jim spanfeller political affiliation jim spanfeller political affiliation

They cant even pitch effectively, said another employee who was present. 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. In early April, Great Hill Partners, a private-equity firm, acquired Gizmodo Media Groupa collection of sites, formed from the assets of the old Gawker, that included Jezebel, Lifehacker, and Deadspinas well as The Onion, a satirical news site, reportedly at a fire-sale price.The company, renamed G/O Media, installed Jim Spanfeller, formerly of Forbes.com, Playboy, and Ziff Davis, as CEO. 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. Spanfeller said he did not recall the specific request. Who even told you you were allowed to think about audience?, My management was straight-up scared of him, said a staffer who worked at the site for two years and had responsibilities on both the editorial and marketing sides of the company. The company is also on the hunt for acquisitions, according to Spanfeller. 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. 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 I was also hiring a good portion of these jobs before I actually took over day to day control of the company. Views. This is normal in situations like these where a new group is coming in and is facing a near term challenge.. 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. 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. (Spanfeller denies this claim.). I had experience and confidence in the people who were hired. As for the content of the survey, Reibstein said it is possible to read it as innocent, a way to attempt to gauge customer satisfaction, as its known in the marketing industry. Vacillating Wildly From Dispiriting to Exhilarating. Asked about the former employees accounts, Spanfeller said he has no idea what this refers to and it is not my recollection of working at The Daily Meal, adding that he doesnt recall screaming at anyone. 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.". Multiple people who worked for him at The Daily Meal (part of Spanfeller Media Group) told Deadspin that Spanfeller couldnt cede any control. (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.) Spanfeller said no one told him that a female VP was already successfully performing that job before he hired Thompson. 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. 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. 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 . Asked about the meeting, Knight initially didnt answer. [9], In 1996, Spanfeller left his job at Inc., where he had become publisher, to become publisher of Yahoo! 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. But after the staff meeting, sources say, members of the tech team held a meeting with Knight to explain why the date was unrealistic. The job, however, came with a condition, they said: Pontiuss first order of business would be to fire newsroom editorial director Susie Banikarim. "We remain optimistic that our labor will be taken into consideration as this period of financial promise collides with a time that has been particularly rough on morale," the Onion Union statement said. 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. Asked for a response to the latter allegation, Spanfeller responded, That is absurd. 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! 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. 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. The CEO alleged. 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. 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. Search over 95 Million Voter Registration Records. My territory has been cut in half. 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. Ultimately, the issue of building a wall has raised political risk, Cramer said. They requested anonymity to speak candidly but their identities are known to Insider. I was sorry and that is accurate, he said. 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. Spanfeller told Insider that G/O Media plans to reinvest the profits into the business. The Daily Meal was acquired by Tronc in 2016. It wasnt collaborative.. 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. 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. The private equity firm was able to snap up the deal for only about $25 million, according to a person with direct knowledge of the figure. The other is still in college.. 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. Details may include related records, political party, location, and more. 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.. Spanfeller said he asked for the survey; Rogers said he wrote it; and editorial director Paul Maidment said he didnt approve it, but he told Deadspin editor-in-chief Megan Greenwell that he did not attempt to stop it from running on the site when he was filled in shortly before it was scheduled to go up. Jim Justice speaks during President Donald Trump's political rally inside the Big Sandy Superstore Arena in Huntington on Thursday. Before he started full time in early June, Flanagan was brought in as a consultant just after Spanfeller took over G/O Media. 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. G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller said the company would become "nicely profitable" by the end of the year, after it's been . 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. 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 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. Ad revenue rebounded, Spanfeller told Insider last year. The detection of possible errors in a person's voter record as well as instructions on how to update it. (10 is very satisfied, 1 is very unsatisfied); What do you like MOST about Deadspin? In an email, Flanagan disagreed with those assessments: Simply not true. She asked McAvoy, then her immediate supervisor, for the opportunity to interview for the position, citing her leadership of the revenue division, her construction of a diverse team, and her renown in the industry. 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. Two are now successfully navigating careers in the digital advertising space. 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.". Everything theyve done in reaction to it is the herbiest shit I could possibly imagine. No media company does. "You can write a blog, just don't publish them here.". At the same time we are still exploring all options to get this work done by August 15th.. On July 25, a pop-up survey appeared on Deadspin asking three questions: How satisfied are you with Deadspin? 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. 12-Year-Old Prankster Throws Dead Snake on Woman's Car and Gets Flattened by Husband 15,743. Spanfeller also said that he did not ask Katie to fire Susie, only to be in the room while I had the conversation about Susies future with the company., Spanfeller ended up firing Banikarim himself, and then, months later, hiring Angela Persaud for the chief talent officer job after a public search. The JW Player was an interim step, Spanfeller said. [14] A subsequent Deadspin post mocked Spanfeller as a "herb"; after being widely shared on social media, G/O Media removed the post. Employees across editorial, sales, and tech have left, but many of these positions, even mission-critical ones, have not been filled. I Close-Read the 113-Page Complaint Trying to Ban the Abortion Pill in Texas. We have no credibility in writing about ourselves. In reality, this story started with a tip the site received about Spanfellers hiring practices, and grew from there thanks to sources accounts. Jim Rich, the former top editor of the New York Daily News, will start as editor-in-chief of Deadspin on Monday. Having done it at Forbes, I simply knew it could be done quickly and with incremental value to the company.. That is absurd. (The other woman on the executive leadership team, general counsel Lynn Oberlander, left the company this week.) 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. 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. 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 expect to be treated the way I treat people., This pattern played out three more times in Spanfellers first few months as CEO. There are regions that were within my scope of responsibilities and within my role that I cannot call on and neither can my team.. Spanfeller said that he wasnt preventing, just delaying analytics from being implemented, on the grounds that its not particularly useful information at the moment. (The day after Deadspin contacted Spanfeller for comment, the tech team was given the green light to roll out video analytics. 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. G/O Media, from a business perspective, has turned a corner, Spanfeller says. Justice announced he was switching his party affiliation . It was placed there without consultation or even simple communication to anyone on Deadspins staff. Never mind the recent exodus of company leadership under his tenure, including the editorial director, chief financial officer, and chief revenue officer. These conversations reveal that Spanfellers biggest effect on the company since taking over has been a deflation of morale. tips@mediaite.com, Caleb Ecarma was a reporter at Mediaite. 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. He would stop into peoples offices with the doors open and scream at them, so everyone knew what was going on., 5. "There's a fly and he's a swatter, and that's it," the former executive said. I think it's all good," said Chris Gaffney, co-founder and managing partner at Great Hill. Meanwhile, many people who are still at the company feel their work is being hindered by new management. James J. Spanfeller is president of The Spanfeller Group, a management consultancy focusing on digital strategy, audience development, revenue acceleration and talent acquisition. Jim Spanfeller, 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. Jim characterized that as a misunderstanding, she said. 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. DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION are core to our culture, and we expect all staff to advance and promote that. Heartened, the SVP emailed Spanfeller to remind him of their meeting in April and express her hope that women, people of color, and people who identify as LGBTQ would be considered as he hired his leadership team, and to say that she looked forward to discussing her role in the organization. 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. It is ridiculous to launch a management survey questioning the editorial value of the site. 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. I found this troubling but was okay with it given the circumstances. For instance, Rogers, who sits in a corner office in New York, still hasnt been formally announced as a new employee internally or externally, and sources who work in sales say its unclear what his job description is, though he evidently has plenty of time to contribute to Forbes, where he posted 14 articles in July. 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.. To hear G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller tell it, everything at his digital media company is going great. "You're not a 'blogger,' you're a professional journalist. 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 . We have also learned the tech team has been asked to post the survey again. The post, published Tuesday evening, proved wildly popular on Twitter. Mr. McAvoy was clear to me on his opinion that he did not think she was the right choice at this time, Spanfeller said. His skin got bright red, she said. [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". When confronted with this negative feedback, Spanfeller insisted that he cannot be sexist because he has daughters. Jim Spanfeller . Think Youre Smarter Than a What Next Producer? 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. It also wasnt communicated to me as a promotion until the day it was emailed out to the company.. Two are now successfully navigating careers in the digital advertising space. "People are scared of him. Club executive editor Laura M. Browning and former A.V. 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. 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. They include: (Spanfeller declined to be interviewed in person but answered emailed questions. 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. Who doesnt like uncompromising commentary or sports stories you couldnt find anywhere else? The person hired was Bruce Rogers, who most recently ran the institute arm of SITO Mobile, a mobile data company. Spanfeller admitted he contacted Maidment in June after receiving my initial email requesting an interview. 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 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. All contents 2023 The Slate Group LLC. Editorial director Paul Maidment, who worked with Spanfeller at Forbes and The Daily Meal. Indeed, two former G/O Media staffers blasted Spanfeller for being stingy with resources. 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 . 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. 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. ), This isnt the first time Spanfeller has been accused of micromanaging. During those meetings, Maidments ideaswhich included commissioning an editor outside the company to review and approve stories written by about the companywere met with unanimous opposition. [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. 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. Its hard to imagine what one would not like on that list of items, Reibstein said of the third question. He sits on the Board of Directors of The New York Chapter of The National Foundation for Teaching . He is currently the CEO of G/O Media which consists primarily of sites that were previously part of Gawker Media. Additionally, Jim Spanfeller has had 6 past jobs including CEO at Forbes. 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. Unlike private equity investors who financially engineer acquisitions, burdening companies they buy with debt and massive . The former staff of Splinter later launched the worker-owned Discourse Blog. 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. From a womans perspective, I did feel very belittled. 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. 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. Follow him on Twitter here: @calebecarma. 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. Most recently, after the latest edict that Deadspin stick to sports, its writers revolted, and Spanfeller retaliated by firing the top-ranking employee, Petchesky (Deadspins latest editor-in-chief, Megan Greenwell quit in August for many of the reasons described above). 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. 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. 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. 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,. Other top employees who have left the company since the start of Spanfellers reign include former A.V. "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. G/O Media workers went on strike today in part to protect remote work. 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. 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. 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. Where people are registered to vote. [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. Never mind that employees called for his resignation last year. 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. He started screaming at me, Who told you you were allowed to speak about audience? Political affiliation. Great Hill Partners and current CEO Jim Spanfeller, formerly of Forbes, bought these sites and the Onion from Univision Communications Inc. in April. 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. Jim Spanfeller has 2 current jobs as Founder at The Daily Meal and Chief Executive Officer at G/O Media. 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. In a follow-up meeting with Spanfeller about the story, she suggested that hard financial data might not be their audiences central interest. 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. Find Out With This Weeks News Quiz. Clashes between the Gawker Media editorial culture and the company's new private equity owner seemed inevitable from the start. 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. 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.