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. I had experience and confidence in the people who were hired. I found this troubling but was okay with it given the circumstances. tips@mediaite.com, Caleb Ecarma was a reporter at Mediaite. It also wasnt communicated to me as a promotion until the day it was emailed out to the company.. Ad revenue rebounded, Spanfeller told Insider last year. We have also learned the tech team has been asked to post the survey again. 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. At the time of publication, Carmichaels original tweet has been retweeted more than 300 times. [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. "We were a leftist site, not a liberal one, which gives you a sense of how closely Spanfeller followed our work," he said. Im shocked he would call that a good presentation, said the employee who was in the meeting. I hired Katie who accepted the job, he wrote. 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He did not answer a question about whether he was aware that a female VP was already leading west coast sales or that he installed a man (who also carries a VP title) above her. "I think that most media company CEOs probably are as involved as I am," Spanfeller said. This is the same thing that has also happened to Deadspin. The G/O Media union sent the following statement regarding the survey: The GMG Union has made repeated good-faith efforts to cooperate with management in resolving the many outstanding issues currently facing the company, from workplace accessibility to a video player that lacks viable metrics. ), The internal reaction to these hires has ranged from confusion to anger. 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. When confronted with this negative feedback, Spanfeller insisted that he cannot be sexist because he has daughters. 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. 3. Jim Spanfeller @JimSpanfeller Founder of http://TheDailyMeal.comand http://TheActiveTimes.com. 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. [10] Spanfeller was also responsible for advertising sales on the magazine's website and that of Yahoo! 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.. Spanfeller was hired by private equity firm Great Hill Partners to run the company after it was purchased from Univision. The Daily Meal was acquired by Tronc in 2016. Editorial director Paul Maidment, who worked with Spanfeller at Forbes and The Daily Meal. Enter Jim "Herb" Spanfeller. 2. The job, however, came with a condition, they said: Pontiuss first order of business would be to fire newsroom editorial director Susie Banikarim. His skin got bright red, she said. [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. 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. It was a welcome refrain for employees all too aware of how the company had languished under Univisions doomed ownership. 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. When pressed, Knight admitted the deadline may be unrealistic. Justice announced he was switching his party affiliation . 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. Its everything Ive wanted and more.. 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. 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. 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. Or to keep it anonymous, click here. "We needed to change a lot of things, and change is hard.". After two years of mainly working from home, the company wants everyone back in the office four days a week. 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. In April, the tech team was told to move the companys video operations off of MCP, which Univision paid for to host video content, and onto JW Player, a cheaper video system. I think it's all good," said Chris Gaffney, co-founder and managing partner at Great Hill. [5], In 1984, Spanfeller was named publisher of Newsweek On Campus magazine. That union's collective bargaining agreement expires in February. Steve Thompson, 55, was installed over a female vice president who had been running west coast sales for two and a half years. 15 Life Hacks That Are Actually Pretty Good 17,580. 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. 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. (G/O Medias Collective Bargaining Agreement contains a clause that explicitly states that editorial decisions can only be made by editorial staff members, which Spanfeller is not. Initially, we had to move fast because the company was losing money at a rapid pace, he said. 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. That union also opposes G/O Media's recent requirement to return to in-person work. (The other woman on the executive leadership team, general counsel Lynn Oberlander, left the company this week.) He also claimed to have hired four women for major roles though, one of these jobs has not been filled yet, as Spanfeller instead claims he plans to give it to a woman. Holle Abee (author) from Georgia on February 14, 2013: Duff performed at W's inauguration. 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. I intend to continue supervising the reporting process, including legal review, and then publish a thorough and fair story, which of course would include responses from people we spoke to. I was also hiring a good portion of these jobs before I actually took over day to day control of the company. 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, but Spanfeller is perhaps best known for dramatically increasing Forbes.coms focus on digital advertising (Spanfeller also previously served as chairman of the Interactive Advertising Bureau). My territory has been cut in half. Spanfeller responded that he would be happy to get together, but did not say anything about open roles. 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. G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller said the company would become "nicely profitable" by the end of the year, after it's been . A leading digital publisher producing category leaders The Daily Meal and The Active Times. I read that she's a registered Republican in Texas. At least have everybody well briefed on this is what were doing and this is what wed like to learn from it, Reibstein said. Sole dedication to revenue, getting it the cheapest, quickest way possible. Whats left of that company is currently called G/O Media. The next day she refused to join me in communicating our plans to Susie. This guy just seems like he doesnt like women, another added. Now that we are closer to stabilizing the companys finances, we can take even more time and be more deliberate in our hiring, which the SVP Talent is already doing.. 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. So Out of Touch: Gen Z Congressman-Elect Mocks RNC Tweet Criticizing Him For His Housing Woes. But after the staff meeting, sources say, members of the tech team held a meeting with Knight to explain why the date was unrealistic. [14] A subsequent Deadspin post mocked Spanfeller as a "herb"; after being widely shared on social media, G/O Media removed the post. They include: (Spanfeller declined to be interviewed in person but answered emailed questions. (10 is very satisfied, 1 is very unsatisfied); What do you like MOST about Deadspin? Former SVP of sales and operations Kurt Mueller had left the company, and McAvoy told the woman Spanfeller was hiring his replacement.
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