A media company founded by a former aide to President Barack Obama — and partly funded by George Soros — that produces the influential podcast “Pod Save America” is engulfed in internal turmoil between its progressive staff and bosses, according to a report. their moderate.
Tension at Los Angeles-based Crooked Media has been fueled by staff disputes over the war in Gaza, anger over a co-founder dating an employee who was promoted, grueling 12-hour work days and resentment over unequal pay and character status famous. expects, according to a report in Bloomberg News.
More than a dozen current and former employees of the company told the newspaper that there is a divide between more progressive employees whose views are to the left of the mainstream Democratic Party and co-founders and podcast hosts who lean more toward the middle.
Crooked Media has received tens of millions of dollars from pro-Democrat donors — including the charity founded by George Soros, which was given a board seat.
It was founded in 2017 by three former Obama staffers — speechwriters Jon Lovett and Jon Favreau and spokesman Tommy Vietor. Another former Obama aide, Dan Pfeiffer, joined the three as co-host of the “Pod Save America” podcast.
The podcast generated a massive audience of Democratic-leaning listeners during the Trump presidency — enabling the company to expand into book publishing, live events and merchandising.
However, a recent tussle between staff and management involved the reluctance of Pod Save America hosts to criticize Israel over its military operations following the October 7 Hamas-led terror attacks.
According to Bloomberg News, a faction of workers demanded a stronger pro-Palestinian stance from the company, including open discussions about the death toll in Gaza, as well as support for pro-Palestinian demonstrations on college campuses.
Employees tried to get management to change their minds about the Israel-Gaza war by posting links to news about the conflict in an internal Slack channel to make sure executives saw it, Bloomberg News reported.
Some Crooked employees placed a watermelon emoji — symbolizing support for the Palestinians — next to their names on Slack, while others wore a keffiyeh, the traditional Palestinian head covering.
Management resisted pressure from staff to hold a company-wide discussion on the matter. Instead, they told employees to meet with their supervisors confidentially, according to Bloomberg News.
The post has requested comment from Crooked Media.
Another simmering issue stems from Favreau’s celebrity status and fame, according to the report, he is regularly photographed making out with celebrities such as Chrissy Teigen and John Legend.
Favreau was also reported to have recently purchased a $10 million home in the Los Angeles area — which rankled employees who felt he was against progressive ideology, according to Bloomberg News.
Lovett was known to be in a relationship with one employee who was promoted at least three times in the past two years — a rapid rise through the ranks that left other workers bitter about the difficulty of earning a promotion at the company, according to the report. .
The company regularly produces 14 podcasts—half of which are hosted by one of the four Pod Save America stars. With the massive infusion of cash and its captive audience, things seemed to be turning around for the company.
But things began to change in late 2022, when a decline in advertising dollars forced Crooked Media to drop one of its podcasts, “Hot Take,” a climate-themed show hosted by climate reporter Mary Annaïse Heglar Amy Westervelt.
According to Heglar, she and Westervelt noticed “a lot of red flags” when they negotiated their contract with Crooked Media.
Writing in a blog post published in March last year, she cited “our very obvious ideological differences with the heads of the network”.
“Suffice it to say that Amy and I were very, very to the left of almost every show I’ve heard in the Crooked universe.”
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