"We needed to change a lot of things, and change is hard.". Spanfeller Has an Alleged History of Screaming at Women Employees. "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. 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. I was unclear about what she did. Two are now successfully navigating careers in the digital advertising space. , in respect of a candidate, means the name of the political party that has endorsed him or her or the word "independent", as the case may be, included in the nomination paper in accordance with subparagraph 66 (1) (a) (v). Below are some of the biggest revelations outlined in Deadspins roughly 7,000 word report on their parent company and its new management, which they spoke to nearly two dozen G/O Media employees for. "People are scared of him. I was also hiring a good portion of these jobs before I actually took over day to day control 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. Ive reached out to Spanfeller for comment multiple times over the past few days and have yet to hear back. [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. So Out of Touch: Gen Z Congressman-Elect Mocks RNC Tweet Criticizing Him For His Housing Woes. 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. [7], Spanfeller was named associate publisher and senior vice president of marketing of Playboy Enterprises in April 1989. Katie then refused to assume the HR lead role around other wider layoffs at the company. You wrote a 'story,'" Spanfeller recalled telling staff. Former SVP of sales and operations Kurt Mueller had left the company, and McAvoy told the woman Spanfeller was hiring his replacement. I was disappointed. Steve Riley on February 14, 2013: Just right off the bat. 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 . 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. At least have everybody well briefed on this is what were doing and this is what wed like to learn from it, Reibstein said. 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. 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. Steve Thompson, 55, was installed over a female vice president who had been running west coast sales for two and a half years. 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. "The fact that we could acquire it at a price that would make it one of our smallest investments is that good or bad? On July 30, the day after I emailed reporting questions to Spanfeller, Maidment, Rogers, Jesse Knight, and Sean Flanagan, Spanfeller sent a company-wide email under the subject line Reporting on Ourselves; Deadspin Reporting On The Company and Our Executives. In the email, excerpts of which were published by media reporters from the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, Spanfeller voiced his opinion on how coverage of the company should work: I believe the solution is to have that reporting reviewed by an impartial outside editor a Public Editor, if you will [] and not just for these situations but for any situation where someone within or without the company has issues with our coverage or reporting. 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. I think it's all good," said Chris Gaffney, co-founder and managing partner at Great Hill. Jim Spanfeller, Vacillating Wildly From Dispiriting to Exhilarating. Follow him on Twitter here: @calebecarma. The person hired was Bruce Rogers, who most recently ran the institute arm of SITO Mobile, a mobile data company. G/O Media lawsuits: Two former exec allege discrimination - CNN 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. 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. Asked about the contract, Spanfeller responded, I firmly believe in editorial integrity. Stay up to date with what you want to know. That union's collective bargaining agreement expires in February. The differences were as granular as whether to call published pieces "blogs" or "stories." Im not building a club, we are working to build a successful companyand that depends on great women and men.. We have no credibility in writing about ourselves. (The people I work for and the people who report to me know what I do, Rogers, 63, told Deadspin in an email.). But those efforts did not go very far, the people said, and the company has yet to mount a takeover. Employees across editorial, sales, and tech have left, but many of these positions, even mission-critical ones, have not been filled. Spanfeller said he did not recall the specific request. "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. 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. In addition to poor planning and communication around the video player, multiple sources say Spanfeller wouldnt allow the tech team to implement video tracking analytics on JW Player, so no one had any idea how many views videos were getting. 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. There are regions that were within my scope of responsibilities and within my role that I cannot call on and neither can my team.. When one reviews the actual questions one might feel even more uneasy. Jack Crosbie, a former Splinter contractor and co-owner of Discourse, said that traffic declined at Splinter because G/O did not refill lost positions. 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. 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. I Close-Read the 113-Page Complaint Trying to Ban the Abortion Pill in Texas. [10] Spanfeller was also responsible for advertising sales on the magazine's website and that of Yahoo! The union said that it wants the money to translate into higher salary minimums, trans-inclusive healthcare, and a focus on talent retention. From a womans perspective, I did feel very belittled. In 1964, Spanfeller recieved the title of Artist of the Year from the Artists Guild of New York. This response, which Spanfeller emailed out along with the questions to and answers from every other executive to the entire company as an attempt to undermine this story, prompted this response from a third sales employee. Gizmodo and The Onion's New Owner Lays Off 25, Including - TheWrap G/O Media sites generated about 45.7 million unique visitors in October, according to Comscore, down from 47.8 million in October 2020 and 101.6 million in October 2019, right before the Deadspin exodus. In other words, G/O media had effectively broken the redirect at Deadspin2.com, so that the site now redirected to a dead link. I think the biggest problem was the leadership wouldnt get out of the way of everyone, one former employee told Deadspin. Naturally, we were dismayed to discover one more problemthe survey placed on Deadspin. In addition to clichs like we are ambitious and be passionate and have fun, the fifth value on the list said, We will be at our best when we embrace many different perspectives and experiences. He sent a message back about the importance of diversity and inclusion and a full hiring process. [14] A subsequent Deadspin post mocked Spanfeller as a "herb"; after being widely shared on social media, G/O Media removed the post. The other is still in college., Four of nine major hires have been women, Spanfeller said. Jim Spanfeller - New York, New York, United States - LinkedIn 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.". All rights reserved. This is the same thing that has also happened to Deadspin. My management style has been widely reported on over the years and the picture you are painting does not comport with that. 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 . 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. [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". 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. And I didnt know what Sean was doing. Answering a similar one, he seemed to contradict himself: This concern was expressed to me and I take it very seriously. They cant even pitch effectively, said another employee who was present. 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. 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. Gov. McAvoy described the SVP of marketing job as a combination of sales strategy, account management, and managing creative teamsall responsibilities that fell under the SVPs purview. Email him here: caleb@mediaite.com 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. After two years of mainly working from home, the company wants everyone back in the office four days a week. One major conflict arose over whether the company should build a video player in-house or pay for a third-party platform. Six of these hires were Spanfellers colleagues from his previous jobs at Forbes, Playboy, and Ziff Davis. Jim characterized that as a misunderstanding, she said. The post, published Tuesday evening, proved wildly popular on Twitter. 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. Other top employees who have left the company since the start of Spanfellers reign include former A.V. (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. 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. [11], Spanfeller ran Forbes.com for 8 years from 2001 to 2009, when digital and print operations were run separately. 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. While we were given a 3pm deadline today to respond to dozens of questions, I understand that the folks at Deadspin have already submitted their story for legal review and plan to publish it on Wednesday all without ever seeing any of the responses to the questions that they asked. A leading digital publisher producing category leaders The Daily Meal and The Active Times. This is normal in situations like these where a new group is coming in and is facing a near term challenge. [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. He sits on the Board of Directors of The New York Chapter of The National Foundation for Teaching . 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. It laid off 14 staffers in the summer of 2020. I think it makes him a bad role model for the rest of his team.. Now that we are closer to stabilizing the company, there can be a more deliberate recruitment and hiring process. We shall have a discussion on the policy at the next EiCs leads meeting. "You're not a 'blogger,' you're a professional journalist. G/O Media, the company which ran Deadspin, was acquired by the private equity group Great Hill Partners, which installed Spanfeller as CEO and gave him one mission: Make them richer. 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. 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. Former Daily News Editor in Chief Is Tapped to Run Deadspin 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. But Spanfellers expectation that the process would be done in the next week or so shocked the tech team. 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. Spanfeller did offer to promote one female employee, former chief of staff for The Onion Katie Pontius, and make her the companys head of talent, but the position fell through after he demanded that she fire newsroom editorial director Susie Banikarimas her first management move, which Pontius refused, according to sources who spoke to Deadspin. James J. Spanfeller is president of The Spanfeller Group, a management consultancy focusing on digital strategy, audience development, revenue acceleration and talent acquisition. For the last two questions, the options were the same: Uncompromising commentary, sports stories I cant find anywhere else, knowledgeable writers, broad scope of coverage, political coverage and strong political point of view, and criticism and coverage of other media companies.. [1] He is also a past Chairman of the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) and longtime executive board member of Digital Content Next (DCN). Jim Spanfeller (@JimSpanfeller) / Twitter 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. Having done it at Forbes, I simply knew it could be done quickly and with incremental value to the company.. Internet Life, a joint publication of Ziff-Davis and Yahoo!. I am a father of three wonderful woman. In the culmination of a dayslong struggle to suppress a post that repeatedly referred to its CEO, Jim Spanfeller, as a herb, G/O Media has taken the drastic step of removing the article from its Kinja platform entirely. G/O Media workers went on strike today in part to protect remote work. The anti-herb agenda is being suppressed.. Views. I expect to be treated the way I treat people., This pattern played out three more times in Spanfellers first few months as CEO. Political affiliation. Spanfeller admitted he contacted Maidment in June after receiving my initial email requesting an interview. "I think that most media company CEOs probably are as involved as I am," Spanfeller said. I never changed my mind. WV Gov. Justice switching political parties, returning to GOP in English Literature in 1979 and went to work as a reporter for the SoHo Weekly News. I have communicated our timeline concerns to Jim and he understands that development is not an exact science and that goals may not be hit, Knight told Deadspin. 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. Jim Rich, the former top editor of the New York Daily News, will start as editor-in-chief of Deadspin on Monday. 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. At the time of publication, Carmichaels original tweet has been retweeted more than 300 times. He would stop into peoples offices with the doors open and scream at them, so everyone knew what was going on., 5. When she tried to edit the post, she was greeted by the following image: Attempts to create a new post were similarly thwarted. Spanfeller Media Group ( SMG ), a subsidiary of publishing company Tribune Publishing, is a digital media company based in New York City. 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.. Who even told you you were allowed to think about audience? the woman alleged. 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. G/O is still wracked with internal tensions ahead of contract negotiations with one of its editorial unions. 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. While Carmichael was on a plane to Paris, I discovered that G/O had changed her accounts URL from emma.kinja.com to lajskhclsahkchkad.kinja.com, while going to emma.kinja.com now redirects to the new URL, at the time of the change, it simply showed a broken page. When pressed, Knight admitted the deadline may be unrealistic. Greenwell told Maidment she was unwilling to shut down an ongoing reporting process in response to management demands, and Maidment continued to make his argument against the idea of reporting on G/O Mediaa hallmark of the company since its earliest days, as well as a tradition at other major publicationsin several meetings with the editors and writers he oversees. I hired Katie who accepted the job, he wrote. "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. G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller says the company is profitable and ready 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. Im shocked he would call that a good presentation, said the employee who was in the meeting. 3. Head of The Onion, Deadspin sued for sex discrimination - New York Post As Spanfeller increasingly insisted on directing editorial coverage in what he believed to be more advertiser-friendly directions, clashes between him and the companys writers and editors have escalated. It was a welcome refrain for employees all too aware of how the company had languished under Univisions doomed ownership. Indeed, two former G/O Media staffers blasted Spanfeller for being stingy with resources. It was four days old. The digital media and blogging network, which oversees websites like Deadspin, Gizmodo, Jezebel, A.V. 4 Dumb Ways Your Favorite Sites Are Dying | Cracked.com Youre not qualified. Gizmodo Media Staff Enraged at New CEO's 'Insane' Direction This Is How Things Work Now At G/O Media - Deadspin That distinction quickly sparked backlash in late 2019, when the staff of Deadspin resigned over the firing of a top editor and the company's mandate that the site stick to covering sports. It will post an eight-figure operating profit this year, he told Insider, and hunt for acquisitions in 2022. When I followed up about the meeting the next day with Spanfeller, I was told it was canceled. 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,. (Spanfeller denies this claim.). But as Spanfeller began to implement his vision, that hope was replaced by employee frustration and skepticism over his hiring practices and interference with the companys journalism. In addition to the removal of the post itself, Carmichael also discovered that shes now unable to use her personal Kinja account at all. 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! Im kind of a tipsy at a bar in Paris, she added. 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 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. 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. Another was more direct: Thats Jim wanting to be in control. 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. "Jim Spanfeller Is a Herb": The rise and fall of a blog post. 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. "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 . Another former Daily Meal staffer said that management was straight-up scared of Spanfeller, adding, I can see why. When asked by Deadspin why he wouldnt name an interim editor while that search took place in order to stabilize the site and ensure that the people filling in were properly compensated for their work, Spanfeller said that the Onion union demanded that we immediately promote two people into those roles. 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. I think the thing thats most strange about it is that they didnt coordinate with the editorial side of the business. Where people are registered to vote. Think Youre Smarter Than a What Next Producer? But after the staff meeting, sources say, members of the tech team held a meeting with Knight to explain why the date was unrealistic. Dead and spun: a story in three meetings - Columbia Journalism Review The detection of possible errors in a person's voter record as well as instructions on how to update it. Whats left of that company is currently called G/O Media.