In reality, this story started with a tip the site received about Spanfellers hiring practices, and grew from there thanks to sources accounts. 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. After two years of mainly working from home, the company wants everyone back in the office four days a week. I think it's all good," said Chris Gaffney, co-founder and managing partner at Great Hill. While G/O Media has often placed importance on diversity among their staff and in their coverage, these executive-level jobs went to white males. Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise. The CEO alleged. As for why that move was never announced, Spanfeller told Deadspin he believed Mike McAvoy would announce Rogers arrival, even though Spanfeller hired Rogers and he has announced other hires across the company since taking over. Reverse Phone Search Tool And much more all for free! James J. Spanfeller Jr. is an American media executive best known for running Forbes.com from 2001-2009. I had experience and confidence in the people who were hired. G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller: Company Will Be Profitable by - Insider The tech team managed to execute the move in about a month, but before they had finished, Spanfeller changed course and decided that the developers should build an entirely new video platform and player from scratch, explaining the decision by saying that that was what he did at Forbes, according to employees involved. 20 Employees Complained to Deadspin About Spanfellers Management, After interviewing nearly two dozen employees, Deadspin found that 20 people who work for G/O Media expressed frustration with Spanfellers approach to hiring and his new executives lack of knowledge about the company combined with their seeming unwillingness or inability to get up to speed.. 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,. Two are now successfully navigating careers in the digital advertising space. Or to keep it anonymous, click here. In other words, G/O media had effectively broken the redirect at Deadspin2.com, so that the site now redirected to a dead link. A leading digital publisher producing category leaders The Daily Meal and The Active Times. 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. Its hard to imagine what one would not like on that list of items, Reibstein said of the third question. 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. 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.. Search over 95 Million Voter Registration Records Employees across editorial, sales, and tech have left, but many of these positions, even mission-critical ones, have not been filled. Everyone can seeit on the pageor at least, everyone could see it before the censorship. Clubs executive editor and managing editor, respectively, stepped down on July 12. 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. 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. He is currently the CEO of G/O Media which consists primarily of sites that were previously part of Gawker Media. These vacant roles have yet to be filled and Spanfeller has not announced an interim editor. 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. That the story has been submitted for legal review without the benefit of our responses leads me to the conclusion that the piece is already fully written and that our responses to questions are mere window dressing. Meanwhile, many people who are still at the company feel their work is being hindered by new management. 15 Life Hacks That Are Actually Pretty Good 17,580. The confusion stems from a lack of communication. As the former publisher of National Geographic, Mens Health & Maximmy successful presentation & leadership skills are evident.. 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. 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. In addition to the removal of the post itself, Carmichael also discovered that shes now unable to use her personal Kinja account at all. 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. On Glassdoor, a website where current and former employees can submit anonymous reviews of their workplaces, reviews of The Daily Meal are overwhelmingly negative. (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.) Maidment never responded to my questions directly; the first time I saw his answers was when they were included in Spanfellers company-wide email, but he had this to say about his role in the newsroom: I have always shielded the editorial teams I have managed from commercial or business-side interference in what they write, which to my mind is the essence of editorial integrity. Details may include related records, political party, location, and more. While the archived version of the post did not preserve the original images, you can view a PDF of the original post below. 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. (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. It has introduced real uncertainty in to stocks, and Trump's agenda has become shaky. At the same time, working with the EICs to set a general editorial direction is clearly in the purview of any owner.). What Spanfeller says is normal is, of course, a reflection of his own values, which evidently rank transparency, diversity, and inclusion as secondary concerns to financial success. Voting precincts and districts. Spanfeller was hired by private equity firm Great Hill Partners to run the company after it was purchased from Univision. On July 30, the day after I emailed reporting questions to Spanfeller, Maidment, Rogers, Jesse Knight, and Sean Flanagan, Spanfeller sent a company-wide email under the subject line Reporting on Ourselves; Deadspin Reporting On The Company and Our Executives. In the email, excerpts of which were published by media reporters from the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, Spanfeller voiced his opinion on how coverage of the company should work: I believe the solution is to have that reporting reviewed by an impartial outside editor a Public Editor, if you will [] and not just for these situations but for any situation where someone within or without the company has issues with our coverage or reporting. Below are some of the biggest revelations outlined in Deadspins roughly 7,000 word report on their parent company and its new management, which they spoke to nearly two dozen G/O Media employees for. Two are now successfully navigating careers in the digital advertising space. 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. 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. Opinion | A clash of values at former Gawker Media sites Spanfeller, who became head of the digital media company when GMG was purchased by private equity firm Great Hill Partners, told staff that he expected the site's direct advertising to "take the. Text. Just two weeks after Spanfeller and Great Hill acquired the company, and less than a week after he said in an interview with Variety that he didnt expect any layoffs, Spanfeller fired 25 people across the 400-person company, including Susie Banikarim, GMGs widely respected editorial director, and the only person of color on the executive leadership team at the time. Im not building a club, we are working to build a successful companyand that depends on great women and men.. It was four days old. "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. The employees, nearly all of whom requested anonymity because of fears of retaliation from company management, are angered by a lack of communication regarding company goals, seeming disregard for promoting diversity within the top ranks of the company, and by repeated and egregious interference with editorial procedures. Before we go any further, I feel compelled to acknowledge that nearly everything about this item is a conflict of interest. A source at the company familiar with the situation said Thompsons hire had been flagged to upper management as a potential problem. 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.