[11], Spanfeller ran Forbes.com for 8 years from 2001 to 2009, when digital and print operations were run separately. Never mind the recent exodus of company leadership under his tenure, including the editorial director, chief financial officer, and chief revenue officer. 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, but Spanfeller is perhaps best known for dramatically increasing Forbes.coms focus on digital advertising (Spanfeller also previously served as chairman of the Interactive Advertising Bureau). A voter's representatives in government. 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. Gaffney and Spanfeller said that G/O Media is looking for acquisitions itself. Emma Carmichael is a friend of mine, and we both worked at Gawker Media and, as it was later named after being purchased by Univision, Gizmodo Media Group, or GMG. So Out of Touch: Gen Z Congressman-Elect Mocks RNC Tweet Criticizing Him For His Housing Woes. Before he started full time in early June, Flanagan was brought in as a consultant just after Spanfeller took over G/O Media. Indeed, two former G/O Media staffers blasted Spanfeller for being stingy with resources. During those meetings, Maidments ideaswhich included commissioning an editor outside the company to review and approve stories written by about the companywere met with unanimous opposition. Employees across editorial, sales, and tech have left, but many of these positions, even mission-critical ones, have not been filled. James J. Spanfeller Jr. is an American media executive best known for running Forbes.com from 20012009. Great Hill Partners and current CEO Jim Spanfeller, formerly of Forbes, bought these sites and the Onion from Univision Communications Inc. in April. Its everything Ive wanted and more.. He started screaming at me, Who told you you were allowed to speak about audience? He is currently the CEO of G/O Media which consists primarily of sites that were previously part of Gawker Media. "[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. , in respect of a candidate, means the name of the political party that has endorsed him or her or the word "independent", as the case may be, included in the nomination paper in accordance with subparagraph 66 (1) (a) (v). According to Dave Reibstein, past chairman of the Board of Directors of the American Marketing Association and a professor of marketing at University of Pennsylvanias Wharton School of Business (where he teaches a course on market research), there are several problems with the survey. Steve Riley on February 14, 2013: Just right off the bat. Ad revenue rebounded, Spanfeller told Insider last year. 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. [2][3], Spanfeller graduated from Union College with a B.A. Jim Spanfeller has 2 current jobs as Founder at The Daily Meal and Chief Executive Officer at G/O Media. These men, and others who now hold C-suite positions at the company, were each hired without a public recruitment process, and several were installed over high-ranking women who had been successfully performing those jobs at the company for years. We sent a request for an explanation and did not receive a response. Jim Justice speaks during President Donald Trump's political rally inside the Big Sandy Superstore Arena in Huntington on Thursday. 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. 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 have billions of dollars available to go out and buy and make this a bigger company, and that would really be our desire," Gaffney said. A spokesperson for G/O has yet to respond to a request for clarification, but we will update this post if and when that changes. A longtime digital media veteran, Spanfeller was an unconventional choice to lead the new Gizmodo Media Group sites (The Daily Beast's CEO, Heather Dietrick, once served as president of the . 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. 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. 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. Asked about the meeting, Knight initially didnt answer. Sole dedication to revenue, getting it the cheapest, quickest way possible. 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. The other is still in college.. 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. These conversations reveal that Spanfellers biggest effect on the company since taking over has been a deflation of morale. [2], In 2019, G/O Media's sports blog Deadspin received media attention when all of its writers and editors resigned after an edict given by upper management to "stick to sports". 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. 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. (The people I work for and the people who report to me know what I do, Rogers, 63, told Deadspin in an email.). In one instance in which Spanfeller tried to promote a woman within the company, his offer came with strings attached. Reverse Phone Search Tool And much more all for free! Spanfellers pushed back against these internal criticisms of his questionably ethical hiring process and management style by blaming G/O Media for losing money too fast. 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. 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 . 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. Asked for a response to the latter allegation, Spanfeller responded, That is absurd. 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. Views. Mr. Rich, who will report to G/O Media Chief Executive Jim Spanfeller, . Nearly two dozen current G/O Media employees spoke to Deadspin for this story. 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. Two other major jobs Spanfeller gave to women include his new head of talent and deputy counsel, which were both outside hires; he did give a promotion to one woman, who he made deputy editorial director. When pressed, Knight admitted the deadline may be unrealistic. 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. Spanfeller says Pontius accepted the job, but he decided she was not a good fit for this position after Pontius refused to join me in communicating our plans to fire Banikarim. Spanfeller said he did not recall the specific request. 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 Media Group. Successfully sold . Spanfellers cronies now fill the G/O Media positions of chief financial officer, editorial director, senior VP of marketing, VP of west coast sales, VP of east coast sales, and VP of southern sales. Im shocked he would call that a good presentation, said the employee who was in the meeting. G/O Media, from a business perspective, has turned a corner, Spanfeller says. It has introduced real uncertainty in to stocks, and Trump's agenda has become shaky. In all of those cases Jim listened to my arguments and in many cases agreed with me and the issue was settled, he wrote in response to one question. His skin got bright red, she said. 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. Throughout his career he has recieved more than 60 awards for his work from such . 2. About their hires, he wrote, I introduced Steve and Lance to Mike McAvoy, but I did not make the hires. According to his LinkedIn, Thompson is the founder of Mediacentric Inc., a multi-media representation company., A man was hired with my same title [vice president for west coast sales] to be my boss, the VP told Deadspin. When confronted with this negative feedback, Spanfeller insisted that he cannot be sexist because he has daughters. 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. "We needed to change a lot of things, and change is hard.". It was placed there without consultation or even simple communication to anyone on Deadspins staff. (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. 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. 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. I thought she was going to be great, and it didnt work out by her own assessment., In response to follow-up questions, Spanfeller clarified that there was never a signed offer between Pontius and the company. Have a tip we should know? (check all that apply). Political affiliation means the state of belonging to or endorsing any political party. The company is also on the hunt for acquisitions, according to Spanfeller. 15 Life Hacks That Are Actually Pretty Good 17,580. He credited The Root for its journalism on the Black Lives Matter movement. She asked McAvoy, then her immediate supervisor, for the opportunity to interview for the position, citing her leadership of the revenue division, her construction of a diverse team, and her renown in the industry. 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.