I think the thing thats most strange about it is that they didnt coordinate with the editorial side of the business. Page 1 of 9,554,641. Katie then refused to assume the HR lead role around other wider layoffs at the company. [He] wasnt interested in hearing what someone with 20 years of experience would say.. In other words, G/O media had effectively broken the redirect at Deadspin2.com, so that the site now redirected to a dead link. It was a welcome refrain for employees all too aware of how the company had languished under Univisions doomed ownership. 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. Sole dedication to revenue, getting it the cheapest, quickest way possible. But as Spanfeller began to implement his vision, that hope was replaced by employee frustration and skepticism over his hiring practices and interference with the companys journalism. 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. This particular set of troubles all started when private equity firm Great Hill Partners purchased GMG and hired Spanfeller, a former Forbes.com CEO, to guide the ship. Two are now successfully navigating careers in the digital advertising space. On July 25, a pop-up survey appeared on Deadspin asking three questions: How satisfied are you with Deadspin? [14] A subsequent Deadspin post mocked Spanfeller as a "herb"; after being widely shared on social media, G/O Media removed the post. Asked about the contract, Spanfeller responded, I firmly believe in editorial integrity. James J. Spanfeller serves as President & Chief Executive Officer of Forbes.com, a leading media Internet company, and as Executive Vice President of Electronic Publishing for . Jeremy Gordon Oct292019 03:41PM EST. Why Ketanji Brown Jackson Split With the Courts Liberals in a 54 Decision, the firing of beloved editor Barry Petchesky, According to Great Hill Partners website, increasingly insisted on directing editorial coverage. "There's been a lot of pain in this, but it's worth it to get properties that are as great as these properties are," Spanfeller said of G/O's 11 publications, which include Gizmodo, Jezebel, The Onion, Lifehacker, The Root, and Kotaku. All rights reserved. I realized that I wasnt communicating my advocacy for the department or our initiatives to upper management and other departments back to the team clearly enough. 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 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. pretty big scoop from me Jim Spanfeller is a herb https://t.co/gZDCs6mfhC. During Jim Spanfeller's younger years, he lived in Pennsylvania and recieved his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1952 from the Philladelphia Academy of the Fine Arts. Laura M. Browning and Caitlin PenzeyMoog, the A.V. At the time of publication, Carmichaels original tweet has been retweeted more than 300 times. Mr. Rich, who will report to G/O Media Chief Executive Jim Spanfeller, . According to multiple sources inside the company, the post even joined the leading posts from official G/O sites on the big board, a large screen in the companys New York headquarters that displays that moments most highly trafficked storiesan unusual feat for a user-generated post. Spanfellers all-staff email went on to accuse Deadspins staff of bias and cast doubt on the motives behind the story. Unlike private equity investors who financially engineer acquisitions, burdening companies they buy with debt and massive . No media company does. 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. There are regions that were within my scope of responsibilities and within my role that I cannot call on and neither can my team.. 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. 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. In the midst of the fallout, former Deadspin, Gawker, and Jezebel editor Emma Carmichael had a spirited discussion with [former Jezebel writer] Clio Chang on the overwhelming herbishness of Jim Spanfeller, she told me over the phone. 2. 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. That is clearly evident when you note the poor syntax and galling bias of the questions. I am and will continue to be a very strong advocate for my team.. Well keep fighting for whats right. G/O Media sites generated about 45.7 million unique visitors in October, according to Comscore, down from 47.8 million in October 2020 and 101.6 million in October 2019, right before the Deadspin exodus. The post was so popular, in fact, that it apparently gained the attention and ire of Spanfeller himself (perhaps partially due to the fact that someone registered Deadspin2.com and set it to redirect to Carmichaels post). When she tried to edit the post, she was greeted by the following image: Attempts to create a new post were similarly thwarted. Youre not qualified. 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. Use this information as you see fit. Stay up to date with what you want to know. The VP, who said she now reports to Thompson, said all of her previous reviews from her managers have exceeded expectations, and that she was able to more than double revenue for my region in less than a year. Email him here: caleb@mediaite.com G/O Media shuttered its politics site, Splinter, in 2019. That is absurd. tips@mediaite.com, Caleb Ecarma was a reporter at Mediaite. The company is also on the hunt for acquisitions, according to Spanfeller. He is currently the CEO of G/O Media which consists primarily of sites that were previously part of Gawker Media. Mr. Spanfeller has a BA in English Literature from Union College, Schenectady, New York. "There's a fly and he's a swatter, and that's it," the former executive said. In addition to the annoying ads, G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller also wants Kotaku to only write about video games. 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. Indeed, two former G/O Media staffers blasted Spanfeller for being stingy with resources. 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. Steve Riley on February 14, 2013: Just right off the bat. 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. Before we go any further, I feel compelled to acknowledge that nearly everything about this item is a conflict of interest. []. Initially, we had to move fast because the company was losing money at a rapid pace, he 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. Throughout his career he has recieved more than 60 awards for his work from such . A source at the company familiar with the situation said Thompsons hire had been flagged to upper management as a potential problem. Spanfeller told Insider that G/O Media plans to reinvest the profits into the business. 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. When people came in with good ideas they were rejected., A woman who was hired at The Daily Meal after responding to a Craigslist post said she was once asked to write a story about a companys earnings, which she felt she wasnt qualified to write and for which she didnt receive guidance from her editors. I am a father of three wonderful woman. Multiple sources say Pontius declined to go along with the plan, angering Spanfeller. But after the staff meeting, sources say, members of the tech team held a meeting with Knight to explain why the date was unrealistic. According to sources familiar with the situation, the Onions union sent a letter to Spanfeller asking that he help provide a plan for the site and fill the vacuum left by top leadership. According to sources familiar with the situation, the tech team was instructed by Knight, who was directed by Spanfeller, to push out the survey without consent from anyone in editorial.
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