[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. 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. In the months that followed, without posting the jobs publicly, Spanfeller, 62, hired a stable of white men to fill executive positions overseeing nearly every facet of the company. As the former publisher of National Geographic, Mens Health & Maximmy successful presentation & leadership skills are evident.. To hear G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller tell it, everything at his digital media company is going great. Text. That evening, the woman received an email from McAvoy telling her that the SVP of marketing job had been filled with someone who worked with Spanfeller at Forbes. 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. Sources say he was retained to consult on sales and how the department could work more directly with clients, which the now-former employee says was her job. And as the only woman on the previous revenue leadership team, I started to wonder if women were being considered for leadership roles. Indeed, Spanfeller told Deadspin that he first contacted Rogers about the job on June 11. Two are now successfully navigating careers in the digital advertising space. 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. 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 As I said in the article, some of the celebs I mentioned could have changed their political leanings. And Fake. In turn, Spanfeller hired a number of his old media friends and former colleagues from Forbes, Playboy, and other outlets to fill top roles at G/O Media, while also failing to make public job postings for many of these roles. According to multiple sources familiar with the situation, in April Spanfeller offered the job of head of talent to Katie Pontius, who until recently was the chief of staff for The Onion, Inc. During an internal sales summit meeting in New York on June 19, sales execs practiced pitching G/O Medias general presentation, a deck of about 15 slides that tells clients why they should do business with the company. Jeremy Gordon Oct292019 03:41PM EST. 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. Jim Rich, the former top editor of the New York Daily News, will start as editor-in-chief of Deadspin on Monday. That union's collective bargaining agreement expires in February. Mr. Rich, who will report to G/O Media Chief Executive Jim Spanfeller, . Without posting the jobs publicly, Spanfeller hired a stable of white men to fill executive positions overseeing nearly every facet of the company., You also had no interest in meeting the only woman on the revenue leadership team who is an SVP who has been successful., As the only woman on the previous revenue leadership team, I started to wonder if women were being considered for leadership roles., 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., The appropriate thing to do would be to talk to the editorial side of the business and have a clear objective for the survey., Chief financial officer Tom Callahan, who worked at Forbes while Spanfeller worked there. Jim Spanfeller - New York, New York, United States - LinkedIn "You can write a blog, just don't publish them here.". It was placed there without consultation or even simple communication to anyone on Deadspins staff. Internet Life, a joint publication of Ziff-Davis and Yahoo!. 2. 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. Additionally, Jim Spanfeller has had 6 past jobs including CEO at Forbes. 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. Its everything Ive wanted and more.. "The fact that we could acquire it at a price that would make it one of our smallest investments is that good or bad? 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. The job, however, came with a condition, they said: Pontiuss first order of business would be to fire newsroom editorial director Susie Banikarim. 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. Who even told you you were allowed to think about audience? the woman alleged. I told him I had a few questions Id like to ask him, and asked if he had any availability for a meeting the following day. Views. []. Youre not qualified. Its hard to imagine what one would not like on that list of items, Reibstein said of the third question. 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. Celebrities Who Are Republicans/Conservatives - HubPages 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. Employees in G/O Media's editorial union urged the company's private-equity owners to replace G/O Chief Executive Jim Spanfeller in a letter Monday, saying a change in leadership was . So Out of Touch: Gen Z Congressman-Elect Mocks RNC Tweet Criticizing Him For His Housing Woes. The other is still in college., Four of nine major hires have been women, Spanfeller said. And he made sure to make it clear that I just didnt get it in his mind that I just didnt get this whole digital thing, she said. Spanfeller said no one told him that a female VP was already successfully performing that job before he hired Thompson. [] While it is what we did at Forbes that has nothing to do with the reason to do it here. 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. Well keep fighting for whats right. Political affiliation Definition | Law Insider My management style has been widely reported on over the years and the picture you are painting does not comport with that. 12-Year-Old Prankster Throws Dead Snake on Woman's Car and Gets Flattened by Husband 15,743. He said the company was just profitable before the pandemic hit its business, and is now comfortably back in the black. Club executive editor Laura M. Browning and former A.V. [1] The differences were as granular as whether to call published pieces "blogs" or "stories." This sites credibility is not dependent on who and what it reports on, but on its ability to report forcefully and accurately. I think the general sentiment coming out of that meeting, at least for some of the senior sales people, was like, these guys are going to lead our sales team? (Spanfeller denies this claim.). His skin got bright red, she said. "We needed to change a lot of things, and change is hard.". Its something that Im working to improve. 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. [10] Spanfeller was also responsible for advertising sales on the magazine's website and that of Yahoo! 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. I had experience and confidence in the people who were hired. 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. LinkedIn is the world's largest business network, helping professionals like Jim Spanfeller discover inside connections to recommended . Use this information as you see fit. I think it's all good," said Chris Gaffney, co-founder and managing partner at Great Hill. You wrote a 'story,'" Spanfeller recalled telling staff. 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 . Whenever a publication shuts down, as has happened more and more over the last few years, it undergoes a public eulogizing by its employees, the friends of its employees, the people who wanted to work there, and most importantly the readers, whose tributes are . Or knowledgeable writers?, Asked about the survey, Rogers said he thinks its responses will accurately and fully reflect Deadspin readers opinions of the site. The other is still in college.. The appropriate thing to do would be to talk to the editorial side of the business and have a clear objective for the survey.. 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. We could have video analytics today. 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. 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. The Onion Union, which represents AV Club staffers, told Insider in a statement that it hoped "this period of prosperity creates tangible benefits for all of our members especially those whose jobs are being moved to Los Angeles, one of the most expensive cities in the world.". Successfully sold . Gaffney said the firm was prepared to hold onto the investment for a decade or more and that Spanfeller, a former Forbes and Playboy executive, does not have a time frame for preparing the company for a sale. Ultimately, the issue of building a wall has raised political risk, Cramer said. Spanfeller was hired by private equity firm Great Hill Partners to run the company after it was purchased from Univision. Steve Riley on February 14, 2013: Just right off the bat. Deadspin Is ZombifiedBut Gawker's Content Warriors Fight On I was going on the input I had been given by Mike McAvoy that he had discussed the position with her and laid out why she was not ready for the larger role. 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. 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. Over the last few weeks, during their attempts to hinder or prevent the publication of this story, Maidment and Spanfeller invoked concerns about Deadspins credibility in covering G/O Media.