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. It wasnt collaborative.. Club, and Splinter, was purchased by the firm in April, along with the satirical news site The Onion, which led to a massive shift in the companys culture and considerable turnover in the top ranks or, as one G/O Media employee put it, Spanfeller has brought in a bunch of white dudes to change the company. It will post an eight-figure operating profit this year, he told Insider, and hunt for acquisitions in 2022. Head of The Onion, Deadspin sued for sex discrimination - New York Post 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. 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. 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. [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". Where people are registered to vote. 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. 12-Year-Old Prankster Throws Dead Snake on Woman's Car and Gets Flattened by Husband 15,743. Youre not qualified. 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. 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. Indeed, two former G/O Media staffers blasted Spanfeller for being stingy with resources. 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. The differences were as granular as whether to call published pieces "blogs" or "stories." Answering a similar one, he seemed to contradict himself: This concern was expressed to me and I take it very seriously. Another former Daily Meal staffer said that management was straight-up scared of Spanfeller, adding, I can see why. Who even told you you were allowed to think about audience? the woman alleged. But those efforts did not go very far, the people said, and the company has yet to mount a takeover. The sales employee (who is not an SVP) wasnt surprised to hear that Spanfeller didnt know what she did. 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. 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. 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. 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. G/O Media, from a business perspective, has turned a corner, Spanfeller says. 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. 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. Jim Spanfeller Biography. 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. They requested anonymity to speak candidly but their identities are known to Insider. Spanfeller did offer to promote one female employee, former chief of staff for The Onion Katie Pontius, and make her the companys head of talent, but the position fell through after he demanded that she fire newsroom editorial director Susie Banikarimas her first management move, which Pontius refused, according to sources who spoke to Deadspin. A source said Spanfeller told editors-in-chief of the companys websites that he had chosen Maidment, 68, for the job before the sale was completed and did not interview other candidates, including Banikarim. So put this piece on ice. [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. 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. Have a tip we should know? 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 Daily Meal was acquired by Tronc in 2016. Never mind the flood of negative stories about staff blowback over the company's editorial direction. [10] Spanfeller was also responsible for advertising sales on the magazine's website and that of Yahoo! Find Out With This Weeks News Quiz. (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.) It is also worth noting that multiple internal candidates have expressed interest in the position of EIC of the A/V Club. The Onion union declined to comment, but a source with knowledge of the situation disputed that the union demanded promotions, saying its letter demanded action and used the words We ask for the following when addressing promotions. My territory has been cut in half. 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. She said Spanfeller didnt have many questions for her, describing him as apathetic. Spanfeller seemed not to recall this interaction, telling Deadspin that the sales team was not covering direct clients.. Club managing editor Caitlin PenzeyMoog, who both resigned on July 12. New York City. And as the only woman on the previous revenue leadership team, I started to wonder if women were being considered for leadership roles. Indeed, Spanfeller told Deadspin that he first contacted Rogers about the job on June 11. 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. Takeaways From Deadspin's Expos of G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller 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 . When confronted with this negative feedback, Spanfeller insisted that he cannot be sexist because he has daughters. 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 . 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. Spanfellers executive assistant set up a time for us to meet. 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. This is normal in situations like these where a new group is coming in and is facing a near term challenge.. [12][13], In 2011, Spanfeller launched The Daily Meal with an estimated $2 million investment. Jim Spanfeller . 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. 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. Nearly two dozen current G/O Media employees spoke to Deadspin for this story. 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. 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. 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 . 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 .
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