15 Life Hacks That Are Actually Pretty Good 17,580. I have stood up for and advocated for my team since the day I started at G/O. 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. 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. Six days after the SVPs exchange with McAvoy, Spanfeller sent an email to the entire staff announcing G/O Medias new company values. Its hard to imagine what one would not like on that list of items, Reibstein said of the third question. Email us. 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. 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. But Spanfellers expectation that the process would be done in the next week or so shocked the tech team. They include: (Spanfeller declined to be interviewed in person but answered emailed questions. 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. 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? In the months that followed, without posting the jobs publicly, Spanfeller, 62, hired a stable of white men to fill executive positions overseeing nearly every facet of the company. In the meantime, Carmichael had her own message for Spanfeller: Congratulations on confirming your herb-ishness.. Successfully sold . Think Youre Smarter Than a What Next Producer? Vice president for west coast sales Steve Thompson, who worked with Spanfeller at, Vice president for east coast sales Sean Flanagan, who worked with Spanfeller at. 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. 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. 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. 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 . Whats left of that company is currently called G/O Media. 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 union said that it wants the money to translate into higher salary minimums, trans-inclusive healthcare, and a focus on talent retention. 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. 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. [9], In 1996, Spanfeller left his job at Inc., where he had become publisher, to become publisher of Yahoo! So put this piece on ice. (Deadspin reached out to 10 former Spanfeller employees at The Daily Meal; four consented to be interviewed, though all declined to be named because they fear retribution from Spanfeller or their current companies.) I had experience and confidence in the people who were hired. 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. I was unclear about what she did. 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. 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. New York City. (Pontius left the company.) 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. "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. He is currently the CEO of G/O Media which consists primarily of sites that were previously part of Gawker Media. I think it makes him a bad role model for the rest of his team.. The sales employee (who is not an SVP) wasnt surprised to hear that Spanfeller didnt know what she did. I have definitely given positive feedback to numerous women, including senior executives in edit, sales, and marketing, he offered instead. Spanfeller, a man who is regularly and perhaps euphemistically referred to in press accounts as a digital media veteran, has so far hired a slew of his former colleagues at Forbes.comwhere he was CEO from 2001 to 2009and Playboywhere he was a senior vice president from 1989 to 1993. Emma Carmichael is a friend of mine, and we both worked at Gawker Media and, as it was later named after being purchased by Univision, Gizmodo Media Group, or GMG. 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. Having done it at Forbes, I simply knew it could be done quickly and with incremental value to the company.. (Pontius declined to comment. 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 declined to answer a question about whether he expressed these sentiments to Klancnik. 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. At the same time, working with the EICs to set a general editorial direction is clearly in the purview of any owner.). Enter Jim "Herb" Spanfeller. I Close-Read the 113-Page Complaint Trying to Ban the Abortion Pill in Texas. Clubs executive editor and managing editor, respectively, stepped down on July 12. At least have everybody well briefed on this is what were doing and this is what wed like to learn from it, Reibstein said. Both lawsuits detail discrimination personally faced or witnessed by the plaintiffs from Jim Spanfeller, who became CEO of G/O Media in April after private equity firm Great Hill acquired Gizmodo Media Group. The key journalistic properties descended from . 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. This guy just seems like he doesnt like women, another added. (Spanfeller denies this claim.). View Jim Spanfeller's professional profile on LinkedIn. "We remain optimistic that our labor will be taken into consideration as this period of financial promise collides with a time that has been particularly rough on morale," the Onion Union statement said. In the email, Spanfeller said he was "greatly concerned about the objectivity and core intentions of this piece," and questioned the editorial standards of Deadspin's editors. In other words, G/O media had effectively broken the redirect at Deadspin2.com, so that the site now redirected to a dead link. Meanwhile, many people who are still at the company feel their work is being hindered by new management. One major conflict arose over whether the company should build a video player in-house or pay for a third-party platform. [1] The JW Player was an interim step, Spanfeller said. I think the biggest problem was the leadership wouldnt get out of the way of everyone, one former employee told Deadspin. 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 . "People are scared of him. 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. 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. We sent a request for an explanation and did not receive a response. Endnotes [1] Statement from G/O Media: "Some reports have miscast Jim Spanfeller as a private equity businessman when, in fact, he has spent his entire career in editorial-driven businesses. Never mind the recent exodus of company leadership under his tenure, including the editorial director, chief financial officer, and chief revenue officer. And I didnt know what Sean was doing. 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. Who doesnt like uncompromising commentary or sports stories you couldnt find anywhere else? 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. In 1964, Spanfeller recieved the title of Artist of the Year from the Artists Guild of New York. 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. Traffic has fallen across G/O Media's portfolio over the past two years, which Spanfeller pinned on industry-wide struggles to generate audience plus the loss of Deadspin and Splinter. 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. Jim Justice speaks during President Donald Trump's political rally inside the Big Sandy Superstore Arena in Huntington on Thursday. He started screaming at me, Who told you you were allowed to speak about audience? Multiple sources say Pontius declined to go along with the plan, angering Spanfeller. Jeremy Gordon Oct292019 03:41PM EST. He started screaming at me, Who told you you were allowed to speak about audience? 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.. I hired Katie who accepted the job, he wrote. [5] Upon returning from Europe, Spanfeller took a position at AMP Marketing Systems. 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. [1] He is also a past Chairman of the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) and longtime executive board member of Digital Content Next (DCN). No media company does. Where people are registered to vote. Throughout his career he has recieved more than 60 awards for his work from such . The differences were as granular as whether to call published pieces "blogs" or "stories." View details on more than 95 Million registered voters across the United States. 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. Jim Spanfeller Biography. James J. Spanfeller Jr. is an American media executive best known for running Forbes.com from 2001-2009. 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. 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. The Daily Meal was acquired by Tronc in 2016. The digital media and blogging network, which oversees websites like Deadspin, Gizmodo, Jezebel, A.V. The anger stems from Spanfellers apparent disregard for his own stated company values, which include a commitment to diversity and inclusion. Initially, we had to move fast because the company was losing money at a rapid pace, he said. Mad Money Twitter - Jim . 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. I am a father of three wonderful woman, Spanfeller wrote in a statement. Ad revenue rebounded, Spanfeller told Insider last year. 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. G/O Media, owner of Gizmodo and The Onion, will post an eight-figure operating profit this year, CEO Jim Spanfeller says. Spanfeller said the goal was to find out what the key points of attraction are for our visitors.. 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 . Spanfeller was hired by private equity firm Great Hill Partners to run the company after it was purchased from Univision. This is normal in situations like these where a new group is coming in and is facing a near term challenge.. That is clearly evident when you note the poor syntax and galling bias of the questions. 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. 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. I had experience and confidence in the people who were hired. I think the thing thats most strange about it is that they didnt coordinate with the editorial side of the business. He would stop into peoples offices with the doors open and scream at them, so everyone knew what was going on., 5. Jim Rich, the former top editor of the New York Daily News, will start as editor-in-chief of Deadspin on Monday. In reality, this story started with a tip the site received about Spanfellers hiring practices, and grew from there thanks to sources accounts. 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. [12][13], In 2011, Spanfeller launched The Daily Meal with an estimated $2 million investment. When I followed up about the meeting the next day with Spanfeller, I was told it was canceled. When asked if it was inaccurate, then, to say she had accepted the job, Spanfeller did not respond. Ultimately, the issue of building a wall has raised political risk, Cramer said. This sites credibility is not dependent on who and what it reports on, but on its ability to report forcefully and accurately. He did not answer a question about whether he was aware that a female VP was already leading west coast sales or that he installed a man (who also carries a VP title) above her. [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. Or knowledgeable writers?, Asked about the survey, Rogers said he thinks its responses will accurately and fully reflect Deadspin readers opinions of the site. His skin got bright red, she 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. 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. [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. 4. I think it's all good," said Chris Gaffney, co-founder and managing partner at Great Hill. 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 . Gov. Which he would do by turning Deadspin into a sports-only website. Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. Spanfeller Hired Media Friends/Former Colleagues to Fill G/O Media Roles Just After Claiming He Had No Plans for Major Turnover. 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. 20 Employees Complained to Deadspin About Spanfellers Management, After interviewing nearly two dozen employees, Deadspin found that 20 people who work for 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.. Oberlander actually left last week. You wrote a 'story,'" Spanfeller recalled telling staff. G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller said the company would become "nicely profitable" by the end of the year, after it's been . But before a formal interview process could take place, Spanfeller filled the jobs with his ex-colleagues. 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).



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