G/O is still wracked with internal tensions ahead of contract negotiations with one of its editorial unions. G/O Media, owner of Gizmodo and The Onion, will post an eight-figure operating profit this year, CEO Jim Spanfeller says. 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. 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 . 1. I am a father of three wonderful woman, Spanfeller wrote in a statement. He sent a message back about the importance of diversity and inclusion and a full hiring process. Reverse Phone Search Tool And much more all for free! He would stop into peoples offices with the doors open and scream at them, so everyone knew what was going on., 5. We have no credibility in writing about ourselves. Opinion | A clash of values at former Gawker Media sites I Close-Read the 113-Page Complaint Trying to Ban the Abortion Pill in Texas. It is ridiculous to launch a management survey questioning the editorial value of the site. A voter's representatives in government. 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. I found this troubling but was okay with it given the circumstances. [10] Spanfeller was also responsible for advertising sales on the magazine's website and that of Yahoo! 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. Now that we are closer to stabilizing the company, there can be a more deliberate recruitment and hiring process. Sole dedication to revenue, getting it the cheapest, quickest way possible. At the time of publication, Carmichaels original tweet has been retweeted more than 300 times. The other is still in college., Four of nine major hires have been women, Spanfeller said. 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. 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 . As you know, one reason that I dont believe that publications should write about themselves is because I fear it damages perceived external credibility in editorial independence, which, if anything, makes keeping advertisers at bay harder, not easier. I had experience and confidence in the people who were hired. G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller: Company Will Be Profitable by - Insider The former staff of Splinter later launched the worker-owned Discourse Blog. Everyone can seeit on the pageor at least, everyone could see it before the censorship. There are regions that were within my scope of responsibilities and within my role that I cannot call on and neither can my team.. 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. 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. 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. "We were a leftist site, not a liberal one, which gives you a sense of how closely Spanfeller followed our work," he said. That union also opposes G/O Media's recent requirement to return to in-person work. (Spanfeller told Deadspin that he and Callahan had only been in a single meeting that I recall.). G/O Media, from a business perspective, has turned a corner, Spanfeller says. 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. Meanwhile, many people who are still at the company feel their work is being hindered by new management. (check all that apply); and What do you like LEAST about Deadspin? I was also hiring a good portion of these jobs before I actually took over day to day control of the company. Voter Registration Records 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. 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. 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.. Katie then refused to assume the HR lead role around other wider layoffs at the company. They include: (Spanfeller declined to be interviewed in person but answered emailed questions. Find Out With This Weeks News Quiz. Spanfellers executive assistant set up a time for us to meet. The Daily Meal was acquired by Tronc in 2016. It wasnt collaborative.. About their hires, he wrote, I introduced Steve and Lance to Mike McAvoy, but I did not make the hires. 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. 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. We could have video analytics today. Jim Spanfeller Biography. [12][13], In 2011, Spanfeller launched The Daily Meal with an estimated $2 million investment. New York City. "People are scared of him. Internet Life, a joint publication of Ziff-Davis and Yahoo!. Other top employees who have left the company since the start of Spanfellers reign include former A.V. Like many media companies, G/O Media's advertising business was battered by the pandemic. Gov. 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! Then, Thursday night, after Bernie Sanders tweeted in support of Deadspin, supporter collective People for Bernie tweeted the post at its new URL: After which, sometime today, the post disappeared, only to be replaced by this: Its not entirely clear which of Kinjas guidelines were violated, particularly considering that theres no agreed upon definition of what constitutes a herb. I had experience and confidence in the people who were hired. 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. (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.) Mr. Spanfeller has a BA in English Literature from Union College, Schenectady, New York. Thats not reality, a tech staffer told Deadspin. 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. 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. [4] He soon switched to the business side of the paper, and later took a tour through Europe. Stay up to date with what you want to know. In an email, Flanagan disagreed with those assessments: Simply not true. Clashes between the Gawker Media editorial culture and the company's new private equity owner seemed inevitable from the start. Throughout his career he has recieved more than 60 awards for his work from such . [7], Spanfeller was named associate publisher and senior vice president of marketing of Playboy Enterprises in April 1989. 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. Political affiliation means the state of belonging to or endorsing any political party. Nearly two dozen current G/O Media employees spoke to Deadspin for this story. It will post an eight-figure operating profit this year, he told Insider, and hunt for acquisitions in 2022. Still, tensions between management and staff are high at the company as it prepares to enter negotiations with the G/O Media editorial union, one of the two unions representing editorial workers at the company. I thought she was going to be great, and it didnt work out by her own assessment., In response to follow-up questions, Spanfeller clarified that there was never a signed offer between Pontius and the company. Before we go any further, I feel compelled to acknowledge that nearly everything about this item is a conflict of interest. In an emailed statement to Deadspin, Spanfeller claimed that he did not make the hires, but admitted to making professional introductions for some of these new employees. So Out of Touch: Gen Z Congressman-Elect Mocks RNC Tweet Criticizing Him For His Housing Woes. Spanfeller Media Group ( SMG ), a subsidiary of publishing company Tribune Publishing, is a digital media company based in New York City. In 1964, Spanfeller recieved the title of Artist of the Year from the Artists Guild of New York. 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. The job, however, came with a condition, they said: Pontiuss first order of business would be to fire newsroom editorial director Susie Banikarim. All rights reserved. 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. This sites credibility is not dependent on who and what it reports on, but on its ability to report forcefully and accurately. In that 30-minute meeting, the woman told Deadspin, Spanfeller told her that Univision had been a bad owner and that he saw an opportunity to make improvements and turn a profit. This is normal in situations like these where a new group is coming in and is facing a near term challenge.. 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. 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 . 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. Its something that Im working to improve. Naturally, we were dismayed to discover one more problemthe survey placed on Deadspin. 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 . When Jim Spanfeller and a private equity firm called Great Hill Partners took over G/O Mediaformerly Gizmodo Media Groupin April, their stated goal was to make the company profitable. 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. Where people are registered to vote. Jim Spanfeller, G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller said the company would become "nicely profitable" by the end of the year, after it's been . 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. It was a welcome refrain for employees all too aware of how the company had languished under Univisions doomed ownership. 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. We have also learned the tech team has been asked to post the survey again. Enter Jim "Herb" Spanfeller. (10 is very satisfied, 1 is very unsatisfied); What do you like MOST about Deadspin? While G/O Media has often placed importance on diversity among their staff and in their coverage, these executive-level jobs went to white males. I have stood up for and advocated for my team since the day I started at G/O. 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. You wrote a 'story,'" Spanfeller recalled telling staff. Email us. James J. Spanfeller Jr. is an American media executive best known for running Forbes.com from 2001-2009. 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 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 Daily Meal Founder G/O Media Chief Executive Officer Board and Advisor Roles Number of Current Board & Advisor Roles 3 Number of Past Board & Advisor Roles 2 Text. Details may include related records, political party, location, and more. Ad revenue rebounded, Spanfeller told Insider last year. [1] 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. [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. I was disappointed. 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. 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. Who doesnt like uncompromising commentary or sports stories you couldnt find anywhere else? Spanfeller told Insider that G/O Media plans to reinvest the profits into the business. Successfully sold . When confronted with this negative feedback, Spanfeller insisted that he cannot be sexist because he has daughters. G/O Media workers went on strike today in part to protect remote work. Among the multiple Gawker and/or GMG and/or G/O websites I wrote for was, for a brief stint, Deadspin, which is currently without a staff after every single one of its writers quit en masse following the firing of beloved editor Barry Petchesky, who is another friend of mine. I think it's all good," said Chris Gaffney, co-founder and managing partner at Great Hill. 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. Great Hill Partners and current CEO Jim Spanfeller, formerly of Forbes, bought these sites and the Onion from Univision Communications Inc. in April. 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. Spanfeller Media Group - Wikipedia Jim Spanfeller . 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. 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. Asked about the contract, Spanfeller responded, I firmly believe in editorial integrity. He previously served as President & Chief Executive Officer of Forbes.com, a leading media Internet company, and as Executive Vice President . Or knowledgeable writers?, Asked about the survey, Rogers said he thinks its responses will accurately and fully reflect Deadspin readers opinions of the site. 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? 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. The key journalistic properties descended from . 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. The sales employee (who is not an SVP) wasnt surprised to hear that Spanfeller didnt know what she did. This response, which Spanfeller emailed out along with the questions to and answers from every other executive to the entire company as an attempt to undermine this story, prompted this response from a third sales employee. 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.