Vice Media Suspends 2 Executives After Sexual Misconduct Report

After the New York Times reported last month about a culture of sexual misconduct at Vice Media, the digital media company suspended president Andrew Creighton and chief digital officer Mike Germano. Vice announced the suspensions in a company memo sent to workers on Tuesday.

Vice said it is investigating the allegations.

The Times said it found four settlements involving sexual harassment allegations or defamation against Vice workers, including Creighton. The newspaper talked to more than two dozen women who said they personally experienced or saw sexual misconduct, including groping and forced kissing.

Vice co-founders Shane Smith and Suroosh Alvi apologized for the "boy's club" culture. They sent a note to staff saying the company let people down in failing to create a safe and inclusive workplace.

Vice started as a Canadian magazine and has grown into a dominant online video company, expanding into TV around the world.

In the memo, the company said that Creighton and Germano were the only two people named in the Times story who were still employed at Vice.

The Times said Vice paid a former female employee a $135,000 settlement in 2016 after she said she was fired when she rejected Creighton's advances. The Vice memo said her claims were found to lack merit at the time after a review by law firm, but a special committee of its board is looking at the matter now. It will make a recommendation on what to do before a Jan. 11 board meeting.

As for Germano, the memo said Vice's human-resources department and an external investigator are looking into the allegations. One woman told the Times that he had told her he didn't want to hire her because he wanted to have sex with her. Another woman said he pulled her on to his lap at a work event at a bar.

The memo, from Vice's chief operating officer and CFO Sarah Broderick, said the company will require mandatory sexual harassment training for all employees starting later this month and that the company was "committed" to having half of employees be female "at every level across the organization" by 2020. She said "pay parity" would come by the end of the year.

The reports of sexual misconduct at Vice are part of a wave of allegations of bad behavior in media, entertainment and other industries, as well as politics, that have come in the aftermath of articles detailing Harvey Weinstein's decades of alleged rape and harassment this fall.

By TALI ARBEL, AP Technology Writer

Photo credit: Vice