Vice suspends two executives following accusations of sexual harassment:

In response to a recent, damning New York Timesinvestigation into the workplace culture at Vice Media rife with sexual harassment, the media company placed two top executives on leave Tuesday stemming from accusations of sexual harassment. Vicepresident Andrew Creighton and chief digital officer Mike Germano were both specifically named in the Timespiece; they are also the only two in the piece that still work for the company, according to a Vice company memo Tuesday morning announcing the suspensions. Two other male employees, former head of ViceNews Jason Mojica and former producer Rhys James, were fired in late November for sexual harassment.

From the Times:

Sarah Broderick, Vice’s chief operating officer and chief financial officer, said in the memo that a special committee of the company’s board was “reviewing the facts” related to a $135,000 settlement Mr. Creighton had reached in 2016 with a former employee, who claimed that she was fired after she rejected an intimate relationship with him, according to people briefed on the matter and documents viewed by The Times…

Vice also said that Mr. Germano would remain out of the office pending investigations by the company’s human resources department and an outside investigator into claims against him. Among the allegations against Mr. Germano are that he told a former employee at a holiday party in 2012 that he had not wanted to hire her because he wanted to have sex with her; and that, in 2014, he had allegedly pulled an employee onto his lap.

“We have failed as a company to create a safe and inclusive workplace where everyone, especially women, can feel respected and thrive,’’ Vice co-founders Shane Smith and Suroosh Alvi said in a Dec. 23 letter in response to the Times story.