G/O Media Inc. is an American media holding company[1] that owns and operates several digital media outlets, including Kotaku, Jalopnik, The Root, The Inventory, and Quartz.[2][3]
In mid-October 2021, G/O Media removed all images from stories published before the acquisition by Great Hill Partners in 2019 from the 11 websites it owns, including Gizmodo, Jalopnik, Deadspin, The A.V. Club, The Onion, and Jezebel. No reason was given but was speculated to be related to copyright infringement lawsuits the company was involved in.[20]
From 2023 onwards the company began to dispose of sites that it owned, with Lifehacker being sold in March 2023 to Ziff Davis,[6] while Jezebel was shuttered[21] and then sold in November 2023 to Paste along with Splinter News.[7] In January 2024, Adweek reported that G/O Media was looking to sell off the remaining sites under its ownership, following failed efforts to find buyers for the whole organisation. The company claimed the reporting was "largely incorrect" but didn't specify how.[22] On March 11, 2024, G/O Media sold Deadspin to the European start-up Lineup Publishing, who immediately laid off all of Deadspin's employees.[8] Later that month, G/O Media sold The A.V. Club to Paste and The TakeouttoStatic Media, with it also reported that the company was actively looking for buyers of The Onion.[9]The Onion was sold in April 2024 to a company called Global Tetrahedron.[10]
Gizmodo, with the website's entire staff, was purchased by the European digital media company Keleops Media on June 4, 2024.[11][23][24]The Daily Beast noted that "with the sale of Gizmodo, G/O Media no longer owns the brands that made up the G and O of its name. The company's dwindling portfolio now just consists of business news site Quartz, African-American culture outlet The Root, gaming site Kotaku, gearhead publication Jalopnik, and commerce site The Inventory".[11]
G/O Media's leadership, introduced after the purchase from Univision, has been subject to frequent criticism by employees.[17] Complaints include closer advertiser relationships, a lack of diversity, and suppression of reporting about the company itself.[17] In October 2019, Deadspin's editor-in-chief, Barry Petchesky, was fired for refusing to adhere to a directive that the site "stick to sports."[25] Soon after, the entirety of Deadspin's staff resigned in protest, leaving the site inactive.[26] In November 2021, Gawker reported on substantial staff resignations at Jezebel over the course of 2021, comprising around 75% of staff. The resignations were reportedly related to a "hostile work environment" created by G/O's management and the new deputy editorial director Lea Goldman.[27] In January 2022, another article detailed similar staff decline at The Root, with 15 out of 16 full-time staff having left throughout 2021 since Vanessa De Luca started as editor-in-chief,[28] while at The A.V. Club seven senior staff members left the site after management required them to move from Chicago to Los Angeles. According to the Chicago Tribune, the departing staffers cited a lack of salary increase to account for increased cost of living due to the transfer.[29]
The company also saw multiple disputes with the employee unions. In January 2020, the GMG Union, which represents the staff of six G/O Media sites, 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."[30] On February 4, 2021, the Writers Guild of America East filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board alleging that G/O Media told employees it had fired Alex Cranz for labor activism.[31] On March 1, 2022, GMG Union members went on strike after failing to reach an agreement on a new contract.[32] The strike was resolved on March 6 with a new contract that included some of the members' terms.[33] On June 29, 2023, G/O Media implemented a "modest test" of artificial intelligence-generated content on its websites, in a move similar to BuzzFeed and CNET. The move sparked backlash from GMG Union members, citing AI's track record of false statements and plagiarism from its training data, with basic errors in the generated content also attracting attention.[34][35] In January 2024 a strike involving members of The Onion Union, which represents workers at other G/O Media sites, was narrowly averted following an agreement.[36]
^Tani, Maxwell (October 10, 2019). "Splinter Shutting Down". The Daily Beast. Archived from the original on October 11, 2019. Retrieved November 9, 2023.
