The Daily Meal was acquired by Tronc in 2016. "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. Never mind that employees called for his resignation last year. "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 . It's a culture of fear," said the first former employee, who added that staffers sometimes likened meetings with Spanfeller to the "boar on the floor" scene in HBO's "Succession," where media mogul Logan Roy orders his underlings to crawl and oink like pigs. They cant even pitch effectively, said another employee who was present. "We were a leftist site, not a liberal one, which gives you a sense of how closely Spanfeller followed our work," he said. A leading digital publisher producing category leaders The Daily Meal and The Active Times. Now that we are closer to stabilizing the company, there can be a more deliberate recruitment and hiring process. 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. [We] had a phone conversation, kind of confronting Jim about it, and he told Mike, I thought we talked about this. It was throwing Mike under the bus, and Mike told Jim that they had not talked about it. The next day she refused to join me in communicating our plans to Susie. 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. 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. 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. View Jim Spanfeller's professional profile on LinkedIn. He would stop into peoples offices with the doors open and scream at them, so everyone knew what was going on., 5. These vacant roles have yet to be filled and Spanfeller has not announced an interim editor. 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. He sent a message back about the importance of diversity and inclusion and a full hiring process. 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. 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. 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. Its everything Ive wanted and more.. 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. Two other major jobs Spanfeller gave to women include his new head of talent and deputy counsel, which were both outside hires; he did give a promotion to one woman, who he made deputy editorial director. During those meetings, Maidments ideaswhich included commissioning an editor outside the company to review and approve stories written by about the companywere met with unanimous opposition. We have no credibility in writing about ourselves. Having done it at Forbes, I simply knew it could be done quickly and with incremental value to the company.. in English Literature in 1979 and went to work as a reporter for the SoHo Weekly News. 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. 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. tips@mediaite.com, Caleb Ecarma was a reporter at Mediaite. [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". 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. Editorial director Paul Maidment, who worked with Spanfeller at Forbes and The Daily Meal. Find Out With This Weeks News Quiz. That is absurd. Sole dedication to revenue, getting it the cheapest, quickest way possible. I am and will continue to be a very strong advocate for my team.. 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. Its Extremely Revealing. It was placed there without consultation or even simple communication to anyone on Deadspins staff. Clubs executive editor and managing editor, respectively, stepped down on July 12. Additionally, Jim Spanfeller has had 6 past jobs including CEO at Forbes. Spanfellers all-staff email went on to accuse Deadspins staff of bias and cast doubt on the motives behind the story. The post, published Tuesday evening, proved wildly popular on Twitter. Asked about the meeting, Knight initially didnt answer. I found this troubling but was okay with it given the circumstances. 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). 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. When pressed, Knight admitted the deadline may be unrealistic. Text. The confusion stems from a lack of communication. James J. Spanfeller is president of The Spanfeller Group, a management consultancy focusing on digital strategy, audience development, revenue acceleration and talent acquisition. Jim Spanfeller . They requested anonymity to speak candidly but their identities are known to Insider. One major conflict arose over whether the company should build a video player in-house or pay for a third-party platform. 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. 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. He credited The Root for its journalism on the Black Lives Matter movement. 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. Six days after the SVPs exchange with McAvoy, Spanfeller sent an email to the entire staff announcing G/O Medias new company values. I think the general sentiment coming out of that meeting, at least for some of the senior sales people, was like, these guys are going to lead our sales team? We may earn a commission from links on this page. "There's a fly and he's a swatter, and that's it," the former executive said. 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. 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. 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,. Before he started full time in early June, Flanagan was brought in as a consultant just after Spanfeller took over G/O Media. 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. Other top employees who have left the company since the start of Spanfellers reign include former A.V. Two are now successfully navigating careers in the digital advertising space. All rights reserved. I expect to be treated the way I treat people., This pattern played out three more times in Spanfellers first few months as CEO. I have definitely given positive feedback to numerous women, including senior executives in edit, sales, and marketing, he offered instead. 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. Ultimately, the issue of building a wall has raised political risk, Cramer said. Successfully sold . 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 CEO alleged. [4] He soon switched to the business side of the paper, and later took a tour through Europe. But those efforts did not go very far, the people said, and the company has yet to mount a takeover. Meanwhile, many people who are still at the company feel their work is being hindered by new management. James J. Spanfeller Jr. is an American media executive best known for running Forbes.com from 2001-2009. (check all that apply); and What do you like LEAST about Deadspin? Jim Spanfeller has 2 current jobs as Founder at The Daily Meal and Chief Executive Officer at G/O Media. Before we go any further, I feel compelled to acknowledge that nearly everything about this item is a conflict of interest. Great Hill Partners is a growth equity company committed to building businesses. Senior vice president of marketing Bruce Rogers, who worked with Spanfeller at Forbes. Its hard to imagine what one would not like on that list of items, Reibstein said of the third question. Spanfeller Media Group ( SMG ), a subsidiary of publishing company Tribune Publishing, is a digital media company based in New York City. 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. Mad Money Twitter - Jim . 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 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. 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. The anti-herb agenda is being suppressed.. Im kind of a tipsy at a bar in Paris, she added. It will post an eight-figure operating profit this year, he told Insider, and hunt for acquisitions in 2022. Spanfeller Hired Media Friends/Former Colleagues to Fill G/O Media Roles Just After Claiming He Had No Plans for Major Turnover. Jim Rich, the former Daily News editor charged with bringing Deadspin back to life following a mass staff exodus, has resigned after just 18 months on the job, The Post has learned. Im not building a club, we are working to build a successful companyand that depends on great women and men.. The other is still in college., Four of nine major hires have been women, Spanfeller said. I am a father of three wonderful woman, Spanfeller wrote in a statement. When Spanfeller Offered to Promote a Woman to a Top Position, He Insisted She Fire a Female Editorial Director Should She Accept the Job. In other words, G/O media had effectively broken the redirect at Deadspin2.com, so that the site now redirected to a dead link. Steve Riley on February 14, 2013: Just right off the bat. 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. He said the company was just profitable before the pandemic hit its business, and is now comfortably back in the black. 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. 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. We have also learned the tech team has been asked to post the survey again. John Taggart for The Washington Post / Getty Images. Gaffney and Spanfeller said that G/O Media is looking for acquisitions itself. 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. Sign up for notifications from Insider! Well keep fighting for whats right. 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. Details may include related records, political party, location, and more. 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. Spanfeller said he did not recall the specific request. [He] wasnt interested in hearing what someone with 20 years of experience would say.. 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. G/O Media, owner of Gizmodo and The Onion, will post an eight-figure operating profit this year, CEO Jim Spanfeller says. 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.. 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. 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. 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. 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. G/O Media workers went on strike today in part to protect remote work. 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. 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. In an email, Flanagan disagreed with those assessments: Simply not true. "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. 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. Great Hill Partners and current CEO Jim Spanfeller, formerly of Forbes, bought these sites and the Onion from Univision Communications Inc. in April. 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. As for the content of the survey, Reibstein said it is possible to read it as innocent, a way to attempt to gauge customer satisfaction, as its known in the marketing industry. 3. To hear G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller tell it, everything at his digital media company is going great. 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! 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. 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 each site. 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. [1] All contents 2023 The Slate Group LLC. She said Spanfeller didnt have many questions for her, describing him as apathetic. Spanfeller seemed not to recall this interaction, telling Deadspin that the sales team was not covering direct clients.. View details on more than 95 Million registered voters across the United States. Over the last few weeks, during their attempts to hinder or prevent the publication of this story, Maidment and Spanfeller invoked concerns about Deadspins credibility in covering G/O Media. 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. [7], Spanfeller was named associate publisher and senior vice president of marketing of Playboy Enterprises in April 1989. Hes trying to micromanage, the tech employee said last week. The appropriate thing to do would be to talk to the editorial side of the business and have a clear objective for the survey.. The differences were as granular as whether to call published pieces "blogs" or "stories." 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 other woman on the executive leadership team, general counsel Lynn Oberlander, left the company this week.) We had to move fast because the company was losing money at a rapid pace, Spanfeller wrote in a statement. The digital media and blogging network, which oversees websites like Deadspin, Gizmodo, Jezebel, A.V. 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. Unlike private equity investors who financially engineer acquisitions, burdening companies they buy with debt and massive . "We want to do it in a way that's a little more buttoned up," he said. G/O Media shuttered its politics site, Splinter, in 2019. Who doesnt like uncompromising commentary or sports stories you couldnt find anywhere else? The SVP shared her teams revenue goals and their success in meeting those goals, staying focused on numbers and her teams value because she knew her work would be key to profit margins. Without posting the jobs publicly, Spanfeller hired a stable of white men to fill executive positions overseeing nearly every facet of the company., You also had no interest in meeting the only woman on the revenue leadership team who is an SVP who has been successful., As the only woman on the previous revenue leadership team, I started to wonder if women were being considered for leadership roles., 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., The appropriate thing to do would be to talk to the editorial side of the business and have a clear objective for the survey., Chief financial officer Tom Callahan, who worked at Forbes while Spanfeller worked there. [12][13], In 2011, Spanfeller launched The Daily Meal with an estimated $2 million investment. 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. Views. 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. Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. That union also opposes G/O Media's recent requirement to return to in-person work. Have a tip we should know? 15 Life Hacks That Are Actually Pretty Good 17,580. (Though the source spoke in great detail about her experience, she requested her name not be used because she didnt want it to affect her future employment opportunities.) 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. 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. That is clearly evident when you note the poor syntax and galling bias of the questions. 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. [14] A subsequent Deadspin post mocked Spanfeller as a "herb"; after being widely shared on social media, G/O Media removed the post. 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). (check all that apply). Computing. Initially, we had to move fast because the company was losing money at a rapid pace, he said. Club executive editor Laura M. Browning and former A.V. His skin got bright red, she said. Multiple people who worked for him at The Daily Meal (part of Spanfeller Media Group) told Deadspin that Spanfeller couldnt cede any control. He started screaming at me, Who told you you were allowed to speak about audience? He sits on the Board of Directors of The New York Chapter of The National Foundation for Teaching . At least have everybody well briefed on this is what were doing and this is what wed like to learn from it, Reibstein said. New York City. In addition to the removal of the post itself, Carmichael also discovered that shes now unable to use her personal Kinja account at all. The anger stems from Spanfellers apparent disregard for his own stated company values, which include a commitment to diversity and inclusion. 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. (Pontius declined to comment. 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 .
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