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.. Dead and spun: a story in three meetings - Columbia Journalism Review "[17], "Great Hill Partners Agrees to Acquire Gizmodo Media Group", "Great Hill Partners Acquires Gizmodo Media Group", "President & CEO, Jim Spanfeller Named as IAB Chairman", "Alumni Album: Helping Us Connect to the Web", "Advertising; 4 Young Executives On Move at Newsweek", "Playboy Hires 2 New Execs; Title of Publisher Goes to 1", "New Gizmodo boss Jim Spanfeller is an old school digital media vet", "After Days Of Resignations, The Last Of The Deadspin Staff Has Quit", "Deadspin Is ZombifiedBut Gawker's Content Warriors Fight On", "The Media-Sensational Rise and Fall of "Jim Spanfeller Is a Herb", "GMG Union votes no confidence in G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jim_Spanfeller&oldid=1074755870, This page was last edited on 2 March 2022, at 00:52. 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. Just two weeks after Spanfeller and Great Hill acquired the company, and less than a week after he said in an interview with Variety that he didnt expect any layoffs, Spanfeller fired 25 people across the 400-person company, including Susie Banikarim, GMGs widely respected editorial director, and the only person of color on the executive leadership team at the time. Im kind of a tipsy at a bar in Paris, she added. When confronted with this negative feedback, Spanfeller insisted that he cannot be sexist because he has daughters. Another former Daily Meal staffer said that management was straight-up scared of Spanfeller, adding, I can see why. McAvoy told her she would be able to interview for a bigger role, she said, only to follow up a few weeks later and say that Rogers had been hired. Follow him on Twitter here: @calebecarma. [4] He soon switched to the business side of the paper, and later took a tour through Europe. 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 could have video analytics today. 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. The confusion stems from a lack of communication. "We want to do it in a way that's a little more buttoned up," he said. Deadspin Is ZombifiedBut Gawker's Content Warriors Fight On From a womans perspective, I did feel very belittled. G/O Media shuttered its politics site, Splinter, in 2019. It also wasnt communicated to me as a promotion until the day it was emailed out to the company.. [9], In 1996, Spanfeller left his job at Inc., where he had become publisher, to become publisher of Yahoo! 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. Spanfeller said he did not recall the specific request. The anti-herb agenda is being suppressed.. Jim Spanfeller . [6] Just under two years later, Spanfeller was replaced as publisher by Scott Kauffmann and became the national sales manager of Newsweek magazine in 1986. 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. 4. The job, however, came with a condition, they said: Pontiuss first order of business would be to fire newsroom editorial director Susie Banikarim. (Pontius left the company.) 4 Dumb Ways Your Favorite Sites Are Dying | Cracked.com Gov. Ex-Deadspin EIC Jim Rich resigns in latest turmoil at G/O Media A longtime digital media veteran, Spanfeller was an unconventional choice to lead the new Gizmodo Media Group sites (The Daily Beast's CEO, Heather Dietrick, once served as president of the . Jim Spanfeller (@JimSpanfeller) / Twitter That evening, the woman received an email from McAvoy telling her that the SVP of marketing job had been filled with someone who worked with Spanfeller at Forbes. 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. James J. Spanfeller Jr. is an American media executive best known for running Forbes.com from 20012009. The takeover of G/O Media, previosuly known as Gizmodo Media Group and Gawker Media, by former Forbes executive Jim Spanfellercontinues to throttle downhill, as one of the companys news sites, Deadspin, published a scathing expos on Friday detailing a litany of problems employees have faced since investment firm Great Hill purchased Gizmodo and placed Spanfeller in control. [7], Spanfeller was named associate publisher and senior vice president of marketing of Playboy Enterprises in April 1989. Or as Carmichael explained, If you dont know what a herb is, youre probably a herb.. 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 . As the former publisher of National Geographic, Mens Health & Maximmy successful presentation & leadership skills are evident.. 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. I was sorry and that is accurate, he said. There are regions that were within my scope of responsibilities and within my role that I cannot call on and neither can my team.. Spanfeller said the company hopes to expand into areas like travel, music, business, and news. In this specific case, I have committed to the current story being fully reported and submitted for external review and, if it passes that review, it will be published. We may earn a commission from links on this page. pretty big scoop from me Jim Spanfeller is a herb https://t.co/gZDCs6mfhC. Another was more direct: Thats Jim wanting to be in control. 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. G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller says the company is profitable and ready According to sources familiar with the situation, the tech team was instructed by Knight, who was directed by Spanfeller, to push out the survey without consent from anyone in editorial. He is currently the CEO of G/O Media which consists primarily of sites that were previously part of Gawker Media. Top Women at the Company Expressed Interest in Filling Executive Roles and Were Promised Interview Opportunities Prior to Spanfeller Hiring His Friends, Two G/O Media employees Deadspin spoke to, who are women who have an experienced track record with the company, say Spanfeller promised to give them a chance to interview for upper-level roles. Who doesnt like uncompromising commentary or sports stories you couldnt find anywhere else? Now that we are closer to stabilizing the company, there can be a more deliberate recruitment and hiring process. Deadspin's entire editorial staff is gone - The Washington Post 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. 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. Throughout his career he has recieved more than 60 awards for his work from such . [2][3], Spanfeller graduated from Union College with a B.A. 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. Who even told you you were allowed to think about audience? the woman alleged. 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. Steve Riley on February 14, 2013: Just right off the bat. Which he would do by turning Deadspin into a sports-only website. A leading digital publisher producing category leaders The Daily Meal and The Active Times. Three and a half hours later, Maidment sent an email to Greenwell and me with the subject line, Reporting on ourselves. The body of the message read: This is a tradition that makes no sense. 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. Fuck Jim Spanfeller and Paul Maidment. He started screaming at me, Who told you you were allowed to speak about audience? G/O Media, the newly formed company comprised of the assets of the former Gizmodo Media, will lay off 25 employees, according to a memo that company CEO Jim Spanfeller sent to staffers on Tuesday. [12][13], In 2011, Spanfeller launched The Daily Meal with an estimated $2 million investment. He sits on the Board of Directors of The New York Chapter of The National Foundation for Teaching . We shall have a discussion on the policy at the next EiCs leads meeting. Jim Spanfeller - Chief Executive Officer @ G/O Media - Crunchbase Spanfeller Hired Media Friends/Former Colleagues to Fill G/O Media Roles Just After Claiming He Had No Plans for Major Turnover. When I followed up about the meeting the next day with Spanfeller, I was told it was canceled. (Spanfeller told Deadspin that he and Callahan had only been in a single meeting that I recall.). 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. Great Hill Partners and current CEO Jim Spanfeller, formerly of Forbes, bought these sites and the Onion from Univision Communications Inc. in April. Takeaways From Deadspin's Expos of G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller Search over 95 Million Voter Registration Records. Whats left of that company is currently called G/O Media. 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. G/O Media workers went on strike today in part to protect remote work. When one reviews the actual questions one might feel even more uneasy. Katie then refused to assume the HR lead role around other wider layoffs at the company. The appropriate thing to do would be to talk to the editorial side of the business and have a clear objective for the survey.. Well keep fighting for whats right. In other words, G/O media had effectively broken the redirect at Deadspin2.com, so that the site now redirected to a dead link. These conversations reveal that Spanfellers biggest effect on the company since taking over has been a deflation of morale. 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. 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. 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,. 3. 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. To hear G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller tell it, everything at his digital media company is going great. The other is still in college., Four of nine major hires have been women, Spanfeller said. Jim Spanfeller Biography. 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 . 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. It was placed there without consultation or even simple communication to anyone on Deadspins staff. 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! It is ridiculous to launch a management survey questioning the editorial value of the site. (Spanfeller denies this claim.). I Close-Read the 113-Page Complaint Trying to Ban the Abortion Pill in Texas. Gizmodo and The Onion's New Owner Lays Off 25, Including - TheWrap [11], Spanfeller ran Forbes.com for 8 years from 2001 to 2009, when digital and print operations were run separately. 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. Initially, we had to move fast because the company was losing money at a rapid pace, he said. The next day she refused to join me in communicating our plans to Susie. 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. 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. The VP, who said she now reports to Thompson, said all of her previous reviews from her managers have exceeded expectations, and that she was able to more than double revenue for my region in less than a year. One major conflict arose over whether the company should build a video player in-house or pay for a third-party platform. In an email, Flanagan disagreed with those assessments: Simply not true. Spanfeller Has an Alleged History of Screaming at Women Employees. Cramer finally reveals whether he is pro-Trump or anti-Trump - CNBC Indeed, two former G/O Media staffers blasted Spanfeller for being stingy with resources. Oberlander actually left last week. 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. 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. 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. (The people I work for and the people who report to me know what I do, Rogers, 63, told Deadspin in an email.). The key journalistic properties descended from . In early April, Great Hill Partners, a private-equity firm, acquired Gizmodo Media Groupa collection of sites, formed from the assets of the old Gawker, that included Jezebel, Lifehacker, and Deadspinas well as The Onion, a satirical news site, reportedly at a fire-sale price.The company, renamed G/O Media, installed Jim Spanfeller, formerly of Forbes.com, Playboy, and Ziff Davis, as CEO. The survey on Deadspin, however, had some serious issues, he said. (check all that apply); and What do you like LEAST about Deadspin? Page 1 of 9,554,641. They include: (Spanfeller declined to be interviewed in person but answered emailed questions. Holle Abee (author) from Georgia on February 14, 2013: Duff performed at W's inauguration. The private equity firm was able to snap up the deal for only about $25 million, according to a person with direct knowledge of the figure. 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. Spanfeller said he asked for the survey; Rogers said he wrote it; and editorial director Paul Maidment said he didnt approve it, but he told Deadspin editor-in-chief Megan Greenwell that he did not attempt to stop it from running on the site when he was filled in shortly before it was scheduled to go up. In addition to the annoying ads, G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller also wants Kotaku to only write about video games. 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 fourth known instance of Spanfeller overlooking a woman at the company in favor of a white male former colleague also happened on the sales team. The JW Player was an interim step, Spanfeller said. Three and a half hours later, Maidment told us to put the story on ice, but both Spanfeller and Maidment maintain that Spanfeller never explicitly or implicitly directed the story to be killed. 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. 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. You wrote a 'story,'" Spanfeller recalled telling staff. 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. (Pontius declined to comment. Six days after the SVPs exchange with McAvoy, Spanfeller sent an email to the entire staff announcing G/O Medias new company values. I can see why. 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. But before a formal interview process could take place, Spanfeller filled the jobs with his ex-colleagues. Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise. Laura M. Browning and Caitlin PenzeyMoog, the A.V. At the time of publication, Carmichaels original tweet has been retweeted more than 300 times. [14] A subsequent Deadspin post mocked Spanfeller as a "herb"; after being widely shared on social media, G/O Media removed the post. The former staff of Splinter later launched the worker-owned Discourse Blog. [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. Spanfellers pushed back against these internal criticisms of his questionably ethical hiring process and management style by blaming G/O Media for losing money too fast. 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. Think Youre Smarter Than a What Next Producer? Justice announced he was switching his party affiliation . DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION are core to our culture, and we expect all staff to advance and promote that. Heartened, the SVP emailed Spanfeller to remind him of their meeting in April and express her hope that women, people of color, and people who identify as LGBTQ would be considered as he hired his leadership team, and to say that she looked forward to discussing her role in the organization. It laid off 14 staffers in the summer of 2020. It became clear that she was not a good fit for this position and we both agreed on this. 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.. 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.. 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 of these hires were Spanfellers colleagues from his previous jobs at Forbes, Playboy, and Ziff Davis. . [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". G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller said the company would become "nicely profitable" by the end of the year, after it's been . Club executive editor Laura M. Browning and former A.V. That is absurd. And I didnt know what Sean was doing. 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.. 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 Rogers was hired less than a week after McAvoy told the SVP that she would be able to interview for the job, she said, she realized that he must have been chosen well before. At least have everybody well briefed on this is what were doing and this is what wed like to learn from it, Reibstein said. What's happening at Deadspin is a travesty | The Outline G/O Media lawsuits: Two former exec allege discrimination - CNN 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. 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. 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. Gaffney and Spanfeller said that G/O Media is looking for acquisitions itself. In two cases, women asked for and were promised the opportunity to interview for executive-level positions for which they were qualified, only to see Spanfeller hire one of his former colleagues before they were given a chance to interview. The other is still in college.. 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. 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. Clubs executive editor and managing editor, respectively, stepped down on July 12. He sent a message back about the importance of diversity and inclusion and a full hiring process. No media company does. As traffic dipped and employees headed for the exits, staffers at the company wrote a letter to Great Hill asking that Spanfeller be replaced as CEO. "You're not a 'blogger,' you're a professional journalist. 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. 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. 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. 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. Jeremy Gordon Oct292019 03:41PM EST. He started screaming at me, Who told you you were allowed to speak about audience? 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. He also claimed to have hired four women for major roles though, one of these jobs has not been filled yet, as Spanfeller instead claims he plans to give it to a woman. So put this piece on ice. The differences were as granular as whether to call published pieces "blogs" or "stories." 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. G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller: Company Will Be Profitable by - Insider 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. Or to keep it anonymous, click here. The Daily Meal was acquired by Tronc in 2016. A source at the company familiar with the situation said Thompsons hire had been flagged to upper management as a potential problem.

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