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. All contents 2023 The Slate Group LLC. That is absurd. They include: (Spanfeller declined to be interviewed in person but answered emailed questions. [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". The post, published Tuesday evening, proved wildly popular on Twitter. Spanfeller was hired by private equity firm Great Hill Partners to run the company after it was purchased from Univision. 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.. In addition to clichs like we are ambitious and be passionate and have fun, the fifth value on the list said, We will be at our best when we embrace many different perspectives and experiences. [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. 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 told Insider that G/O Media plans to reinvest the profits into the business. Then, in early June, former Onion CEO Mike McAvoy, whountil he was separated from the company on July 11had been leading sales across all the sites, told the SVP that Spanfeller had hired two new sales leaders, Flanagan and Thompson. (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. (Though the source spoke in great detail about her experience, she requested her name not be used because she didnt want it to affect her future employment opportunities.) Fuck Jim Spanfeller and Paul Maidment. But after the staff meeting, sources say, members of the tech team held a meeting with Knight to explain why the date was unrealistic. LinkedIn is the world's largest business network, helping professionals like Jim Spanfeller discover inside connections to recommended . The detection of possible errors in a person's voter record as well as instructions on how to update it. Endnotes [1] Statement from G/O Media: "Some reports have miscast Jim Spanfeller as a private equity businessman when, in fact, he has spent his entire career in editorial-driven businesses. Who doesnt like uncompromising commentary or sports stories you couldnt find anywhere else? Other top employees who have left the company since the start of Spanfellers reign include former A.V. They are parti pris, which is why the overwhelming majority do not do so and many will not even report on rivals for the same reason. We have also learned the tech team has been asked to post the survey again. 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. G/O Media workers went on strike today in part to protect remote work. tips@mediaite.com, Caleb Ecarma was a reporter at Mediaite. "People are scared of him. Three and a half hours later, Maidment sent an email to Greenwell and me with the subject line, Reporting on ourselves. The body of the message read: This is a tradition that makes no sense. 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. I found this troubling but was okay with it given the circumstances. It was a welcome refrain for employees all too aware of how the company had languished under Univisions doomed ownership. 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. He sits on the Board of Directors of The New York Chapter of The National Foundation for Teaching . It also wasnt communicated to me as a promotion until the day it was emailed out to the company.. From a womans perspective, I did feel very belittled. Mr. Rich, who will report to G/O Media Chief Executive Jim Spanfeller, . I hold myself to a high regard and ensuring that Im respectful to others and create a community of camaraderie, hire for diversity, and that there is a work life balance, she told Deadspin. Who even told you you were allowed to think about audience? the woman alleged. 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. [9], In 1996, Spanfeller left his job at Inc., where he had become publisher, to become publisher of Yahoo! Nearly two dozen current G/O Media employees spoke to Deadspin for this story. In other words, G/O media had effectively broken the redirect at Deadspin2.com, so that the site now redirected to a dead link. The confusion stems from a lack of communication. 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. 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. Email him here: caleb@mediaite.com They requested anonymity to speak candidly but their identities are known to Insider. Spanfeller said the company hopes to expand into areas like travel, music, business, and news. 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. "From the outset, CEO Jim Spanfeller has worked to undermine a successful site by curtailing its most well-read coverage because it makes him personally uncomfortable," the Gizmodo Media Group . Mad Money Twitter - Jim . 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. 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. [] While it is what we did at Forbes that has nothing to do with the reason to do it here. Having done it at Forbes, I simply knew it could be done quickly and with incremental value to the company.. [10] Spanfeller was also responsible for advertising sales on the magazine's website and that of Yahoo! The sales employee (who is not an SVP) wasnt surprised to hear that Spanfeller didnt know what she did. I am a father of three wonderful woman, Spanfeller wrote in a statement. 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. 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. Or knowledgeable writers?, Asked about the survey, Rogers said he thinks its responses will accurately and fully reflect Deadspin readers opinions of the site. . James J. Spanfeller Jr. is an American media executive best known for running Forbes.com from 2001-2009. I was sorry and that is accurate, he said. 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. Asked about the meeting, Knight initially didnt answer. In a follow-up meeting with Spanfeller about the story, she suggested that hard financial data might not be their audiences central interest. 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. Asked for a response to the latter allegation, Spanfeller responded, That is absurd. 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 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 expect to be treated the way I treat people., This pattern played out three more times in Spanfellers first few months as CEO. 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. In the email, Spanfeller said he was "greatly concerned about the objectivity and core intentions of this piece," and questioned the editorial standards of Deadspin's editors. It laid off 14 staffers in the summer of 2020. Great Hill Partners is a growth equity company committed to building businesses. Clubs executive editor and managing editor, respectively, stepped down on July 12. 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. Which he would do by turning Deadspin into a sports-only website. Jim Spanfeller Biography. I had experience and confidence in the people who were hired. The Daily Meal was acquired by Tronc in 2016. 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. View Jim Spanfeller's professional profile on LinkedIn. Email us. 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. Two other major jobs Spanfeller gave to women include his new head of talent and deputy counsel, which were both outside hires; he did give a promotion to one woman, who he made deputy editorial director. Views. Spanfeller declined to answer a question about whether he expressed these sentiments to Klancnik. I think it's all good," said Chris Gaffney, co-founder and managing partner at Great Hill. (The other woman on the executive leadership team, general counsel Lynn Oberlander, left the company this week.) 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 each site. 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. The digital media and blogging network, which oversees websites like Deadspin, Gizmodo, Jezebel, A.V. 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. Ad revenue rebounded, Spanfeller told Insider last year. 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. 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. My territory has been cut in half. 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. pretty big scoop from me Jim Spanfeller is a herb https://t.co/gZDCs6mfhC. 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. 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. 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. The JW Player was an interim step, Spanfeller said. 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.