Jim Rich, the former editor-in-chief of the Daily News who was tapped to relaunch sports site Deadspin in March, has been elevated to editorial director of the whole G/O Media stable of sites.
He succeeds Paul Maidment, who resigned in November after trying to push rebellious and freewheeling staffers at Deadspin to “stick to sports” rather than cover a mishmash of sports, culture and media as it did in its days as part of Gawker Media.
The edict by Maidment and G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller famously backfired, triggering a mass walkout by the staff that ended up shuttering the site in early November.
Rich, who bounced to a number of short-lived gigs following the end of his Daily News stint, was tapped to relaunch and re-staff the moribund sports site, now based in Chicago, in late January. It relaunched in March just as most sports leagues were shutting down to curtail the coronavirus pandemic.
On April 3, the company cut less than 5 percent of its workforce in response to the collapse of advertising due to coronavirus.
In addition to Deadspin, G/O runs satirical site The Onion, also based in Chicago, as well as New York-based sites Gizmodo, Jezebel, Lifehacker, Jalopnik, the AV Club, Kotaku, The Takeout, The Root and The Inventory.
“I am thrilled that he has accepted the position of editorial director, not only because of his newsroom background but also because of his dedication to journalistic authenticity and steadfastness,” said Spanfeller in a statement.
One of Rich’s first tasks will be building a bridge to the union, known as the Gizmodo Media Union, which formed during its ownership by Univision and which clashed with management after the sale to private equity firm Great Hill Capital in the spring of 2019.
Gizmodo Media Group Union recently rapped Spanfeller for taking a meager 10 percent pay cut while most other media CEOs have been taking cuts ranging from 50 percent at Condé Nast, Vice and Vox to 85 percent at Bustle Digital Group and 100 percent at Gannett and BuzzFeed.
“G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller, though, doesn’t seem to want to keep up with his peers or adhere to industry standards,” according to a tweet Tuesday from the GMG Union, which is part of the Writers Guild of America East.
