Meanwhile, many people who are still at the company feel their work is being hindered by new management. Voting precincts and districts. It wasnt collaborative.. Two are now successfully navigating careers in the digital advertising space. 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 told Deadspin that he and Callahan had only been in a single meeting that I recall.). Spanfeller was hired by private equity firm Great Hill Partners to run the company after it was purchased from Univision. Spanfellers all-staff email went on to accuse Deadspins staff of bias and cast doubt on the motives behind the story. 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. But before a formal interview process could take place, Spanfeller filled the jobs with his ex-colleagues. 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. 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. G/O Media lawsuits: Two former exec allege discrimination - CNN I had experience and confidence in the people who were hired. The person hired was Bruce Rogers, who most recently ran the institute arm of SITO Mobile, a mobile data company. 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. He credited The Root for its journalism on the Black Lives Matter movement. 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. 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). Spanfeller admitted he contacted Maidment in June after receiving my initial email requesting an interview. And I didnt know what Sean was doing. G/O Media shuttered its politics site, Splinter, in 2019. 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. 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. Mr. Rich, who will report to G/O Media Chief Executive Jim Spanfeller, . 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. 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. G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller said the company would become "nicely profitable" by the end of the year, after it's been . 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. It was placed there without consultation or even simple communication to anyone on Deadspins staff. [7], Spanfeller was named associate publisher and senior vice president of marketing of Playboy Enterprises in April 1989. Gizmodo Media Staff Enraged at New CEO's 'Insane' Direction Im not building a club, we are working to build a successful companyand that depends on great women and men.. They include: (Spanfeller declined to be interviewed in person but answered emailed questions. 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. Club managing editor Caitlin PenzeyMoog, who both resigned on July 12. As the former publisher of National Geographic, Mens Health & Maximmy successful presentation & leadership skills are evident.. Youre not qualified. Mr. Spanfeller has a BA in English Literature from Union College, Schenectady, New York. They cant even pitch effectively, said another employee who was present. I am and will continue to be a very strong advocate for my team.. But after the staff meeting, sources say, members of the tech team held a meeting with Knight to explain why the date was unrealistic. Deadspin Editor Fired Amid Pushback Over 'Stick to Sports' Memo Where people are registered to vote. The other is still in college.. 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. He said the company was just profitable before the pandemic hit its business, and is now comfortably back in the black. Jim Spanfeller Biography & Works of Art | Qart.com (Pontius declined to comment. 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. All rights reserved. [12], Spanfeller took over as CEO of G/O Media when Great Hill Partners purchased the company, formerly known as Gizmodo Media Group, and The Onion from Univision on April 8, 2019, and combined the companies. Spanfeller said the goal was to find out what the key points of attraction are for our visitors.. Its Extremely Revealing. Which he would do by turning Deadspin into a sports-only website. Text. Jim Justice speaks during President Donald Trump's political rally inside the Big Sandy Superstore Arena in Huntington on Thursday. Additionally, Jim Spanfeller has had 6 past jobs including CEO at Forbes. Jim characterized that as a misunderstanding, she said. The differences were as granular as whether to call published pieces "blogs" or "stories." 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. [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". "I think that most media company CEOs probably are as involved as I am," Spanfeller said. WV Gov. Justice switching political parties, returning to GOP "We needed to change a lot of things, and change is hard.". Clubs executive editor and managing editor, respectively, stepped down on July 12. I was going on the input I had been given by Mike McAvoy that he had discussed the position with her and laid out why she was not ready for the larger role. 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. tips@mediaite.com, Caleb Ecarma was a reporter at Mediaite. []. Former Daily News Editor in Chief Is Tapped to Run Deadspin 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. 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. Deadspin cited an account from a former writer at The Daily Meal, a food and beverage site that Spanfeller founded in 2015, who claims her former boss once started screaming at her because she voiced concerns about writing a story on the websites earning figures, which she felt she was not qualified for. Lastly, I firmly believe, personally, that Jim Spanfeller is a herb. It is ridiculous to launch a management survey questioning the editorial value of the site. "We were a leftist site, not a liberal one, which gives you a sense of how closely Spanfeller followed our work," he said. 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. That is absurd. 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. 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,. 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. 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. 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. 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 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. When asked if it was inaccurate, then, to say she had accepted the job, Spanfeller did not respond. 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. 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. I think the thing thats most strange about it is that they didnt coordinate with the editorial side of the business. Successfully sold . Multiple people who worked for him at The Daily Meal (part of Spanfeller Media Group) told Deadspin that Spanfeller couldnt cede any control. (Spanfeller denies this claim.). Mr. McAvoy was clear to me on his opinion that he did not think she was the right choice at this time, Spanfeller said. On Glassdoor, a website where current and former employees can submit anonymous reviews of their workplaces, reviews of The Daily Meal are overwhelmingly negative. 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. Now that we are closer to stabilizing the company, there can be a more deliberate recruitment and hiring process. 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. While the archived version of the post did not preserve the original images, you can view a PDF of the original post below. That management did not respond to our request for an explanation is only another of the many ways the workers at GMG have been ignored and put on the back burner in the name of a profitability mirage that is clearly more attractive to the big decision-makers than a functioning workplace. A source at the company familiar with the situation said Thompsons hire had been flagged to upper management as a potential problem. When confronted with this negative feedback, Spanfeller insisted that he cannot be sexist because he has daughters. Spanfeller Media Group ( SMG ), a subsidiary of publishing company Tribune Publishing, is a digital media company based in 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. 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. 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 . I first emailed Spanfeller on June 24, early in my reporting process, telling him that I was working on a story about the new hires hed brought to G/O Media in his first few months. Sources say the meeting concluded with an agreement that the best course of action would be to explain to Spanfeller why the player would not be finished by August 15. Who even told you you were allowed to think about audience? the woman alleged. It was four days old. 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. 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. 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.". Mad Money Twitter - Jim . [11], Spanfeller ran Forbes.com for 8 years from 2001 to 2009, when digital and print operations were run separately. Have a tip we should know? pretty big scoop from me Jim Spanfeller is a herb https://t.co/gZDCs6mfhC. The rigorous and thorough reporting, editing, and legal review process that Greenwell promised to oversee has since been completed, which is why you are reading this story now. They requested anonymity to speak candidly but their identities are known to Insider. 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. The CEO alleged. This is the same thing that has also happened to Deadspin. Political affiliation. 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. 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. 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. That union's collective bargaining agreement expires in February. 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. G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller: Company Will Be Profitable by - Insider Naturally, we were dismayed to discover one more problemthe survey placed on Deadspin. Find Out With This Weeks News Quiz. Employees across editorial, sales, and tech have left, but many of these positions, even mission-critical ones, have not been filled.
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