, you can view a PDF of the original post below. [5], In 1984, Spanfeller was named publisher of Newsweek On Campus magazine. 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 job, however, came with a condition, they said: Pontiuss first order of business would be to fire newsroom editorial director Susie Banikarim. He sits on the Board of Directors of The New York Chapter of The National Foundation for Teaching . 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. Like many media companies, G/O Media's advertising business was battered by the pandemic. So Out of Touch: Gen Z Congressman-Elect Mocks RNC Tweet Criticizing Him For His Housing Woes. 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. The Deadspin takedown covered numerous issues that have arisen since Univisions sale of the company to Great Hill, ranging from accounts of Spanfeller screaming at past employees, to allegations that the new G/O Media boss is on-boarding his old media buddies over highly qualified women who have worked at the company for years, along with numerous other accusations of mismanagement. At the time of publication, Carmichaels original tweet has been retweeted more than 300 times. 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. 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 . In addition to the annoying ads, G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller also wants Kotaku to only write about video games. I am a father of three wonderful woman. 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. Sole dedication to revenue, getting it the cheapest, quickest way possible. But Spanfellers expectation that the process would be done in the next week or so shocked the tech team. I read that she's a registered Republican in Texas. Combined with more data-driven metrics like unique views, how long a reader spends on a story, and how many times a story is shared, reader feedback can provide useful information. 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. I am a father of three wonderful woman, Spanfeller wrote in a statement. I hired Katie who accepted the job, he wrote. [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. [1] He is also a past Chairman of the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) and longtime executive board member of Digital Content Next (DCN). tips@mediaite.com, Caleb Ecarma was a reporter at Mediaite. UPDATE: This article has been updated to remove an incorrect reference to former G/O Media Lynn Oberlander leaving her job shortly after the companys latest round of layoffs. Spanfeller said the company hopes to expand into areas like travel, music, business, and news. [He] wasnt interested in hearing what someone with 20 years of experience would say.. He said the company was just profitable before the pandemic hit its business, and is now comfortably back in the black. Spanfeller was hired by private equity firm Great Hill Partners to run the company after it was purchased from Univision. Email him here: caleb@mediaite.com [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. This sites credibility is not dependent on who and what it reports on, but on its ability to report forcefully and accurately. 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. 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. Gov. He started screaming at me, Who told you you were allowed to speak about audience? Spanfeller Media is working to redefine content for the digital era. I found this troubling but was okay with it given the circumstances. 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. 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. Jim Rich, the former top editor of the New York Daily News, will start as editor-in-chief of Deadspin on Monday. 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. 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. In the meantime, Carmichael had her own message for Spanfeller: Congratulations on confirming your herb-ishness.. 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 . Meanwhile, many people who are still at the company feel their work is being hindered by new management. 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. I expect to be treated the way I treat people., This pattern played out three more times in Spanfellers first few months as CEO. 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. 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.

Goodwin Funeral Home Cadiz Obituaries, Kanawha County Indictments December 2020, Rebecca Welton Outfits, Articles J