Im sorry that Mike didnt more clearly convey the information to me., McAvoy said, Jim has a different recollection of the facts., The SVP said she told Spanfeller that she wasnt the only person who noticed this pattern of hiring his former colleagues over women at the company, and that he should be prepared to address it. 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. Voting precincts and districts. Like many media companies, G/O Media's advertising business was battered by the pandemic. He sent a message back about the importance of diversity and inclusion and a full hiring process. [12][13], In 2011, Spanfeller launched The Daily Meal with an estimated $2 million investment. 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. 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. 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. 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. Clubs executive editor and managing editor, respectively, stepped down on July 12. Ultimately, the issue of building a wall has raised political risk, Cramer said. I was also hiring a good portion of these jobs before I actually took over day to day control of the company. Or to keep it anonymous, click here. [] While it is what we did at Forbes that has nothing to do with the reason to do it here. (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.) My territory has been cut in half. Additionally, Jim Spanfeller has had 6 past jobs including CEO at Forbes. Jim characterized that as a misunderstanding, she said. [He] wasnt interested in hearing what someone with 20 years of experience would say.. Jim Spanfeller Biography. 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 . A voter's representatives in government. All contents 2023 The Slate Group LLC. Flanagan volunteered to go first, and what followed wasnt overwhelmingly inspiring, as one sales employee who was at the meeting put it: Flanagan read word for word what was on the slides, two people present confirmed. Well keep fighting for whats right. Search over 95 Million Voter Registration Records. [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. While Carmichael was on a plane to Paris, I discovered that G/O had changed her accounts URL from emma.kinja.com to lajskhclsahkchkad.kinja.com, while going to emma.kinja.com now redirects to the new URL, at the time of the change, it simply showed a broken page. Page 1 of 9,554,641. Two are now successfully navigating careers in the digital advertising space. 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. 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). The post, published Tuesday evening, proved wildly popular on Twitter. "The fact that we could acquire it at a price that would make it one of our smallest investments is that good or bad? James J. Spanfeller Jr. is an American media executive best known for running Forbes.com from 2001-2009. We shall have a discussion on the policy at the next EiCs leads meeting. [5], In 1984, Spanfeller was named publisher of Newsweek On Campus magazine. Jim Justice speaks during President Donald Trump's political rally inside the Big Sandy Superstore Arena in Huntington on Thursday. in English Literature in 1979 and went to work as a reporter for the SoHo Weekly News. McAvoy told her she would be able to interview for a bigger role, she said, only to follow up a few weeks later and say that Rogers had been hired. 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. Nearly two dozen current G/O Media employees spoke to Deadspin for this story. 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. 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. G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller says the company is profitable and ready Political affiliation. Celebrities Who Are Republicans/Conservatives - HubPages James J. Spanfeller Jr. is an American media executive best known for running Forbes.com from 20012009. To hear G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller tell it, everything at his digital media company is going great. Jim Spanfeller - CEO - G/O Media | LinkedIn Youre not qualified. In one instance in which Spanfeller tried to promote a woman within the company, his offer came with strings attached. Before we go any further, I feel compelled to acknowledge that nearly everything about this item is a conflict of interest. Never mind the flood of negative stories about staff blowback over the company's editorial direction. Hes trying to micromanage, the tech employee said last week. LinkedIn is the world's largest business network, helping professionals like Jim Spanfeller discover inside connections to recommended . This is normal in situations like these where a new group is coming in and is facing a near term challenge.. That is absurd. I first emailed Spanfeller on June 24, early in my reporting process, telling him that I was working on a story about the new hires hed brought to G/O Media in his first few months. I read that she's a registered Republican in Texas. 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. Im shocked he would call that a good presentation, said the employee who was in the meeting. 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. 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. Another was more direct: Thats Jim wanting to be in control. (check all that apply); and What do you like LEAST about Deadspin? In the meantime, Carmichael had her own message for Spanfeller: Congratulations on confirming your herb-ishness.. Follow him on Twitter here: @calebecarma. 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. Spanfellers executive assistant set up a time for us to meet. 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. It's a culture of fear," said the first former employee, who added that staffers sometimes likened meetings with Spanfeller to the "boar on the floor" scene in HBO's "Succession," where media mogul Logan Roy orders his underlings to crawl and oink like pigs. "People are scared of him. Never mind that employees called for his resignation last year. He sits on the Board of Directors of The New York Chapter of The National Foundation for Teaching . 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. I had experience and confidence in the people who were hired. Once it became clear that the sales department was being restructured in Kurt Muellers absence, another female vice president, who had been at the company for four years, asked McAvoy in early June for the opportunity to be considered for an expanded sales role, providing examples to show her success at the company. These include a senior vice president of marketing who last week wrote a baffling reader satisfaction survey for Deadspin at Spanfellers behest; a sales executive who, sources say, appears unable to give an effective sales pitch; and an editorial director who repeatedly attempted to kill the reporting process for this story. 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. 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 . Deadspin Editor Quits, Rails Against Bosses: 'I've Been Repeatedly Lied As with any reporting process, we asked questions intending to incorporate the answers. 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. When I followed up about the meeting the next day with Spanfeller, I was told it was canceled. Email us. But after the staff meeting, sources say, members of the tech team held a meeting with Knight to explain why the date was unrealistic. [7], Spanfeller was named associate publisher and senior vice president of marketing of Playboy Enterprises in April 1989. 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. This guy just seems like he doesnt like women, another added. When asked if it was inaccurate, then, to say she had accepted the job, Spanfeller did not respond. As the former publisher of National Geographic, Mens Health & Maximmy successful presentation & leadership skills are evident.. I think the biggest problem was the leadership wouldnt get out of the way of everyone, one former employee told Deadspin. . Asked for a response to the latter allegation, Spanfeller responded, That is absurd. Jim Spanfeller @JimSpanfeller Founder of http://TheDailyMeal.comand http://TheActiveTimes.com. View Jim Spanfeller's professional profile on LinkedIn. Im not building a club, we are working to build a successful companyand that depends on great women and men.. Opinion | A clash of values at former Gawker Media sites There are regions that were within my scope of responsibilities and within my role that I cannot call on and neither can my team.. They requested anonymity to speak candidly but their identities are known to Insider. The four women who Spanfeller counts as major hires include two he hired (head of talent and deputy counsel); one he promoted from within to executive managing editor; and a yet-to-be-filled position he says he plans to offer to a woman. 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 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. About their hires, he wrote, I introduced Steve and Lance to Mike McAvoy, but I did not make the hires. 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. When Spanfeller Offered to Promote a Woman to a Top Position, He Insisted She Fire a Female Editorial Director Should She Accept the Job. 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. 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. The mess at G/O Media - Columbia Journalism Review He started screaming at me, Who told you you were allowed to speak about audience? Search over 95 Million Voter Registration Records 1. While the archived version of the post did not preserve the original images, you can view a PDF of the original post below. 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. "We were a leftist site, not a liberal one, which gives you a sense of how closely Spanfeller followed our work," he said. I was unclear about what she did. In an email, Flanagan disagreed with those assessments: Simply not true. [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. Jim Spanfeller Biography | Booking Info for Speaking Engagements It wasnt collaborative.. Think Youre Smarter Than a What Next Producer? Multiple people who worked for him at The Daily Meal (part of Spanfeller Media Group) told Deadspin that Spanfeller couldnt cede any control. 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.