Im kind of a tipsy at a bar in Paris, she added. That union also opposes G/O Media's recent requirement to return to in-person work. In addition to the annoying ads, G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller also wants Kotaku to only write about video games. Im not building a club, we are working to build a successful companyand that depends on great women and men.. He is currently the CEO of G/O Media which consists primarily of sites that were previously part of Gawker Media.
Ex-Deadspin EIC Jim Rich resigns in latest turmoil at G/O Media She said Spanfeller told her that he was unaware of what she did at the company, and that she replied: That doesnt help, because that says you not only didnt know what I did, but you also had no interest in meeting the only woman on the revenue leadership team who is an SVP who has been successful, according to meeting her revenue and finance goals. She said the conversation ended with Spanfeller saying, Im sorry, I dont know what else you want me to say., Spanfeller confirmed the womans account to Deadspin. Unlike private equity investors who financially engineer acquisitions, burdening companies they buy with debt and massive . Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. Spanfeller admitted he contacted Maidment in June after receiving my initial email requesting an interview. A voter's representatives in government. LinkedIn is the world's largest business network, helping professionals like Jim Spanfeller discover inside connections to recommended . Amid the chaos, someone edited Spanfeller's Wikipedia entry to read, "Jim Spanfeller is a fart-faced fascist best known for running Forbes.com from 2001-2009." (That language has since .
Deadspin's entire editorial staff is gone - The Washington Post The private equity firm was able to snap up the deal for only about $25 million, according to a person with direct knowledge of the figure. Spanfeller said he did not recall the specific request. Never mind the flood of negative stories about staff blowback over the company's editorial direction. Spanfellers all-staff email went on to accuse Deadspins staff of bias and cast doubt on the motives behind the story. These vacant roles have yet to be filled and Spanfeller has not announced an interim editor. That union's collective bargaining agreement expires in February. [9], In 1996, Spanfeller left his job at Inc., where he had become publisher, to become publisher of Yahoo! (The other woman on the executive leadership team, general counsel Lynn Oberlander, left the company this week.) G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller said the company would become "nicely profitable" by the end of the year, after it's been . Or as Carmichael explained, If you dont know what a herb is, youre probably a herb.. Top Women at the Company Expressed Interest in Filling Executive Roles and Were Promised Interview Opportunities Prior to Spanfeller Hiring His Friends, Two G/O Media employees Deadspin spoke to, who are women who have an experienced track record with the company, say Spanfeller promised to give them a chance to interview for upper-level roles. In one case, sources say Spanfeller did offer to promote a woman to run human resources, but on the condition she fire another woman at the company as her first order of business. Think Youre Smarter Than a What Next Producer? G/O Media, from a business perspective, has turned a corner, Spanfeller says. (Pontius declined to comment. It wasnt collaborative.. As I said in the article, some of the celebs I mentioned could have changed their political leanings. Great Hill Partners did not disclose the financial terms of the private, all equity transaction but stated in a press release that Spanfeller is an investor. After two years of mainly working from home, the company wants everyone back in the office four days a week. "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. Jim Rich, the former Daily News editor charged with bringing Deadspin back to life following a mass staff exodus, has resigned after just 18 months on the job, The Post has learned. For instance, Rogers, who sits in a corner office in New York, still hasnt been formally announced as a new employee internally or externally, and sources who work in sales say its unclear what his job description is, though he evidently has plenty of time to contribute to Forbes, where he posted 14 articles in July. G/O Media executives have discussed potential deal targets in the past, including Genius, The Hill, and HuffPost, according to two people familiar with the matter. Spanfeller Has an Alleged History of Screaming at Women Employees. It was a welcome refrain for employees all too aware of how the company had languished under Univisions doomed ownership. 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. This is normal in situations like these where a new group is coming in and is facing a near term challenge. Email him here: caleb@mediaite.com
Jim Spanfeller (@JimSpanfeller) / Twitter Spanfeller was hired by private equity firm Great Hill Partners to run the company after it was purchased from Univision. 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. After Gawker's high-profile legal battle with Hulk Hogan, Univision in 2016 purchased its other media properties out of bankruptcy for $135 million, but struggled and sold the assets, including add-ons like The Onion, to Great Hill Partners in 2019. Sign up for notifications from Insider! Im shocked he would call that a good presentation, said the employee who was in the meeting. I have stood up for and advocated for my team since the day I started at G/O. Indeed, two former G/O Media staffers blasted Spanfeller for being stingy with resources.
Popular Gaming Website Kotaku Might Be Going Away In Wake of Follow him on Twitter here: @calebecarma. I have communicated our timeline concerns to Jim and he understands that development is not an exact science and that goals may not be hit, Knight told Deadspin. Have a tip or story idea? Soon after Flanagan started, other members of the sales team began to question his ability to do the job he was hired forspecifically, his ability to represent the websites and the company mission. When Jim Spanfeller and a private equity firm called Great Hill Partners took over G/O Mediaformerly Gizmodo Media Groupin April, their stated goal was to make the company profitable. "I think that most media company CEOs probably are as involved as I am," Spanfeller said. (The people I work for and the people who report to me know what I do, Rogers, 63, told Deadspin in an email.). On July 9, he hired Faiza Javaid as deputy general counsel, a position that was posted publicly. 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.
Jim Spanfeller - Big Think DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION are core to our culture, and we expect all staff to advance and promote that. Heartened, the SVP emailed Spanfeller to remind him of their meeting in April and express her hope that women, people of color, and people who identify as LGBTQ would be considered as he hired his leadership team, and to say that she looked forward to discussing her role in the organization. [] While it is what we did at Forbes that has nothing to do with the reason to do it here. 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. That said, I and the management team received a list of questions from the reporter working this story for Deadspin and those questions left me greatly concerned about the objectivity and core intentions of this piece. The sales employee (who is not an SVP) wasnt surprised to hear that Spanfeller didnt know what she did. "[17], "Great Hill Partners Agrees to Acquire Gizmodo Media Group", "Great Hill Partners Acquires Gizmodo Media Group", "President & CEO, Jim Spanfeller Named as IAB Chairman", "Alumni Album: Helping Us Connect to the Web", "Advertising; 4 Young Executives On Move at Newsweek", "Playboy Hires 2 New Execs; Title of Publisher Goes to 1", "New Gizmodo boss Jim Spanfeller is an old school digital media vet", "After Days Of Resignations, The Last Of The Deadspin Staff Has Quit", "Deadspin Is ZombifiedBut Gawker's Content Warriors Fight On", "The Media-Sensational Rise and Fall of "Jim Spanfeller Is a Herb", "GMG Union votes no confidence in G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jim_Spanfeller&oldid=1074755870, This page was last edited on 2 March 2022, at 00:52.
Dead and spun: a story in three meetings - Columbia Journalism Review Youre not qualified. Ive reached out to Spanfeller for comment multiple times over the past few days and have yet to hear back. 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. In addition to poor planning and communication around the video player, multiple sources say Spanfeller wouldnt allow the tech team to implement video tracking analytics on JW Player, so no one had any idea how many views videos were getting. In reality, this story started with a tip the site received about Spanfellers hiring practices, and grew from there thanks to sources accounts. Where people are registered to vote. Gov.
What's happening at Deadspin is a travesty | The Outline This is normal in situations like these where a new group is coming in and is facing a near term challenge.. 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. 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. Reverse Phone Search Tool And much more all for free! Answering a similar one, he seemed to contradict himself: This concern was expressed to me and I take it very seriously. When asked if she stood by the content of the since-disappeared post, Carmichael remained steadfast: I did really careful, thorough research, and the evidence is there. 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. 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. 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. Voting precincts and districts. Six days after the SVPs exchange with McAvoy, Spanfeller sent an email to the entire staff announcing G/O Medias new company values. I was sorry and that is accurate, he said. James J. Spanfeller Jr. is an American media executive best known for running Forbes.com from 20012009.
This guy just seems like he doesnt like women, another added. Additionally, as you are reporting here, there are numerous outstanding people, both men and women who have worked for me on more than one occasion., By July, Spanfellers third full month at the company, questions about Spanfellers commitment to his journalists editorial independence began to dominate conversation in the office. Three and a half hours later, Maidment told us to put the story on ice, but both Spanfeller and Maidment maintain that Spanfeller never explicitly or implicitly directed the story to be killed. 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. It definitely feels like its the old boys club, a G/O Media employee told Deadspin. And I didnt know what Sean was doing. That is absurd. I have definitely given positive feedback to numerous women, including senior executives in edit, sales, and marketing, he offered instead. No one has been named interim editor, and there is no succession plan in place. 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 am and will continue to be a very strong advocate for my team.. His skin got bright red, she said.
4 Dumb Ways Your Favorite Sites Are Dying | Cracked.com 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. Vice president of sales for the south Lance Johnson, who worked with Spanfeller at Forbes (and most recently worked with Bruce Rogers at a company called SITO Mobile).