Loved the people I worked with, but leadership is severely lacking - Recensione dipendente - Director presso Courier

1,0
22 feb 2022
Consiglia
Gradimento del CEO
Pronostico commerciale

Vantaggi

So many talented folks wanting to do the best journalism they are able to do.

Svantaggi

If there was ever someone to model a soap opera villainess after, it would be girl boss dressed in Ann Taylor Loft CEO Tara McGowan. She’s making progressive politics lame again. She’s basically Anna Delvey. Everyone else is paying for it while she grifts. She’s laid off folks every couple of quarters since Q1 2021, including a mass layoff of 13 toward the end of January 2022, including many who were sought out leaders and folks the teams needed. Each newsroom is staffed with really brilliant newspaper folks. They aren’t allowed to be coached up in digital and social platform spaces because the political operatives at the top of their “executive leadership team” have no news background. The CEO’s “time” at “60 minutes” don’t count. They set lofty goals and pressed upon the staff’s necks the promise of “equitable bonuses,” cut the salaries of some, and consolidated teams, and still couldn’t get the revenue? While the ones who met their goals got $1,000 bonuses they scraped together, members of the C-suite got bonuses in excess of $7k. If it don’t make dollars, it don’t make sense. She promised an incentivized bonus structure last summer based on outrageous goals in four categories. She was only responsible for one of the goals — revenue. The staffs met their goal. Guess who didn’t meet hers re: revenue? She was too busy launching a really poorly named venture called “good information,” all but begging Axios and others to run the launch, like it matters. The CEO wants cronies (like her COO, who is also not a journalist) to do her dirty work while she posts empty rhetoric on Twitter defending democracy and civics. She isn’t saving democracy through journalism. She’s disguising both her own and those of her benefactors’ political endeavors and desires with propaganda under the guise of local news journalism — the one medium most folks still believe in in these communities she swears she’s serving. She calls these would be readers “low-information voters” and is only concerned with the agenda of the progressive left. It’s the same propaganda the right is doing infinitely better than Tara ever could. Additionally, she’s had 2 VPs of Content (C-suite) from May 2021 (beginning of the last transition) to September 2021, the COO was an atrocious fill-in until they promoted from within. She is someone who has essentially taken a Queen Mary I of England approach of ruling and burned all the Protestants. There is no hope in a startup that changes the content pillars, mission, strategy, etc. every quarter. Tara is someone leading a group of talented folks one minute and hating “the media” on her verified Twitter the next. Pick a lane — no one who is so against mainstream media need not set their dreams on reinventing it. To Tara — You’ll never be the loudest voice in the room. Have several seats.

Esplora altre recensioni su Courier

5,0
1 apr 2026
Consiglia
Gradimento del CEO
Pronostico commerciale

Vantaggi

Virtual happy hours and trivia time. So fun!

Svantaggi

Certain coworkers allocated a disproportionate amount of bandwidth toward the optimization of engagement metrics within the Slack pet channel, but their efforts went completely unrecognized by management.

1,0
7 mar 2025
Consiglia
Gradimento del CEO
Pronostico commerciale

Vantaggi

There are some truly wonderful people working in the creative positions.

Svantaggi

Courier wants to "build trust," but it's painfully obvious that it's just propaganda for the Democratic party (or special interest groups with deep pockets)--not real journalism. The strategy changes ever week. Sometimes radically. Goals are absurdly unrealistic. And merit increases are tied to these goals. Quantity and numbers are more important than quality and experience. Courier uses AI to create content. Editorial direction is driven by special interest groups and investors. Basically, what you're reading is either paid for or designed to lure you into the paid-for content. In other words, one-dimensional and boring. The CEO claims to be pro-worker, but when the employees tried to unionize, she laid off 10% of the staff. Courier refuses to cover the genocide in Gaza, even when protests at state universities make it local news. Executive leadership makes demoralizing decisions, like promising bonuses, then retracting the bonus in an email just days before Christmas and sending out cookie-decorating kits instead. An example of a Courier holiday "party" is an awkward 5-minute trivia game during a meeting. But as a remote company, it's hard to have a holiday party, so you make it up with the holiday gift right? Nope. Courier gifts cheap company swag.

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