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. "We want to do it in a way that's a little more buttoned up," he said. Spanfeller declined to answer a question about whether he expressed these sentiments to Klancnik. 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. 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. Asked about the contract, Spanfeller responded, I firmly believe in editorial integrity. 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. 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. In a follow-up meeting with Spanfeller about the story, she suggested that hard financial data might not be their audiences central interest. 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. In the meantime, Carmichael had her own message for Spanfeller: Congratulations on confirming your herb-ishness.. "We needed to change a lot of things, and change is hard.". The confusion stems from a lack of communication. 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. 15 Life Hacks That Are Actually Pretty Good 17,580. Where people are registered to vote. This has led to some protest among employees, as one staffer told Deadspin, It definitely feels like its the old boys club. A second employee told the site, This guy just seems like he doesnt like women.. 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. 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. Spanfeller was hired by private equity firm Great Hill Partners to run the company after it was purchased from Univision. 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. 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. 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. When confronted with this negative feedback, Spanfeller insisted that he cannot be sexist because he has daughters. 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 . They requested anonymity to speak candidly but their identities are known to Insider. 3. 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. Mad Money Twitter - Jim . (check all that apply). 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 He also claimed to have hired four women for major roles though, one of these jobs has not been filled yet, as Spanfeller instead claims he plans to give it to a woman. 12-Year-Old Prankster Throws Dead Snake on Woman's Car and Gets Flattened by Husband 15,743. "You're not a 'blogger,' you're a professional journalist. 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. [We] had a phone conversation, kind of confronting Jim about it, and he told Mike, I thought we talked about this. It was throwing Mike under the bus, and Mike told Jim that they had not talked about it. Its something that Im working to improve. Gaffney and Spanfeller said that G/O Media is looking for acquisitions itself. 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. 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? I think it makes him a bad role model for the rest of his team.. I think it's all good," said Chris Gaffney, co-founder and managing partner at Great Hill. (Pontius declined to comment. Sources say the meeting concluded with an agreement that the best course of action would be to explain to Spanfeller why the player would not be finished by August 15. About their hires, he wrote, I introduced Steve and Lance to Mike McAvoy, but I did not make the hires. For the last two questions, the options were the same: Uncompromising commentary, sports stories I cant find anywhere else, knowledgeable writers, broad scope of coverage, political coverage and strong political point of view, and criticism and coverage of other media companies.. If I had known, I would have been happy to interview her and consider her for the role., On June 20, the next time Spanfeller was in Chicago, the SVP met with him to ask why she had been overlooked. Oh my God, thats so funny, Carmichael said when I informed her of this latest development. Still, tensions between management and staff are high at the company as it prepares to enter negotiations with the G/O Media editorial union, one of the two unions representing editorial workers at the company. All contents 2023 The Slate Group LLC. 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. This response, which Spanfeller emailed out along with the questions to and answers from every other executive to the entire company as an attempt to undermine this story, prompted this response from a third sales employee. In one instance in which Spanfeller tried to promote a woman within the company, his offer came with strings attached. That is absurd. 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. Think Youre Smarter Than a What Next Producer? 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. Mr. McAvoy was clear to me on his opinion that he did not think she was the right choice at this time, Spanfeller said. Made up mostly of the former Gawker Media sites, G/O Media has been in a near constant state of turmoil for the past few years. Voting precincts and districts. 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. Views. 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. 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. At least have everybody well briefed on this is what were doing and this is what wed like to learn from it, Reibstein said. She told Deadspin she was surprised that Spanfeller seemed to know little about her team, which last year won Digidays best content studio award.. When pressed, Knight admitted the deadline may be unrealistic. Clubs executive editor and managing editor, respectively, stepped down on July 12. The G/O Media union sent the following statement regarding the survey: The GMG Union has made repeated good-faith efforts to cooperate with management in resolving the many outstanding issues currently facing the company, from workplace accessibility to a video player that lacks viable metrics. Spanfeller Media Group ( SMG ), a subsidiary of publishing company Tribune Publishing, is a digital media company based in New York City. Sole dedication to revenue, getting it the cheapest, quickest way possible. I have definitely given positive feedback to numerous women, including senior executives in edit, sales, and marketing, he offered instead. It is ridiculous to launch a management survey questioning the editorial value of the site. G/O Media, from a business perspective, has turned a corner, Spanfeller says. [15][16] In January 2020 the GMG union, which represents the staff of G/O media, announced a vote of no confidence in CEO Jim Spanfeller citing, among other issues, a lack of willingness to negotiate for "functional editorial independence protections. 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). 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.. 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. Jim Spanfeller . Deadspin cited an account from a former writer at The Daily Meal, a food and beverage site that Spanfeller founded in 2015, who claims her former boss once started screaming at her because she voiced concerns about writing a story on the websites earning figures, which she felt she was not qualified for. Then, in early June, former Onion CEO Mike McAvoy, whountil he was separated from the company on July 11had been leading sales across all the sites, told the SVP that Spanfeller had hired two new sales leaders, Flanagan and Thompson.