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. "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. Youre not qualified. [1] He is also a past Chairman of the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) and longtime executive board member of Digital Content Next (DCN). In one case, sources say Spanfeller did offer to promote a woman to run human resources, but on the condition she fire another woman at the company as her first order of business. Sources say the meeting concluded with an agreement that the best course of action would be to explain to Spanfeller why the player would not be finished by August 15. pretty big scoop from me Jim Spanfeller is a herb https://t.co/gZDCs6mfhC. (check all that apply). 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. 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 . 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. This Is How Things Work Now At G/O Media - Deadspin Before we go any further, I feel compelled to acknowledge that nearly everything about this item is a conflict of interest. In the email, Spanfeller said he was "greatly concerned about the objectivity and core intentions of this piece," and questioned the editorial standards of Deadspin's editors. Asked about the meeting, Knight initially didnt answer. 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.. 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. That said, I and the management team received a list of questions from the reporter working this story for Deadspin and those questions left me greatly concerned about the objectivity and core intentions of this piece. Heres The REAL Clip, Christian Walker GOES OFF on Predator Matt Schlapp for Allegedly Groping Male Campaign Staffer: Hes Done This Before, Im Sure!, LOL. 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. One major conflict arose over whether the company should build a video player in-house or pay for a third-party platform. (Though the source spoke in great detail about her experience, she requested her name not be used because she didnt want it to affect her future employment opportunities.) 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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. "We were a leftist site, not a liberal one, which gives you a sense of how closely Spanfeller followed our work," he said. Search over 95 Million Voter Registration Records Its motivation is simply to publish true and interesting stories, and to make sure the things powerful people would rather stay in the dark end up in the light of day. Celebrities Who Are Republicans/Conservatives - HubPages 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. Initially, we had to move fast because the company was losing money at a rapid pace, he said. When pressed, Knight admitted the deadline may be unrealistic. Fuck Jim Spanfeller and Paul Maidment. 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. 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. Great Hill Partners did not disclose the financial terms of the private, all equity transaction but stated in a press release that Spanfeller is an investor. 4. 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, but Spanfeller is perhaps best known for dramatically increasing Forbes.coms focus on digital advertising (Spanfeller also previously served as chairman of the Interactive Advertising Bureau). 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). He is currently the CEO of G/O Media which consists primarily of sites that were previously part of Gawker Media. But Spanfellers expectation that the process would be done in the next week or so shocked the tech team. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. At the same time, working with the EICs to set a general editorial direction is clearly in the purview of any owner.). It laid off 14 staffers in the summer of 2020. 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. 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. I was also hiring a good portion of these jobs before I actually took over day to day control of the company. 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. They requested anonymity to speak candidly but their identities are known to Insider. Great Hill Partners is a growth equity company committed to building businesses. 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. Other top employees who have left the company since the start of Spanfellers reign include former A.V. Find Out With This Weeks News Quiz. 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. 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. Where people are registered to vote. Follow him on Twitter here: @calebecarma. Ive reached out to Spanfeller for comment multiple times over the past few days and have yet to hear back. [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. Never mind that employees called for his resignation last year. Shortly after Spanfellers email was made public, Deadspin editor-in-chief Megan Greenwell issued a statement in response to his accusations that the reporting process was unfair: We are in an ongoing reporting process and planning to publish the story when it is ready. 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 . [5], In 1984, Spanfeller was named publisher of Newsweek On Campus magazine. Deadspin Editor Fired Amid Pushback Over 'Stick to Sports' Memo He said the company was just profitable before the pandemic hit its business, and is now comfortably back in the black. G/O Media, owner of Gizmodo and The Onion, will post an eight-figure operating profit this year, CEO Jim Spanfeller says. Hes trying to micromanage, the tech employee said last week. I had experience and confidence in the people who were hired. Multiple sources say Pontius declined to go along with the plan, angering Spanfeller. 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 anger stems from Spanfellers apparent disregard for his own stated company values, which include a commitment to diversity and inclusion. And Fake. 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. Spanfeller said he did not recall the specific request. 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. Multiple sources say that Spanfeller reached out to VP of media operations Brad Klancnik to tell him he was a valuable employee and that the new owners would like him to stay at the company, but female VPs say he did not relay such messages to them. 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. 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. G/O is still wracked with internal tensions ahead of contract negotiations with one of its editorial unions. Reverse Phone Search Tool And much more all for free! Like many media companies, G/O Media's advertising business was battered by the pandemic. Steve Thompson, 55, was installed over a female vice president who had been running west coast sales for two and a half years. 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. WV Gov. Justice switching political parties, returning to GOP 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. 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. Jim Spanfeller - New York, New York, United States - LinkedIn The company is also on the hunt for acquisitions, according to Spanfeller. When asked if it was inaccurate, then, to say she had accepted the job, Spanfeller did not respond. As I said in the article, some of the celebs I mentioned could have changed their political leanings. We had to move fast because the company was losing money at a rapid pace, Spanfeller wrote in a statement. This particular set of troubles all started when private equity firm Great Hill Partners purchased GMG and hired Spanfeller, a former Forbes.com CEO, to guide the ship. Jim Spanfeller Analyzes Public Policy - Big Think Whats left of that company is currently called G/O Media. 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. 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. She told Deadspin she was surprised that Spanfeller seemed to know little about her team, which last year won Digidays best content studio award.. Spanfeller said no one told him that a female VP was already successfully performing that job before he hired Thompson. It was placed there without consultation or even simple communication to anyone on Deadspins staff. 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. The JW Player was an interim step, Spanfeller said. Thats not reality, a tech staffer told Deadspin. It will post an eight-figure operating profit this year, he told Insider, and hunt for acquisitions in 2022. They include: (Spanfeller declined to be interviewed in person but answered emailed questions. 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. [12][13], In 2011, Spanfeller launched The Daily Meal with an estimated $2 million investment. []. [10] Spanfeller was also responsible for advertising sales on the magazine's website and that of Yahoo! "We want to do it in a way that's a little more buttoned up," he said. ), The internal reaction to these hires has ranged from confusion to anger. The role was not posted nor was it communicated to me in time where I would have even been given equal opportunity to be considered, she said. 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. 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. 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. He started screaming at me, Who told you you were allowed to speak about audience? The detection of possible errors in a person's voter record as well as instructions on how to update it. "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. Cramer finally reveals whether he is pro-Trump or anti-Trump - CNBC A leading digital publisher producing category leaders The Daily Meal and The Active Times. (check all that apply); and What do you like LEAST about 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. Jim Spanfeller - Big Think The person hired was Bruce Rogers, who most recently ran the institute arm of SITO Mobile, a mobile data company. All contents 2023 The Slate Group LLC. The Deadspin takedown covered numerous issues that have arisen since Univisions sale of the company to Great Hill, ranging from accounts of Spanfeller screaming at past employees, to allegations that the new G/O Media boss is on-boarding his old media buddies over highly qualified women who have worked at the company for years, along with numerous other accusations of mismanagement. Youre not qualified.
"Jim Spanfeller Is a Herb": The rise and fall of a blog post. Its something that Im working to improve. When she tried to edit the post, she was greeted by the following image: Attempts to create a new post were similarly thwarted. Sole dedication to revenue, getting it the cheapest, quickest way possible. James J. Spanfeller Jr. is an American media executive best known for running Forbes.com from 20012009. Stay up to date with what you want to know. 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. It has introduced real uncertainty in to stocks, and Trump's agenda has become shaky. We shall have a discussion on the policy at the next EiCs leads meeting. G/O Media, from a business perspective, has turned a corner, Spanfeller says. "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 . Neither Sean nor Jim ever reached out to ask, Hey, what are you doing, how are you doing it, how is it working? There was never a conversation about my role, she told Deadspin. I hired Katie who accepted the job, he wrote. The rigorous and thorough reporting, editing, and legal review process that Greenwell promised to oversee has since been completed, which is why you are reading this story now. In the midst of the fallout, former Deadspin, Gawker, and Jezebel editor Emma Carmichael had a spirited discussion with [former Jezebel writer] Clio Chang on the overwhelming herbishness of Jim Spanfeller, she told me over the phone. 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. It is ridiculous to launch a management survey questioning the editorial value of the site. 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. 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. 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. The survey on Deadspin, however, had some serious issues, he said. He credited The Root for its journalism on the Black Lives Matter movement. Spanfeller responded that he would be happy to get together, but did not say anything about open roles. [1] 4 Dumb Ways Your Favorite Sites Are Dying | Cracked.com 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.. (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. A spokesperson for G/O has yet to respond to a request for clarification, but we will update this post if and when that changes. [11], Spanfeller ran Forbes.com for 8 years from 2001 to 2009, when digital and print operations were run separately. It was four days old. I found this troubling but was okay with it given the circumstances. 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. Never mind the recent exodus of company leadership under his tenure, including the editorial director, chief financial officer, and chief revenue officer. Enter Jim "Herb" Spanfeller. Spanfeller Has an Alleged History of Screaming at Women Employees. 2. Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. A source at the company familiar with the situation said Thompsons hire had been flagged to upper management as a potential problem. According to his LinkedIn, Thompson is the founder of Mediacentric Inc., a multi-media representation company., A man was hired with my same title [vice president for west coast sales] to be my boss, the VP told Deadspin. G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller Tells Employees to 'Brace for Impact' of Vacillating Wildly From Dispiriting to Exhilarating. Or as Carmichael explained, If you dont know what a herb is, youre probably a herb.. I had experience and confidence in the people who were hired. LinkedIn is the world's largest business network, helping professionals like Jim Spanfeller discover inside connections to recommended . In one instance in which Spanfeller tried to promote a woman within the company, his offer came with strings attached. (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.) Jim has a different recollection of the facts, McAvoy reiterated. The post, published Tuesday evening, proved wildly popular on Twitter. Indeed, two former G/O Media staffers blasted Spanfeller for being stingy with resources. The anti-herb agenda is being suppressed.. 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. At least have everybody well briefed on this is what were doing and this is what wed like to learn from it, Reibstein said. But those efforts did not go very far, the people said, and the company has yet to mount a takeover. 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. So put this piece on ice. Page 1 of 9,554,641. 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 previously served as President & Chief Executive Officer of Forbes.com, a leading media Internet company, and as Executive Vice President . About their hires, he wrote, I introduced Steve and Lance to Mike McAvoy, but I did not make the hires.