Portland technology news site Digital Trends is facing an eruption of employee indignation over the company’s culture, with current and former staff reporting years of sexual harassment and racial insensitivity.
Digital Trends held a three-hour, all-hands meeting Wednesday to respond to employees’ concerns. The company reiterated, though, that it will stand by a top executive even as staffers recoiled at his role in a 2018 company “Gin and Juice” party. That decision rankles current and former employees.
“The leadership at Digital Trends is toxic because they are much more concerned with appearing progressive on the surface than actually being welcoming of minorities or addressing systemic problems within the company,” said Brie Barbee, a former writer at the company’s Portland headquarters.
In tweets last week, and again Wednesday, Barbee described being sexually harassed by a colleague at a 2017 holiday party. While the company fired the person in question, she said it never followed up to address the underlying causes of the problem – allowing them to fester and permitting sexist comments to go unchecked.
DT was the worst place I’ve ever worked at and their BLM post is insulting to any minority who has ever worked there. If they are really committed to fighting racism and injustice, they have a hell of a lot of work to do in their own backyard https://t.co/wb7K5aJVVE
— Brie Barbee (@briebarbee) June 5, 2020
Two-dozen other current and former employees have expressed similar sentiments online over the past week, prompting Wednesday’s marathon company meeting. The flashpoint is that 2018 party.
Last week, a former employee tweeted photos of chief operating officer Chris Carlson at the “Gin and Juice” party at the Portland headquarters. Carlson wore a black hat, bandanna and white T-shirt, and in the photos he is standing before a poster of graffiti and holding a bottle wrapped in a paper bag.
The company apologized at the time for the racially insensitive incident but opted to keep Carlson on staff, promising to educate him on diversity issues and offer him an opportunity for “redemption.” Carlson himself apologized at Wednesday’s online meeting, according to employees who attended remotely.
“They’ve given him grace and forgiveness,” one current Digital Trends staffer, who asked not to be named talking about her company, said Wednesday. “And yet I feel like by doing that they are encouraging silence among the employees who are not happy. Because what reason do the employees have to speak up if they’re not being listened to?”
That employee said she came away discouraged from Wednesday’s all-hands meeting, doubtful that Digital Trends understands its employees’ concerns.
“There are good people who work there,” she said. “Unfortunately, they’re not being heard. Over time... it’s become a toxic workplace.”
Global outrage over the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police last month has triggered a broad reckoning over systemic racism across institutions. That includes the news media, with top editors at The New York Times and Philadelphia Inquirer resigning after employees objected to articles and headlines they said were insensitive.
Privately held Digital Trends publishes tech news, reviews and instructional guides online. It has a national following among technology enthusiasts eager for word on the latest gadgets and employs 130, split among its headquarters in the U.S. Bancorp Tower (“Big Pink”) downtown and at offices in New York and elsewhere.
On Wednesday, company spokesman Stu Zakim insisted Digital Trends is committed to doing better. He said the all-hands meeting demonstrated that.
“We definitely are acknowledging and listening to what came from this meeting,” Zakim said. He said Digital Trends plans a public statement in the next day outlining its plans to improve.
“This is not just saying it for the sake of saying it,” he said. “There is a lot of passion behind changing the culture.”
On Tuesday, CEO Ian Bell told The Oregonian/OregonLive that “We’ve got some work to do. I think that’s what this comes back to. We’re committed to doing that.”
Bell was himself the subject of a 2010 sexual harassment lawsuit by a former female staffer, who alleged he discussed marital troubles with the employee, discussed being caught masturbating by a neighbor, touched her unprofessionally, and routinely rated the appearance of women who visited the office.
The suit sought $2.5 million in damages. Digital Trends said Wednesday that it ultimately settled the case for $37,500. The woman’s attorneys did not respond to repeated messages seeking comment.
On Wednesday, Bell said none of the claims in the lawsuit are true.
“It happened 10 years ago. We were a company of about seven people,” Bell said. “I denied the accusations back then. I do now. I’ve grown a lot as a leader since then.”
Former Digital Trends writer Steven Winkelman said Wednesday that he routinely witnessed sexual harassment in the company’s New York office. And Winkelman, who now writes for PCMag, said the “Gin and Juice” party was reflective of the broader culture.
“The talk on Twitter about @DigitalTrends is true,” Winkelman tweeted last week. “There were some amazing people at the company but it couldn't fix systemic problems with the leadership in Portland.”
The talk on Twitter about @DigitalTrends is true. There were some amazing people at the company but it couldn't fix systemic problems with the leadership in Portland. This is one of many incidents, some of which I can't even bring myself to talk about publicly. (1/2). https://t.co/C5SqmnMTfM
— Steven Winkelman (@StevenWinkelman) June 5, 2020
Former Digital Trends editor Corey Gaskin ignited the concerns about the company last week when he tweeted photos from the “Gin and Juice” party. He said he saw female employees sexually harassed and racially insensitive material posted on Digital Trends’ social media accounts.
When he and others reported those issues, Gaskin said the company shut them out and let the issues linger. He said Tuesday that he left the company in March because of a “toxic culture.”
“The people who were perpetrating it,” Gaskin said, “were not facing any consequences.”
-- Mike Rogoway | mrogoway@oregonian.com | twitter: @rogoway | 503-294-7699
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