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. He credited The Root for its journalism on the Black Lives Matter movement. I was sorry and that is accurate, he said. Great Hill Partners and current CEO Jim Spanfeller, formerly of Forbes, bought these sites and the Onion from Univision Communications Inc. in April. 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], Spanfeller took over as CEO of G/O Media when Great Hill Partners purchased the company, formerly known as Gizmodo Media Group, and The Onion from Univision on April 8, 2019, and combined the companies. G/O Media, from a business perspective, has turned a corner, Spanfeller says. 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. 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. The company is also on the hunt for acquisitions, according to Spanfeller. (check all that apply); and What do you like LEAST about Deadspin? New York(CNN Business) Two former executives are suing G/O Media, the parent company of sites including Gizmodo, Deadspin and The Onion, alleging discrimination and negligence. 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. 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. Ive reached out to Spanfeller for comment multiple times over the past few days and have yet to hear back. 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? Its hard to imagine what one would not like on that list of items, Reibstein said of the third question. (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.) James J. Spanfeller is president of The Spanfeller Group, a management consultancy focusing on digital strategy, audience development, revenue acceleration and talent acquisition. I was also hiring a good portion of these jobs before I actually took over day to day control of the company. For the life of me, I am not sure how you can have a legal review without a complete story and I cannot imagine how you can consider your work to be objective without reviewing the answers to the questions that you have asked. 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 . 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. 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. Enter Jim "Herb" Spanfeller. Asked for a response to the latter allegation, Spanfeller responded, That is absurd. [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. 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! In an email, Flanagan disagreed with those assessments: Simply not true. Or to keep it anonymous, click here. About their hires, he wrote, I introduced Steve and Lance to Mike McAvoy, but I did not make the hires. (Pontius declined to comment. 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. 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. It will post an eight-figure operating profit this year, he told Insider, and hunt for acquisitions in 2022. Views. The confusion stems from a lack of communication. Club executive editor Laura M. Browning and former A.V. [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. Asked about the meeting, Knight initially didnt answer. Where people are registered to vote. 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. 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. Mike hired Steve, and Steve hired Lance after conducting a process around each hire. Great Hill Partners vice president Eric Ahlgren and managing partner Chris Gaffney did not respond to Deadspins emailed questions. Nearly two dozen current G/O Media employees spoke to Deadspin for this story. Six days after the SVPs exchange with McAvoy, Spanfeller sent an email to the entire staff announcing G/O Medias new company values. Im not building a club, we are working to build a successful companyand that depends on great women and men.. After two years of mainly working from home, the company wants everyone back in the office four days a week. 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. All rights reserved. Hes trying to micromanage, the tech employee said last week. 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. 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. I have stood up for and advocated for my team since the day I started at G/O. 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 needed to change a lot of things, and change is hard.". No media company does. Former SVP of sales and operations Kurt Mueller had left the company, and McAvoy told the woman Spanfeller was hiring his replacement. 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. Justice announced he was switching his party affiliation . Computing. . 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. And I didnt know what Sean was doing. Holle Abee (author) from Georgia on February 14, 2013: Duff performed at W's inauguration. 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. , 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). The appropriate thing to do would be to talk to the editorial side of the business and have a clear objective for the survey.. Political affiliation means the state of belonging to or endorsing any political party. 12-Year-Old Prankster Throws Dead Snake on Woman's Car and Gets Flattened by Husband 15,743. Political party affiliation trends based on location. [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". Jim Spanfeller . It laid off 14 staffers in the summer of 2020. We could have video analytics today. As for why that move was never announced, Spanfeller told Deadspin he believed Mike McAvoy would announce Rogers arrival, even though Spanfeller hired Rogers and he has announced other hires across the company since taking over. I was also hiring a good portion of these jobs before I actually took over day to day control of the company. Everyone can seeit on the pageor at least, everyone could see it before the censorship. On July 25, a pop-up survey appeared on Deadspin asking three questions: How satisfied are you with Deadspin? [4] He soon switched to the business side of the paper, and later took a tour through Europe. When Spanfeller Offered to Promote a Woman to a Top Position, He Insisted She Fire a Female Editorial Director Should She Accept the Job. 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. He started screaming at me, Who told you you were allowed to speak about audience? Spanfeller admitted he contacted Maidment in June after receiving my initial email requesting an interview. They are parti pris, which is why the overwhelming majority do not do so and many will not even report on rivals for the same reason. We have no credibility in writing about ourselves. James J. Spanfeller Jr. is an American media executive best known for running Forbes.com from 20012009. Indeed, two former G/O Media staffers blasted Spanfeller for being stingy with resources. 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. In addition to the removal of the post itself, Carmichael also discovered that shes now unable to use her personal Kinja account at all. Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise. That union also opposes G/O Media's recent requirement to return to in-person work. [10] Spanfeller was also responsible for advertising sales on the magazine's website and that of Yahoo! We had to move fast because the company was losing money at a rapid pace, Spanfeller wrote in a statement. 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. Spanfeller was hired by private equity firm Great Hill Partners to run the company after it was purchased from Univision. Jim has a different recollection of the facts, McAvoy reiterated. [5] Upon returning from Europe, Spanfeller took a position at AMP Marketing Systems. When pressed, Knight admitted the deadline may be unrealistic. He is currently the CEO of G/O Media which consists primarily of sites that were previously part of Gawker Media. LinkedIn is the world's largest business network, helping professionals like Jim Spanfeller discover inside connections to recommended . I found this troubling but was okay with it given the circumstances. 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. Gaffney and Spanfeller said that G/O Media is looking for acquisitions itself. ), This isnt the first time Spanfeller has been accused of micromanaging. UPDATE: This article has been updated to remove an incorrect reference to former G/O Media Lynn Oberlander leaving her job shortly after the companys latest round of layoffs. 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. I told him I had a few questions Id like to ask him, and asked if he had any availability for a meeting the following day. Senior vice president of marketing Bruce Rogers, who worked with Spanfeller at Forbes. In April, the tech team was told to move the companys video operations off of MCP, which Univision paid for to host video content, and onto JW Player, a cheaper video system. The former staff of Splinter later launched the worker-owned Discourse Blog. 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. in English Literature in 1979 and went to work as a reporter for the SoHo Weekly News. He said the company was just profitable before the pandemic hit its business, and is now comfortably back in the black. Multiple people who worked for him at The Daily Meal (part of Spanfeller Media Group) told Deadspin that Spanfeller couldnt cede any control. Once it became clear that the sales department was being restructured in Kurt Muellers absence, another female vice president, who had been at the company for four years, asked McAvoy in early June for the opportunity to be considered for an expanded sales role, providing examples to show her success at the company. Never mind the flood of negative stories about staff blowback over the company's editorial direction. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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,. (10 is very satisfied, 1 is very unsatisfied); What do you like MOST about Deadspin? Steve Thompson, 55, was installed over a female vice president who had been running west coast sales for two and a half years. We shall have a discussion on the policy at the next EiCs leads meeting. Jim Spanfeller Biography. These conversations reveal that Spanfellers biggest effect on the company since taking over has been a deflation of morale. I never changed my mind. Initially, we had to move fast because the company was losing money at a rapid pace, he said. 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. 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. 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 Media Group ( SMG ), a subsidiary of publishing company Tribune Publishing, is a digital media company based in New York City. 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. At an all-staff meeting this week, Knight told Spanfeller that August 15 is the target completion date, which Spanfeller told Deadspin he believes is achievable. The JW Player was an interim step, Spanfeller said. Mad Money Twitter - Jim . But those efforts did not go very far, the people said, and the company has yet to mount a takeover. My territory has been cut in half. It was placed there without consultation or even simple communication to anyone on Deadspins staff. I think it makes him a bad role model for the rest of his team.. In addition to the annoying ads, G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller also wants Kotaku to only write about video games. Naturally, we were dismayed to discover one more problemthe survey placed on Deadspin. Spanfeller told Insider that G/O Media plans to reinvest the profits into the business. 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. 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. Thats not reality, a tech staffer told Deadspin. The Onion Union, which represents AV Club staffers, told Insider in a statement that it hoped "this period of prosperity creates tangible benefits for all of our members especially those whose jobs are being moved to Los Angeles, one of the most expensive cities in the world.". "We were a leftist site, not a liberal one, which gives you a sense of how closely Spanfeller followed our work," he said. 2. This former staffer said the team wished to add Black creatives to help create more representative branded content to meet the demand, but it was not given additional resources. We may earn a commission from links on this page. "The fact that we could acquire it at a price that would make it one of our smallest investments is that good or bad? Never mind that employees called for his resignation last year. 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. The key journalistic properties descended from . From a womans perspective, I did feel very belittled. Club managing editor Caitlin PenzeyMoog, who both resigned on July 12. tips@mediaite.com, Caleb Ecarma was a reporter at Mediaite. You wrote a 'story,'" Spanfeller recalled telling staff. Its everything Ive wanted and more.. 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.". Six of these hires were Spanfellers colleagues from his previous jobs at Forbes, Playboy, and Ziff Davis. A source at the company familiar with the situation said Thompsons hire had been flagged to upper management as a potential problem. Two are now successfully navigating careers in the digital advertising space. 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. 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. I was going on the input I had been given by Mike McAvoy that he had discussed the position with her and laid out why she was not ready for the larger role. The 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. He sent a message back about the importance of diversity and inclusion and a full hiring process. I was unclear about what she did. 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. The Daily Meal was acquired by Tronc in 2016. The sales employee (who is not an SVP) wasnt surprised to hear that Spanfeller didnt know what she did. Or as Carmichael explained, If you dont know what a herb is, youre probably a herb.. Jeremy Gordon Oct292019 03:41PM EST. Internet Life, a joint publication of Ziff-Davis and Yahoo!. (G/O Medias Collective Bargaining Agreement contains a clause that explicitly states that editorial decisions can only be made by editorial staff members, which Spanfeller is not. Follow him on Twitter here: @calebecarma. This is normal in situations like these where a new group is coming in and is facing a near term challenge.. Text. I think the thing thats most strange about it is that they didnt coordinate with the editorial side of the business. Oberlander actually left last week. (check all that apply). Use this information as you see fit. 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. 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. 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. I have definitely given positive feedback to numerous women, including senior executives in edit, sales, and marketing, he offered instead. Katie then refused to assume the HR lead role around other wider layoffs at the company. (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. 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. 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. 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). This is normal in situations like these where a new group is coming in and is facing a near term challenge. 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. That is clearly evident when you note the poor syntax and galling bias of the questions. 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. 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. Clashes between the Gawker Media editorial culture and the company's new private equity owner seemed inevitable from the start. 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 . 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.. The detection of possible errors in a person's voter record as well as instructions on how to update it. It wasnt collaborative.. Mr. McAvoy was clear to me on his opinion that he did not think she was the right choice at this time, Spanfeller said. In reality, this story started with a tip the site received about Spanfellers hiring practices, and grew from there thanks to sources accounts. Spanfeller was hired by private equity firm Great Hill Partners to run the company after it was purchased from Univision. 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.

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