Our Team
Management
Journalism Advisory Board
General Advisors
- Merrill Brown
- Brad Brunell
- Steven Cristol
- Tim Hanlon
- Gigi Johnson
- Brian Monahan
- Eric Picard
- Drake Pruitt
Investors
MANAGEMENT
The inspiration for SpinSpotter occurred several years ago when the founder’s mother asked the simple question, “How do I know if this news story is credible?” A difficult question to answer unless you’re passionate about journalism, have broken large chunks of ground in digital media, and count a number of venture capitalists as close, personal friends.
Core management belief: Don’t let your mother down.
John Atcheson — CEO
John is an incurable entrepreneur. John was founder/CEO of both MusicNet, the first interactive music service (backed by Kleiner Perkins and The Mayfield Fund), and Ads.com, the first comprehensive ad information website (backed by the venture capital arm of News Corp.). John has also served as VP & GM of Media Publishing at RealNetworks (RNWK), and served on the early executive teams at both Digidesign (now a division of Avid) and Macromind (now part of Adobe). All told, John has over 20 years’ experience as an entrepreneur and CEO in the field of media and technology. He received his BA from Brown University and his MBA from Stanford Business School.
- Politics: Socially liberal, fiscally conservative
- Party Membership: Democrat
- Political Contributions: Barack Obama, Senator Maria Cantwell, Governor Christine Gregoire, Environment Washington
- Philanthropy: Sightline Institute, Seattle Symphony, Brown University, Park Tudor School (Indianapolis), The Bush School (Seattle), Stanford University Graduate School of Business, Climate Solutions
Todd Herman — Founder + Chief Creative Officer
Todd probably has ADD: he’s a new media innovator, media-brat, and constitutional law geek. He’s been at the forefront of many fundamental developments in new media—melding technology and media in broadband video and Internet radio. In 2008, he was inducted into the Streaming Media All-Stars from Streaming Media magazine. He’s held a number of management positions with MSNBC.com and Microsoft.
Todd wrote the initial strategy and business plan for MSN Video and brought over 100 traditional TV brands into Internet video. AdAge Magazine named him “the media guy” at Microsoft/MSN. Before that, he served as co-founder/CEO of theDial, an angel and VC-backed Internet radio pioneer acquired by Loudeye. theDial was the first to welcome Microsoft, Sears, and H&R Block to Internet radio.
- Politics: Conservative on most things
- Party Membership: None
- Political Contributions: Electronic Freedom Foundation, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, American Center for Law and Justice
- Philanthropy:His Lutheran Church, The Compass Center in Seattle, Smiletrain.org, the Chauncey Bailey Project of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, Intrepid Fallen Heros Fund
- Favorite Moments in Journalism: Vanity Fair’s “Bringing Down Bear Sterns”, Claudia Rossette’s work exposing the United Nations Oil For Food Scandal,
- Worst moment in Journalism: Walter Duranty's writing for The New York Times where he actively cheered for Joseph Stalin.
Christopher Taylor — Director of Engineering
Christopher is a tech head honcho. A ten-year veteran of the Internet Media space, Christopher has contributed to a wide range of products for clients such as O2, Target, AT&T and Avex Entertainment. Before joining SpinSpotter as a member of the founding team, he worked in Tokyo as director of technology for Groove Digital Entertainment building products for major media companies in Japan. Christopher started in the industry as a co-founder of theDial.com, a provider of syndicated Internet radio. He later moved to Loudeye Corporation, where he worked as a software engineer and, later, program manager. Christopher is passionate about the products he helps to bring to the market and his energy and insight are always a driving force.
- Politics: Liberal to libertarian
- Party Membership: None
- Political Contributions: None
- Philanthropy: Green Up
JOURNALISM ADVISORY BOARD
These are the people that hold our hands over the journalistic fire. We selected them for their intellectual and ideological diversity. Left and right, liberal and conservative, Harvard and Hollywood. They’re respected teachers, writers, tech heads, artists, and incurable rebels who all agree on one thing: the absolute necessity for objective news reporting.
Their task is to tell us what we missed, where we’ve fallen short, and how we keep the ethical standards high and beyond reproach. (As we evolve, we’ll bring in additional talent and seats.) In the interest of full transparency, we happily expose our Journalism Advisory Board members for your scrutiny.
Brooke Allen
Brooke Allen’s critical writing appears frequently in The New York Times Book Review, The Atlantic Monthly, The Hudson Review, and The Nation. Her book Twentieth Century Attitudes was voted a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Her latest book, Our Skeptical Founding Fathers, was based on one of her articles for the The Nation.
She writes reviews frequently for The New Criterion, The Wall Street Journal, and The Atlantic Monthly. She is also the author of two acclaimed collections of essays, Twentieth-Century Attitudes: Literary Powers in Uncertain Times and Artistic License: Three Centuries of Good Writing and Bad Behavior.
Politically, Brooke describes herself as a proud, left-wing Democrat.
Glenn Fleishman
Glenn Fleishman is a technology journalist and author contributing regularly to The Economist, Popular Science, PC World, MacWorld magazine, and other online and print publications.
He has been a columnist for The Seattle Times since 2000, and appears weekly as a guest on KUOW-FM's afternoon arts and culture program “Sound Focus.” Glenn owns and operates the daily news site Wi-Fi Networking News and five related wireless data weblogs. A contributing editor at TidBITS, he has written several books on wireless networking and file sharing.
Politically, Fleishman describes himself as a Democrat who leans towards leaner, more efficient government.
Jonah Goldberg
Mr Goldberg is editor-at-large of National Review Online, for which he writes a weekly column, "The Goldberg File.” He’s a CNN contributor and panelist on “Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer” and an occasional guest-host of “Crossfire.” Rounding out his resume, he was a columnist for the now sadly defunct Brill's Content.
Previously, Mr. Goldberg was a senior television producer on “Think Tank with Ben Wattenberg,” the award-winning public-affairs program, and he has written and produced two PBS documentaries.
As a journalist, his writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, Women's Quarterly, Food and Wine, and Slate.
Mr. Goldberg is politically conservative.
Roger Kimball
Roger is a conservative art critic and social commentator. He first gained prominence with his book Tenured Radicals: How Politics Has Corrupted Higher Education.
He is co-editor and co-publisher of The New Criterion magazine and the publisher of Encounter Books. Kimball lectures widely and is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, National Review, and The Times Literary Supplement. In 2007, he inaugurated “Roger's Rules”, a regular column at the Pajamas Media weblog. Much of his work battles against what he calls our nation’s "cultural amnesia."
Roger L. Simon
Mr. Simon is the co-founder & CEO of Pajamas Media, one of the top collections of big-name blogs. He’s also an Academy Award nominated screenwriter and eight-time New York Times best-selling author.
His screen adaptation of his novel The Big Fix starred actor Richard Dreyfuss as hard-boiled private detective Moses Wine. Wine is cynical, hard-edged, and , like Mr. Simon, a former 1960s radical.
After 9/11 Roger underwent a political transformation, and is therefore perhaps the first American writer profiled by both Mother Jones and National Review. He supports same-gender marriage and the war on terror, and contends that those issues are linked.
Marty Steffens
Marty Steffens is a professor (endowed chair) of business and financial journalism at the University of Missouri, where she works with the Society of Business Editors and Writers. She has a 30-year career in newspapers, including executive editor of the San Francisco Examiner and reporter for the Minneapolis Star and St. Paul Pioneer Press.
A frequent lecturer around the world, she’s also been invited to speak in Norway, Jamaica, Italy and the Czech Republic. She has also served on the board of the Pew Center for Civic Journalism, and her blog is “Journalism and Democracy.”
Like many newspaper editors, she is a political independent -- never voting in primaries until recently. She's voted for both Republican and Democrats over the years, though she confesses to voting mostly Democratic.
GENERAL ADVISORS
In our view, reading the straight bio is preferable to an inordinate amount of hype. That said, we think these smart people give us the intellectual horsepower to drive forward. We look to them for the practical and the theoretical. We at SpinSpotter are truly honored to have them on board. To say anything more would needlessly ratchet up the spin meter.
Merrill Brown
Merrill Brown is the founder and principal of MMB Media LLC, which provides clients with management and strategy consulting, corporate, editorial and program development, business analysis, and marketing services. Brown serves as chairman of the board of NowPublic.com, the leading citizen journalism company in the world. Brown is also a partner in Propeller LLC, a New York consultancy.
Before establishing MMB Media, Merrill served as senior vice president, RealNetworks' RealOne Services, where he was responsible for all facets of the RealOne programming business. Prior to joining RealNetworks, Merrill was the first editor in chief of MSNBC.com, after serving as acting managing editor for the launch of the service. He later served as senior vice president of MSNBC.com.
Merrill was one of the initial strategists responsible for creating the Courtroom Television Network (Court TV), and, as a founder, worked on all facets of the network's operation leading up to its launch. As senior vice president, Corporate & Program Development, he oversaw program planning, advertising, promotion, marketing, public relations, and development of day-to-day management.
Brad Brunell
Brad Brunell is currently senior vice president of Corporate Development at Acacia Research, a leading patent acquisition and licensing firm. Previously, Brad was at Microsoft holding a number of management positions, including general manager of Intellectual Property Licensing, where he was responsible for inbound and outbound patent licensing. Previously, he spent 7 years as a key dealmaker for Microsoft.
Steven Cristol
Steven Cristol is a leading authority on brand strategy and a consultant to leading technology companies. He is co-author of Essentials of Media Planning: A Marketing Viewpoint and Simplicity Marketing.
Tim Hanlon
Tim Hanlon is executive vice president/Ventures for Denuo, the futures consulting practice of advertising agency holding company Publicis Groupe, S.A. He is chiefly responsible for the solicitation, negotiation and oversight of the unit's strategic partnership and equity investment activity, focused exclusively on paradigm-changing “new media” platforms and technologies—work which he began as head of Publicis Groupe Media (PGM) Ventures in April 2005.
Prior to founding the PGM Ventures practice, Hanlon was senior vice president/director, Emerging Contacts for Starcom MediaVest Group, a global media services network of Publicis Groupe Media and parent holding company Publicis Groupe, S.A
Gigi Johnson
Gigi Johnson is president of Maremel Ventures, a media and technology strategy consulting and venture firm. Ms. Johnson was executive director of the Entertainment & Media Management Institute at UCLA Anderson School of Management until 2005, and presently is faculty director of its Global Entertainment Executive Program. She received her MBA from UCLA Anderson School and her BA in Cinema-Television Production from the University of Southern California.
Brian Monahan
Brian Monahan is the global SVP of Social Media for Interpublic Group, Brian leads the Emerging Media Labs investments in emerging technologies. On behalf of Microsoft, General Mills, Coca-Cola and the U.S. Army, Brian crafts digital strategies. Prior to this, Brian served as vice president of Media for McCann Erickson, where he directed Microsoft’s one billion dollars in brand advertising.
Eric Picard
Eric Picard is director of advertising technology strategy at Microsoft. He sets corporate-level strategy for how Microsoft approaches advertising from a business and technology standpoint. Formerly founder and director of product management at Bluestreak., he oversaw advertising products such as third-party ad serving, ad analytics, and rich media, and raised $28 million from VC firms and angel investors. Prior to Bluestreak, Eric founded both 9th Square, Inc. and Waterworks Interactive, Inc.
Drake Pruitt
Drake Pruitt is currently managing partner at Napatree LLC, after previously serving as president and CEO for Bocada. Prior to Bocada, Drake served as vice president of sales and officer for aQuantive, an online media technology company (now part of Microsoft). He was also at Sprint Nextel as general manager, driving the business to over $30mm in annual revenues in the Washington and Idaho markets. Drake holds a B.A. in Economics cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania.
INVESTORS
Before there was a beta, there were investors. Yes, they have deep pockets, but the most salient thing to note is that these people signed on after a short presentation and no hors d’oeuvres. They’re as intrigued and excited as we are about the ramifications of this technology and the launch of the anti-spin movement.
Epic Ventures – lead investor
Epic Ventures looks to invest in best of breed technologies from companies that are positioned to become the market leaders in the category. Epic backs the visionaries and proven leaders of their portfolio companies with not only their capital, but with a commitment of time and resources drawn from their partnership, and their network of advisors and industry contacts.
Jordan Greenhall
R. Jordan Greenhall was a co-founder of DivX and served as the company's CEO until July 2007, and chairman of the Board of Directors until December 2007. Greenhall was responsible for DivX's corporate strategy and overall strategic direction. From January 1999 to June 1999, he was vice president at MP3.com, a digital media company, where he was responsible for developing and implementing the company's business and content development model. From July 1999 to January 2000, he served as a strategic consultant with INTERVU, a premier streaming media services provider. Greenhall received a JD, magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School and a BA, summa cum laude, from Texas A&M University.
Scott Frazier
Scott Frazier is an angel investor and co-founder of the Utah Angels. Frazier's major investments include TruVision, Omniture, MyFamily.com, Corda Technologies, iCentral, Thoughtstar, Infopia, and Cerberian. He serves as president of TruVision, Inc., a rapidly growing company that operates nationwide, preferred-rate provider networks for Lasik, cosmetic surgery and hearing aids. From 1987 to 1995, he was co-owner and CEO of Achievement Rehab, a leading provider of contract therapy to nursing homes. Frazier grew this company from 150 employees to 2,000 employees and $100 million in revenues, prior to selling in 1995. Frazier earned a BA in economics from BYU in1975 and an MBA from Harvard in 1978. He and his wife Miriam have eight children.
