Everything theyve done in reaction to it is the herbiest shit I could possibly imagine. Meanwhile, many people who are still at the company feel their work is being hindered by new management. The only person that I was aware of that was calling directly on clients was an SVP at The Onion and that was to sell creative services, he said. He would stop into peoples offices with the doors open and scream at them, so everyone knew what was going on., 5. 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. 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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.. In other words, G/O media had effectively broken the redirect at Deadspin2.com, so that the site now redirected to a dead link. Political affiliation means the state of belonging to or endorsing any political party. This guy just seems like he doesnt like women, another added. Political affiliation. Spanfeller admitted he contacted Maidment in June after receiving my initial email requesting an interview. 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. Ive reached out to Spanfeller for comment multiple times over the past few days and have yet to hear back. They cant even pitch effectively, said another employee who was present. Jim Spanfeller has 2 current jobs as Founder at The Daily Meal and Chief Executive Officer at G/O Media. Over the last few weeks, during their attempts to hinder or prevent the publication of this story, Maidment and Spanfeller invoked concerns about Deadspins credibility in covering G/O Media. 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 Media Group. 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. 12-Year-Old Prankster Throws Dead Snake on Woman's Car and Gets Flattened by Husband 15,743. When confronted with this negative feedback, Spanfeller insisted that he cannot be sexist because he has daughters. Jim has a different recollection of the facts, McAvoy reiterated. 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. I Close-Read the 113-Page Complaint Trying to Ban the Abortion Pill in Texas. This sites credibility is not dependent on who and what it reports on, but on its ability to report forcefully and accurately. 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. Answering a similar one, he seemed to contradict himself: This concern was expressed to me and I take it very seriously. The digital media and blogging network, which oversees websites like Deadspin, Gizmodo, Jezebel, A.V. Spanfeller accused writers and editors of acting in bad faith based on a list of questions submitted to him before publication and the fact that a draft of the article had been sent for legal. 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. View details on more than 95 Million registered voters across the United States. Im kind of a tipsy at a bar in Paris, she added. 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. 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. "We have billions of dollars available to go out and buy and make this a bigger company, and that would really be our desire," Gaffney said. 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. Six of these hires were Spanfellers colleagues from his previous jobs at Forbes, Playboy, and Ziff Davis. 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 think that most media company CEOs probably are as involved as I am," Spanfeller said. The job, however, came with a condition, they said: Pontiuss first order of business would be to fire newsroom editorial director Susie Banikarim. 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. 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 . The detection of possible errors in a person's voter record as well as instructions on how to update it. Sole dedication to revenue, getting it the cheapest, quickest way possible. [14] A subsequent Deadspin post mocked Spanfeller as a "herb"; after being widely shared on social media, G/O Media removed the post. I can see why. All rights reserved. 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. "We closed Splinter because it was a liberal political site that was losing audience in the middle of a liberal moment," he said. Oh my God, thats so funny, Carmichael said when I informed her of this latest development. And he made sure to make it clear that I just didnt get it in his mind that I just didnt get this whole digital thing, she said. 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. The differences were as granular as whether to call published pieces "blogs" or "stories." 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 company is also on the hunt for acquisitions, according to Spanfeller. 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. On July 9, he hired Faiza Javaid as deputy general counsel, a position that was posted publicly. (The people I work for and the people who report to me know what I do, Rogers, 63, told Deadspin in an email.). Jim Justice speaks during President Donald Trump's political rally inside the Big Sandy Superstore Arena in Huntington on Thursday. [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". 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,. A week after Spanfeller insisted to Variety that 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. 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 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 the same time, working with the EICs to set a general editorial direction is clearly in the purview of any owner.). Justice announced he was switching his party affiliation . 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. 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 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. 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.. 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. In conversations with Deadspin, more than 20 employees from across the business, tech, and editorial departments of 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. G/O is still wracked with internal tensions ahead of contract negotiations with one of its editorial unions. 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. Spanfeller, who became head of the digital media company when GMG was purchased by private equity firm Great Hill Partners, told staff that he expected the site's direct advertising to "take the. It definitely feels like its the old boys club, a G/O Media employee told Deadspin. Amid the chaos, someone edited Spanfeller's Wikipedia entry to read, "Jim Spanfeller is a fart-faced fascist best known for running Forbes.com from 2001-2009." (That language has since . Spanfeller said he did not recall the specific request. 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. 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. These men, and others who now hold C-suite positions at the company, were each hired without a public recruitment process, and several were installed over high-ranking women who had been successfully performing those jobs at the company for years. Multiple employees on the tech team say the chief technology officer, Jesse Knight, has repeatedly shown himself unable or unwilling to stand up to Spanfeller and advocate for his team and best practice standards. The key journalistic properties descended from . In late July, more than a month after the womans conversation with Spanfeller (and after the Daily Beast and New York Post published stories about his rocky early days at the company and he became aware of the reporting process for this story about his hiring practices), that same VP was given what management called a promotion, which Spanfeller noted in his responses to Deadspin, saying that she has been promoted to VP Marketing under Bruce Rogers with wider responsibilities., I am at the same level and performing the same duties now as I was before I got this supposed promotion, the VP said. The two former staffers described Spanfeller as a micromanager who insists on approving minor budget items and sitting in on meetings far beneath his level, like editorial audience meetings with. Reverse Phone Search Tool And much more all for free! Search over 95 Million Voter Registration Records. 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. He said the company was just profitable before the pandemic hit its business, and is now comfortably back in the black. "You can write a blog, just don't publish them here.". 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. In 1964, Spanfeller recieved the title of Artist of the Year from the Artists Guild of New York. 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. G/O Media, the company which ran Deadspin, was acquired by the private equity group Great Hill Partners, which installed Spanfeller as CEO and gave him one mission: Make them richer. Spanfeller said the company hopes to expand into areas like travel, music, business, and news. Spanfeller says Pontius accepted the job, but he decided she was not a good fit for this position after Pontius refused to join me in communicating our plans to fire Banikarim. 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. New York City. 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 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. Sources say that on the tech side of the company, Spanfeller has taken to micromanaging various aspects of developers work, holding meetings to ask what each one is working on, demanding detailed accounts of how they spend their working days, and mandating various projects based on his work at Forbes in the mid-2000s.

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