A media company founded by former aides to President Barack Obama — and partly funded by George Soros — that produces the influential “Pod Save America” podcast has been beset by internal turmoil between its progressive staffers and their moderate bosses, according to a report.
Tension at Los Angeles-based Crooked Media has been fueled by staff disagreements about the war in Gaza, anger over a co-founder dating an employee who was promoted, grueling 12-hour work days, and resentment over pay disparity and celebrity status of the hosts, according to a report in Bloomberg News.
More than a dozen current and former employees of the company told the outlet that there is a divide between more progressive staffers whose views are to the left of the mainstream Democratic Party and the co-founders and podcast hosts who veer more toward the middle.
Crooked Media has received tens of millions of dollars from pro-Democrat donors — including the charity founded by George Soros, which was given a board seat.
It was founded in 2017 by three former Obama staffers — speechwriters Jon Lovett and Jon Favreau and spokesperson Tommy Vietor. Another ex-Obama aide, Dan Pfeiffer, joined the three as co-host of the “Pod Save America” podcast.
The podcast generated a mass audience of Democrat-leaning listeners during the Trump presidency — enabling the company to expand to book publishing, live events and merchandising.
However, one recent skirmish between staffers and with management involved the hesitance of the “Pod Save America” hosts to criticize Israel over its military operations following the Hamas-led terrorist attacks of Oct. 7.
According to Bloomberg News, a faction of workers demanded a more forceful pro-Palestinian stance from the company, including open discussions about the death toll in Gaza as well as support for the pro-Palestinian demonstrations on college campuses.
Staffers tried to get management to change their tune on the Israel-Gaza war by posting links to news stories about the conflict in the internal Slack channel to make sure that executives saw it, Bloomberg News reported.
Some Crooked staffers put an emoji of a watermelon — which symbolized support for the Palestinians — next to their names on Slack while other wore a keffiyeh, the traditional Palestinian head covering.
Management resisted pressure from staffers to hold a company-wide discussion on the issue. Instead, they told employees to meet with their supervisors confidentially, according to Bloomberg News.
The Post has sought comment from Crooked Media.
Another boiling issue stems from Favreau’s newfound celebrity status and fame, according to the report, He has been regularly photographed hobnobbing with celebrities such as Chrissy Teigen and John Legend.
Favreau was also reported to have recently bought a $10 million home in the Los Angeles area — which rankled staffers who thought it went against progressive ideology, according to Bloomberg News.
Lovett was known to be dating a staffer who was promoted at least three times in the last two years — a rapid rise through the ranks that left other workers embittered due to the difficulty of gaining a promotion at the company, according to the report.
The company regularly produces 14 podcasts — half of which are hosted by one of the four “Pod Save America” stars. With its massive infusion of cash and its captive audience, things seemed to be rolling for the company.
But things began to change in late 2022 when a decline in advertising dollars forced Crooked Media to axe one of its podcasts, “Hot Take,” a climate-themed show hosted by Mary Annaïse Heglar and climate reporter Amy Westervelt.
According to Heglar, she and Westervelt noticed “a lot of red flags” when they negotiated their contract with Crooked Media.
Writing in a blog post published in March of last year, she cited “our very apparent ideological differences with the heads of the network.”
“Suffice it to say that Amy and I were far, far to the left of just about every show I’ve heard in the Crooked universe.”
