Find Out With This Weeks News Quiz. Fuck Jim Spanfeller and Paul Maidment. G/O is still wracked with internal tensions ahead of contract negotiations with one of its editorial unions. Im shocked he would call that a good presentation, said the employee who was in the meeting. Spanfeller admitted he contacted Maidment in June after receiving my initial email requesting an interview. 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.. 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. 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. (10 is very satisfied, 1 is very unsatisfied); What do you like MOST about Deadspin? That is absurd. 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. Another former Daily Meal staffer said that management was straight-up scared of Spanfeller, adding, I can see why. G/O Media executives have discussed potential deal targets in the past, including Genius, The Hill, and HuffPost, according to two people familiar with the matter. Follow him on Twitter here: @calebecarma. 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? Answering a similar one, he seemed to contradict himself: This concern was expressed to me and I take it very seriously. At the time of publication, Carmichaels original tweet has been retweeted more than 300 times. Never mind the recent exodus of company leadership under his tenure, including the editorial director, chief financial officer, and chief revenue officer. 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 . 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. The detection of possible errors in a person's voter record as well as instructions on how to update it. In addition to the annoying ads, G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller also wants Kotaku to only write about video games. ), Spanfeller described the situation differently. 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 of the former staffers said that as companies sought to double down on diversity and inclusion during the summer of 2020, the branded content team received incoming requests from companies hoping to fund content for The Root, G/O Media's Black news publication. 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. 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. John Taggart for The Washington Post via Getty Images, NOW WATCH: WATCH: How advertisers can navigate the death of third-party cookies, according to execs from Mars Petcare, R/GA, The Washington Post, and The Trade Desk, Clashes between the Gawker Media editorial culture. From a womans perspective, I did feel very belittled. 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. [12][13], In 2011, Spanfeller launched The Daily Meal with an estimated $2 million investment. [14] A subsequent Deadspin post mocked Spanfeller as a "herb"; after being widely shared on social media, G/O Media removed the post. You wrote a 'story,'" Spanfeller recalled telling staff. 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. Ultimately, the issue of building a wall has raised political risk, Cramer said. . Before we go any further, I feel compelled to acknowledge that nearly everything about this item is a conflict of interest. She told Deadspin she was surprised that Spanfeller seemed to know little about her team, which last year won Digidays best content studio award.. We have also learned the tech team has been asked to post the survey again. Mad Money Twitter - Jim . Where people are registered to vote. Im not building a club, we are working to build a successful companyand that depends on great women and men.. [5], In 1984, Spanfeller was named publisher of Newsweek On Campus magazine. I was unclear about what she did. 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. 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. After Gawker's high-profile legal battle with Hulk Hogan, Univision in 2016 purchased its other media properties out of bankruptcy for $135 million, but struggled and sold the assets, including add-ons like The Onion, to Great Hill Partners in 2019. Vacillating Wildly From Dispiriting to Exhilarating. I was sorry and that is accurate, he said. Jim Spanfeller . 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. She asked McAvoy, then her immediate supervisor, for the opportunity to interview for the position, citing her leadership of the revenue division, her construction of a diverse team, and her renown in the industry. Its something that Im working to improve. Spanfeller declined to answer a question about whether he expressed these sentiments to Klancnik. Maidment never responded to my questions directly; the first time I saw his answers was when they were included in Spanfellers company-wide email, but he had this to say about his role in the newsroom: I have always shielded the editorial teams I have managed from commercial or business-side interference in what they write, which to my mind is the essence of editorial integrity. 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 found this troubling but was okay with it given the circumstances. The CEO alleged. 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. 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. (check all that apply); and What do you like LEAST about Deadspin? 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. in English Literature in 1979 and went to work as a reporter for the SoHo Weekly News. Sources say he was retained to consult on sales and how the department could work more directly with clients, which the now-former employee says was her job. Holle Abee (author) from Georgia on February 14, 2013: Duff performed at W's inauguration. The digital media and blogging network, which oversees websites like Deadspin, Gizmodo, Jezebel, A.V. 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. 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. 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.. This is normal in situations like these where a new group is coming in and is facing a near term challenge. (check all that apply). 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. Details may include related records, political party, location, and more. [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. Unlike private equity investors who financially engineer acquisitions, burdening companies they buy with debt and massive . That union's collective bargaining agreement expires in February. 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. In his email to the staff, Spanfeller described this story as one that had been commissioned by the site, and attempted to paint the reporting process behind it as haphazard and unfair. 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 . When one reviews the actual questions one might feel even more uneasy. 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 . (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.) To hear G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller tell it, everything at his digital media company is going great. Ive reached out to Spanfeller for comment multiple times over the past few days and have yet to hear back. Jim Justice speaks during President Donald Trump's political rally inside the Big Sandy Superstore Arena in Huntington on Thursday. Spanfeller Media is working to redefine content for the digital era. 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. 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. "We needed to change a lot of things, and change is hard.". 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. "[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. Clubs executive editor and managing editor, respectively, stepped down on July 12. (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. Additionally, Jim Spanfeller has had 6 past jobs including CEO at Forbes. [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. 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. Mr. Spanfeller has a BA in English Literature from Union College, Schenectady, New York. Use this information as you see fit. Katie then refused to assume the HR lead role around other wider layoffs at the company. Spanfeller also said that he did not ask Katie to fire Susie, only to be in the room while I had the conversation about Susies future with the company., Spanfeller ended up firing Banikarim himself, and then, months later, hiring Angela Persaud for the chief talent officer job after a public search. Another was more direct: Thats Jim wanting to be in control. Jim Rich, the former Daily News editor charged with bringing Deadspin back to life following a mass staff exodus, has resigned after just 18 months on the job, The Post has learned. They include: (Spanfeller declined to be interviewed in person but answered emailed questions. All rights reserved. (The people I work for and the people who report to me know what I do, Rogers, 63, told Deadspin in an email.). Combined with more data-driven metrics like unique views, how long a reader spends on a story, and how many times a story is shared, reader feedback can provide useful information. [7], Spanfeller was named associate publisher and senior vice president of marketing of Playboy Enterprises in April 1989. 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. Asked about the meeting, Knight initially didnt answer. (The other woman on the executive leadership team, general counsel Lynn Oberlander, left the company this week.) 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. When she tried to edit the post, she was greeted by the following image: Attempts to create a new post were similarly thwarted. There are regions that were within my scope of responsibilities and within my role that I cannot call on and neither can my team.. And I didnt know what Sean was doing. 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. According to multiple sources inside the company, the post even joined the leading posts from official G/O sites on the big board, a large screen in the companys New York headquarters that displays that moments most highly trafficked storiesan unusual feat for a user-generated post. It was placed there without consultation or even simple communication to anyone on Deadspins staff. [4] He soon switched to the business side of the paper, and later took a tour through Europe. 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. The job, however, came with a condition, they said: Pontiuss first order of business would be to fire newsroom editorial director Susie Banikarim. Gov. Everything theyve done in reaction to it is the herbiest shit I could possibly imagine. 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. The appropriate thing to do would be to talk to the editorial side of the business and have a clear objective for the survey.. 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..
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