Vice Media Puts President And Chief Digital Officer On Leave After Sexual Misconduct Claims: Report
Vice Media has placed president Andrew Creighton and chief digital officer Mike Germano on leave after sexual harassment allegations were publicly reported against them, according to The New York Times.
In a tweet ahead of a planned story, Times reporter Emily Steel cited an internal email to staff in reporting the moves. There has been increasing agitation at the company in recent weeks, especially since a major Times piece last month exposed the culture of the company, which many have described as a “boys club.”
A Vice rep did not immediately respond to Deadline’s request for comment.
Creighton was allegedly involved in a $135,000 settlement with a woman who claimed that she was fired after she rejected an intimate relationship with him.
Germano, who founded Carrot Creative, a digital ad agency acquired by Vice in 2013, also factored into the Times story. The paper recounted inappropriate comments he made to former employee Amanda Rue during a 2012 holiday party. Gabrielle Schaefer, another former Carrot employee, told the Times that Germano had “pulled her onto his lap” at a company event in 2014.
The revelations in some ways are not the most shocking during Hollywood’s period of reckoning with endemic sexual misconduct. Founded as an underground, punk-inspired magazine in Montreal more than two decades ago, Vice has exploded into a multi-billion-dollar media company thanks to an aggressive, take-no-prisoners ethos. Its self-styled outlaw image, a draw for millennials online, has stood in sharp contrast with that of more established media entities like Disney, 21st Century Fox and A+E Networks have invested in the company.
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