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. (Spanfeller denies this claim.). It was placed there without consultation or even simple communication to anyone on Deadspins staff. Follow him on Twitter here: @calebecarma. "You can write a blog, just don't publish them here.". 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. The key journalistic properties descended from . These vacant roles have yet to be filled and Spanfeller has not announced an interim editor. Thats not reality, a tech staffer told Deadspin. 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. At the time of publication, Carmichaels original tweet has been retweeted more than 300 times. Initially, we had to move fast because the company was losing money at a rapid pace, he said. This is the same thing that has also happened to Deadspin. Successfully sold . Internet Life, a joint publication of Ziff-Davis and Yahoo!. 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. 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. And I didnt know what Sean was doing. 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. Everyone can seeit on the pageor at least, everyone could see it before the censorship. Mr. McAvoy was clear to me on his opinion that he did not think she was the right choice at this time, Spanfeller said. 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. That union also opposes G/O Media's recent requirement to return to in-person work. Before we go any further, I feel compelled to acknowledge that nearly everything about this item is a conflict of interest. It was a welcome refrain for employees all too aware of how the company had languished under Univisions doomed ownership. 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. After two years of mainly working from home, the company wants everyone back in the office four days a week. Multiple sources say Pontius declined to go along with the plan, angering Spanfeller. The JW Player was an interim step, Spanfeller said. Two are now successfully navigating careers in the digital advertising space. 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. Jim Justice speaks during President Donald Trump's political rally inside the Big Sandy Superstore Arena in Huntington on Thursday. 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. 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 . 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. Though neither Spanfeller nor Knight provided the team a hard deadline, they made clear that they wanted the task, which should have taken months, completed in a matter of weeks. 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. Two are now successfully navigating careers in the digital advertising space. ), The internal reaction to these hires has ranged from confusion to anger. Spanfeller was hired by private equity firm Great Hill Partners to run the company after it was purchased from Univision. pretty big scoop from me Jim Spanfeller is a herb https://t.co/gZDCs6mfhC. 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. [14] A subsequent Deadspin post mocked Spanfeller as a "herb"; after being widely shared on social media, G/O Media removed the post. Computing. Legal review is often a lengthy process involving multiple reads, so talking to a lawyer is certainly not an indication that we would publish without completing the reporting process. I think the biggest problem was the leadership wouldnt get out of the way of everyone, one former employee told Deadspin. Stay up to date with what you want to know. It was four days old. 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. I have stood up for and advocated for my team since the day I started at G/O. In a follow-up meeting with Spanfeller about the story, she suggested that hard financial data might not be their audiences central interest. Jim Spanfeller Biography. At the same time, working with the EICs to set a general editorial direction is clearly in the purview of any owner.). 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. "We want to do it in a way that's a little more buttoned up," he said. 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. The job, however, came with a condition, they said: Pontiuss first order of business would be to fire newsroom editorial director Susie Banikarim. [1] He is also a past Chairman of the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) and longtime executive board member of Digital Content Next (DCN). "You're not a 'blogger,' you're a professional journalist. Youre not qualified. Katie then refused to assume the HR lead role around other wider layoffs at the company. Unlike private equity investors who financially engineer acquisitions, burdening companies they buy with debt and massive . 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. [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. 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. If I had known, I would have been happy to interview her and consider her for the role., On June 20, the next time Spanfeller was in Chicago, the SVP met with him to ask why she had been overlooked. Who even told you you were allowed to think about audience? the woman alleged. In addition to the removal of the post itself, Carmichael also discovered that shes now unable to use her personal Kinja account at all. 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 laid off 14 staffers in the summer of 2020. 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. Ad revenue rebounded, Spanfeller told Insider last year. I hired Katie who accepted the job, he wrote. (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.) He started screaming at me, Who told you you were allowed to speak about audience? 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. Fuck Jim Spanfeller and Paul Maidment. 2. 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. It wasnt collaborative.. 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. While the archived version of the post did not preserve the original images, you can view a PDF of the original post below. I think it's all good," said Chris Gaffney, co-founder and managing partner at Great Hill. Never mind that employees called for his resignation last year. 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. The union said that it wants the money to translate into higher salary minimums, trans-inclusive healthcare, and a focus on talent retention. "People are scared of him. [12][13], In 2011, Spanfeller launched The Daily Meal with an estimated $2 million investment. That is clearly evident when you note the poor syntax and galling bias of the questions. When Rogers was hired less than a week after McAvoy told the SVP that she would be able to interview for the job, she said, she realized that he must have been chosen well before. It definitely feels like its the old boys club, a G/O Media employee told Deadspin. [2][3], Spanfeller graduated from Union College with a B.A. Spanfeller said he did not recall the specific request. All contents 2023 The Slate Group LLC. When people came in with good ideas they were rejected., A woman who was hired at The Daily Meal after responding to a Craigslist post said she was once asked to write a story about a companys earnings, which she felt she wasnt qualified to write and for which she didnt receive guidance from her editors. James J. Spanfeller Jr. is an American media executive best known for running Forbes.com from 20012009. As with any reporting process, we asked questions intending to incorporate the answers. My management style has been widely reported on over the years and the picture you are painting does not comport with that. A leading digital publisher producing category leaders The Daily Meal and The Active Times. Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise. Gov. Greenwell told Maidment she was unwilling to shut down an ongoing reporting process in response to management demands, and Maidment continued to make his argument against the idea of reporting on G/O Mediaa hallmark of the company since its earliest days, as well as a tradition at other major publicationsin several meetings with the editors and writers he oversees. Club executive editor Laura M. Browning and former A.V. That union's collective bargaining agreement expires in February. [He] wasnt interested in hearing what someone with 20 years of experience would say.. The sales employee (who is not an SVP) wasnt surprised to hear that Spanfeller didnt know what she did. Find Out With This Weeks News Quiz. Just two weeks after Spanfeller and Great Hill acquired the company, and less than a week after he said in an interview with Variety that he didnt expect any layoffs, Spanfeller fired 25 people across the 400-person company, including Susie Banikarim, GMGs widely respected editorial director, and the only person of color on the executive leadership team at the time. In one instance in which Spanfeller tried to promote a woman within the company, his offer came with strings attached. The differences were as granular as whether to call published pieces "blogs" or "stories." In addition to the annoying ads, G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller also wants Kotaku to only write about video games. Spanfeller Media Group ( SMG ), a subsidiary of publishing company Tribune Publishing, is a digital media company based in New York City. 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. Im kind of a tipsy at a bar in Paris, she added. Have a tip or story idea? When I followed up about the meeting the next day with Spanfeller, I was told it was canceled. Multiple people who worked for him at The Daily Meal (part of Spanfeller Media Group) told Deadspin that Spanfeller couldnt cede any control.

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