Read the contractual voting rights and governance document here.

Summary by Olivia Henry, March 2021

Organization description

Defector Media is an New York LLC wholly-owned by a Delaware corporation.

Types of membership

• Active employees are voting members.
• Certain decisions — including selling the company or dissolving it — requires a vote of the supermajority holders.

Board of directors

Composition

• Publisher
• Vice President of revenue & operations (COO)
• Editor in chief
• Staff member who is an editor
• Staff member who is a writer

Governance

• Directors are elected by a supermajority employee vote.
• Staff directors have one-year terms.
• It takes a supermajority employee vote to hire or remove the publisher, COO and/or editor-in-chief.
• The publisher, COO and editor-in-chief are directors as long as they hold those jobs (ex officio directors).

Management

• The Board of Directors manage the day-to-day operations of the Company.

Voting

• Standing committees can make decisions about certain business and operations issues, while editorial decision-making is carried out in a traditional newsroom hierarchy.
• Committees seek to make decisions using active solidarity, or when “everyone is ‘okay’ with the decisions even if it is not their first choice.”
• There are also temporary committees and advice circles.