jim spanfeller political affiliation

jim spanfeller political affiliation

James J. Spanfeller Jr. is an American media executive best known for running Forbes.com from 20012009. From a womans perspective, I did feel very belittled. We have no credibility in writing about ourselves. Unlike private equity investors who financially engineer acquisitions, burdening companies they buy with debt and massive . 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 other woman on the executive leadership team, general counsel Lynn Oberlander, left the company this week.) The post, published Tuesday evening, proved wildly popular on Twitter. For the life of me, I am not sure how you can have a legal review without a complete story and I cannot imagine how you can consider your work to be objective without reviewing the answers to the questions that you have asked. Spanfeller said he asked for the survey; Rogers said he wrote it; and editorial director Paul Maidment said he didnt approve it, but he told Deadspin editor-in-chief Megan Greenwell that he did not attempt to stop it from running on the site when he was filled in shortly before it was scheduled to go up. Jim has a different recollection of the facts, McAvoy reiterated. We shall have a discussion on the policy at the next EiCs leads meeting. I found this troubling but was okay with it given the circumstances. Justice announced he was switching his party affiliation . Or to keep it anonymous, click here. Spanfeller declined to answer a question about whether he expressed these sentiments to Klancnik. 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. The anti-herb agenda is being suppressed.. Mad Money Twitter - Jim . Jim Spanfeller Biography. Well keep fighting for whats right. He started screaming at me, Who told you you were allowed to speak about audience? 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. 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. It definitely feels like its the old boys club, a G/O Media employee told Deadspin. The job, however, came with a condition, they said: Pontiuss first order of business would be to fire newsroom editorial director Susie Banikarim. Youre not qualified. Indeed, two former G/O Media staffers blasted Spanfeller for being stingy with resources. "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. I was also hiring a good portion of these jobs before I actually took over day to day control of the company. The rigorous and thorough reporting, editing, and legal review process that Greenwell promised to oversee has since been completed, which is why you are reading this story now. The former staff of Splinter later launched the worker-owned Discourse Blog. In reality, this story started with a tip the site received about Spanfellers hiring practices, and grew from there thanks to sources accounts. There are regions that were within my scope of responsibilities and within my role that I cannot call on and neither can my team.. Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. 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. Details may include related records, political party, location, and more. 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. Sean Flanagan, 55, who was hired to lead east coast sales, was also installed over a female senior sales employee, who had been at the company for four years before she left in July. Vice president for west coast sales Steve Thompson, who worked with Spanfeller at, Vice president for east coast sales Sean Flanagan, who worked with Spanfeller at. [5] Upon returning from Europe, Spanfeller took a position at AMP Marketing Systems. "We needed to change a lot of things, and change is hard.". [4] He soon switched to the business side of the paper, and later took a tour through Europe. It also wasnt communicated to me as a promotion until the day it was emailed out to the company.. 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. I told Mike, verbally and in writing, that I would be interested in taking on new responsibilities and opportunities within the organization and I would like to interview for whatever position would be a part of that, she told Deadspin. Asked for a response to the latter allegation, Spanfeller responded, That is absurd. This former staffer said the team wished to add Black creatives to help create more representative branded content to meet the demand, but it was not given additional resources. 3. 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. So Out of Touch: Gen Z Congressman-Elect Mocks RNC Tweet Criticizing Him For His Housing Woes. Use this information as you see fit. The other is still in college.. 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. 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. 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. Have a tip or story idea? 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. Sign up for notifications from Insider! Jim Spanfeller, [2][3], Spanfeller graduated from Union College with a B.A. At the time of publication, Carmichaels original tweet has been retweeted more than 300 times. I can see why. Multiple sources say Pontius declined to go along with the plan, angering Spanfeller. 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 never changed my mind. 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. [12][13], In 2011, Spanfeller launched The Daily Meal with an estimated $2 million investment. Traffic has fallen across G/O Media's portfolio over the past two years, which Spanfeller pinned on industry-wide struggles to generate audience plus the loss of Deadspin and Splinter. I was unclear about what she did. 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. Have a tip we should know? At an all-staff meeting this week, Knight told Spanfeller that August 15 is the target completion date, which Spanfeller told Deadspin he believes is achievable. Text. Im kind of a tipsy at a bar in Paris, she added. Jim Justice speaks during President Donald Trump's political rally inside the Big Sandy Superstore Arena in Huntington on Thursday. 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. . Spanfeller responded that he would be happy to get together, but did not say anything about open roles. Two are now successfully navigating careers in the digital advertising space. A week after Spanfeller insisted to Variety that he did "not plan to cut our way to growth," the CEO fired 25 employees, including in top positions, such as axing former Gizmodo Media Group. Initially, we had to move fast because the company was losing money at a rapid pace, he said. They requested anonymity to speak candidly but their identities are known to Insider. Now that we are closer to stabilizing the company, there can be a more deliberate recruitment and hiring process. Spanfeller told Insider that G/O Media plans to reinvest the profits into the business. Its everything Ive wanted and more.. This is the same thing that has also happened to Deadspin. The anger stems from Spanfellers apparent disregard for his own stated company values, which include a commitment to diversity and inclusion. James J. Spanfeller is president of The Spanfeller Group, a management consultancy focusing on digital strategy, audience development, revenue acceleration and talent acquisition. 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 Meanwhile, many people who are still at the company feel their work is being hindered by new management. 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. When asked why he didnt consider the SVP, Spanfeller told Deadspin, I was unaware of her interest in the role and that Mike had made that commitment and Im sorry. Former CEO of http://Forbes.com, Chairman Emeritus, IAB, Sec OPA NYCJoined April 2009 266Following 1,878Followers Tweets Tweets & replies Media Likes Jim Spanfeller's Tweets Jim Spanfeller @JimSpanfeller Mar 13, 2020 Good News! . , 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). 12-Year-Old Prankster Throws Dead Snake on Woman's Car and Gets Flattened by Husband 15,743. It is also worth noting that multiple internal candidates have expressed interest in the position of EIC of the A/V Club. The Onion union declined to comment, but a source with knowledge of the situation disputed that the union demanded promotions, saying its letter demanded action and used the words We ask for the following when addressing promotions. When pressed, Knight admitted the deadline may be unrealistic. 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. While the archived version of the post did not preserve the original images, you can view a PDF of the original post below. Political affiliation. Club managing editor Caitlin PenzeyMoog, who both resigned on July 12. In one instance in which Spanfeller tried to promote a woman within the company, his offer came with strings attached. I am and will continue to be a very strong advocate for my team.. 4. These include a senior vice president of marketing who last week wrote a baffling reader satisfaction survey for Deadspin at Spanfellers behest; a sales executive who, sources say, appears unable to give an effective sales pitch; and an editorial director who repeatedly attempted to kill the reporting process for this story. On Glassdoor, a website where current and former employees can submit anonymous reviews of their workplaces, reviews of The Daily Meal are overwhelmingly negative. The key journalistic properties descended from . 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. The VP had a call with McAvoy and Spanfeller to discuss the process, asking Spanfeller why he hadnt even reached out to her about the position. 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 . Its something that Im working to improve. It is ridiculous to launch a management survey questioning the editorial value of the site. 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. 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.. Another former Daily Meal staffer said that management was straight-up scared of Spanfeller, adding, I can see why. [5], In 1984, Spanfeller was named publisher of Newsweek On Campus magazine. 20 Employees Complained to Deadspin About Spanfellers Management, After interviewing nearly two dozen employees, Deadspin found that 20 people who work for G/O Media expressed frustration with Spanfellers approach to hiring and his new executives lack of knowledge about the company combined with their seeming unwillingness or inability to get up to speed.. Asked about the former employees accounts, Spanfeller said he has no idea what this refers to and it is not my recollection of working at The Daily Meal, adding that he doesnt recall screaming at anyone. "We were a leftist site, not a liberal one, which gives you a sense of how closely Spanfeller followed our work," he said. In an email, Flanagan disagreed with those assessments: Simply not true. "The fact that we could acquire it at a price that would make it one of our smallest investments is that good or bad? Club executive editor Laura M. Browning and former A.V. 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. After two years of mainly working from home, the company wants everyone back in the office four days a week. In early April, Great Hill Partners, a private-equity firm, acquired Gizmodo Media Groupa collection of sites, formed from the assets of the old Gawker, that included Jezebel, Lifehacker, and Deadspinas well as The Onion, a satirical news site, reportedly at a fire-sale price.The company, renamed G/O Media, installed Jim Spanfeller, formerly of Forbes.com, Playboy, and Ziff Davis, as CEO. Everything theyve done in reaction to it is the herbiest shit I could possibly imagine. 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. While we were given a 3pm deadline today to respond to dozens of questions, I understand that the folks at Deadspin have already submitted their story for legal review and plan to publish it on Wednesday all without ever seeing any of the responses to the questions that they asked. 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. As the former publisher of National Geographic, Mens Health & Maximmy successful presentation & leadership skills are evident.. [] While it is what we did at Forbes that has nothing to do with the reason to do it here. John Taggart for The Washington Post / Getty Images. When people came in with good ideas they were rejected., A woman who was hired at The Daily Meal after responding to a Craigslist post said she was once asked to write a story about a companys earnings, which she felt she wasnt qualified to write and for which she didnt receive guidance from her editors. Multiple people who worked for him at The Daily Meal (part of Spanfeller Media Group) told Deadspin that Spanfeller couldnt cede any control. 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. [1] (Though the source spoke in great detail about her experience, she requested her name not be used because she didnt want it to affect her future employment opportunities.) (Spanfeller says this is inaccurate and that he did consider other candidates for the editorial director role, but Paul quickly rose to the top after he expressed an interest in the position.) Three of the men Spanfeller hired were installed over successful women who had been at the company for years. During Jim Spanfeller's younger years, he lived in Pennsylvania and recieved his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1952 from the Philladelphia Academy of the Fine Arts. "People are scared of him. 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. It wasnt collaborative.. I expect to be treated the way I treat people., This pattern played out three more times in Spanfellers first few months as CEO. 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. Sole dedication to revenue, getting it the cheapest, quickest way possible. 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. When one reviews the actual questions one might feel even more uneasy. 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. View details on more than 95 Million registered voters across the United States. 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.. 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 next day she refused to join me in communicating our plans to Susie. The survey on Deadspin, however, had some serious issues, he said. Jun 8, 2020, 7:03 AM. 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. 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. "You can write a blog, just don't publish them here.". I am a father of three wonderful woman. The fourth known instance of Spanfeller overlooking a woman at the company in favor of a white male former colleague also happened on the sales team. ), This isnt the first time Spanfeller has been accused of micromanaging. We had to move fast because the company was losing money at a rapid pace, Spanfeller wrote in a statement. When I followed up about the meeting the next day with Spanfeller, I was told it was canceled. G/O Media workers went on strike today in part to protect remote work. Computing. Shortly after the sale in April, she said, she met briefly with Spanfeller and explained to him her role and responsibilities in the company, which was primarily to work directly with clients to secure partnerships, instead of going through media ad agencies. [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. 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 . Having done it at Forbes, I simply knew it could be done quickly and with incremental value to the company.. Spanfeller said he did not recall the specific request. Enter Jim "Herb" Spanfeller. "[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. 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. My territory has been cut in half. She told Deadspin she was surprised that Spanfeller seemed to know little about her team, which last year won Digidays best content studio award.. He previously served as President & Chief Executive Officer of Forbes.com, a leading media Internet company, and as Executive Vice President . In addition to the removal of the post itself, Carmichael also discovered that shes now unable to use her personal Kinja account at all. He sent a message back about the importance of diversity and inclusion and a full hiring process. This is normal in situations like these where a new group is coming in and is facing a near term challenge.. He said the company was just profitable before the pandemic hit its business, and is now comfortably back in the black. The confusion stems from a lack of communication. 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. Jim Rich, the former top editor of the New York Daily News, will start as editor-in-chief of Deadspin on Monday. 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. G/O Media shuttered its politics site, Splinter, in 2019. As for the content of the survey, Reibstein said it is possible to read it as innocent, a way to attempt to gauge customer satisfaction, as its known in the marketing industry. Mr. Spanfeller has a BA in English Literature from Union College, Schenectady, New York. in English Literature in 1979 and went to work as a reporter for the SoHo Weekly News. 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. 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.

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