Another former Daily Meal staffer said that management was straight-up scared of Spanfeller, adding, I can see why. I was disappointed. [5], In 1984, Spanfeller was named publisher of Newsweek On Campus magazine. 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.. I realized that I wasnt communicating my advocacy for the department or our initiatives to upper management and other departments back to the team clearly enough. 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. Sole dedication to revenue, getting it the cheapest, quickest way possible. 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. Greenwell told Maidment she was unwilling to shut down an ongoing reporting process in response to management demands, and Maidment continued to make his argument against the idea of reporting on G/O Mediaa hallmark of the company since its earliest days, as well as a tradition at other major publicationsin several meetings with the editors and writers he oversees. The former staff of Splinter later launched the worker-owned Discourse Blog. "There's a fly and he's a swatter, and that's it," the former executive said. On Glassdoor, a website where current and former employees can submit anonymous reviews of their workplaces, reviews of The Daily Meal are overwhelmingly negative. As the former publisher of National Geographic, Mens Health & Maximmy successful presentation & leadership skills are evident.. Or to keep it anonymous, click here. . The appropriate thing to do would be to talk to the editorial side of the business and have a clear objective for the survey.. "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. Spanfeller was hired by private equity firm Great Hill Partners to run the company after it was purchased from Univision. I was also hiring a good portion of these jobs before I actually took over day to day control of the company. 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. The sales employee (who is not an SVP) wasnt surprised to hear that Spanfeller didnt know what she did. UPDATE: This article has been updated to remove an incorrect reference to former G/O Media Lynn Oberlander leaving her job shortly after the companys latest round of layoffs. (The other woman on the executive leadership team, general counsel Lynn Oberlander, left the company this week.) I expect to be treated the way I treat people., This pattern played out three more times in Spanfellers first few months as CEO. 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. "We remain optimistic that our labor will be taken into consideration as this period of financial promise collides with a time that has been particularly rough on morale," the Onion Union statement said. (10 is very satisfied, 1 is very unsatisfied); What do you like MOST about Deadspin? 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. While cleaning house and bringing in some trusted former colleagues is not entirely uncommon in private-equity acquisitions, Spanfeller filled nearly his entire top layer of management without any public recruitment process; the only woman hired as a department head, head of talent Angela Persaud, was also the only person at that level whose job was posted publicly. Clashes between the Gawker Media editorial culture and the company's new private equity owner seemed inevitable from the start. Nearly two dozen current G/O Media employees spoke to Deadspin for this story. Other top employees who have left the company since the start of Spanfellers reign include former A.V. The four women who Spanfeller counts as major hires include two he hired (head of talent and deputy counsel); one he promoted from within to executive managing editor; and a yet-to-be-filled position he says he plans to offer to a woman. 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. At the same time we are still exploring all options to get this work done by August 15th.. When one reviews the actual questions one might feel even more uneasy. Fuck Jim Spanfeller and Paul Maidment. Spanfeller said he did not recall the specific request. G/O Media, the company which ran Deadspin, was acquired by the private equity group Great Hill Partners, which installed Spanfeller as CEO and gave him one mission: Make them richer. We shall have a discussion on the policy at the next EiCs leads meeting. 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. The SVP shared her teams revenue goals and their success in meeting those goals, staying focused on numbers and her teams value because she knew her work would be key to profit margins. 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. He started screaming at me, Who told you you were allowed to speak about audience? Spanfeller declined to answer a question about whether he expressed these sentiments to Klancnik. [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. I can see why. (Spanfeller denies this claim.). ), This isnt the first time Spanfeller has been accused of micromanaging. It wasn't Great Hill's first foray into the media business it had previously invested in IGN and sold Ziff Davis but the G/O deal was a tiny one for a firm that describes itself as "targeting investments of $25 million to $500 million.". 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. 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This is normal in situations like these where a new group is coming in and is facing a near term challenge.. 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. I found this troubling but was okay with it given the circumstances. Jim Spanfeller Biography. Asked for a response to the latter allegation, Spanfeller responded, That is absurd. (Pontius declined to comment. Spanfellers executive assistant set up a time for us to meet. In an email read to Deadspin, McAvoy agreed that she was qualified for the role and said he would talk with Spanfeller to ensure she was interviewed for the new opportunity, which had not been posted publicly. LinkedIn is the world's largest business network, helping professionals like Jim Spanfeller discover inside connections to recommended . 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. 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 had experience and confidence in the people who were hired. So Out of Touch: Gen Z Congressman-Elect Mocks RNC Tweet Criticizing Him For His Housing Woes. G/O is still wracked with internal tensions ahead of contract negotiations with one of its editorial unions. 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. It also wasnt communicated to me as a promotion until the day it was emailed out to the company.. But Spanfeller said that he wants G/O Media to keep the voice and mission that made Gawker Media sites singular in the digital media industry. 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 . But before a formal interview process could take place, Spanfeller filled the jobs with his ex-colleagues. [2][3], Spanfeller graduated from Union College with a B.A. Club executive editor Laura M. Browning and former A.V. It was four days old. 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. To hear G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller tell it, everything at his digital media company is going great. "From the outset, CEO Jim Spanfeller has worked to undermine a successful site by curtailing its most well-read coverage because it makes him personally uncomfortable," the Gizmodo Media Group .
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