‘You’re a Problematic and Emotional Woman’: Former Valnet Employees Detail Work Experiences | Exclusive

It was a hazy summer day in Panama City, and Lissete Lanuza-Saenz had to hop on a Zoom call.

As one of the remaining senior editors at the comic book news site CBR after a round of layoffs in May 2023, she requested the meeting to advocate for a disabled female staffer who could not meet Valnet’s quota of editing 50 articles per week.

She asked Valnet general manager Mars Monnier and then-content director George Edelman to transfer the editor to another department with a lighter quota, but Monnier refused, she said.

“It’s not our job to accommodate for her,” he said.

Lanuza-Saenz, who has a law degree, countered: “But it is, she has a disability. There are protections for people with disabilities. I went to law school, I can tell you the laws that protect her and all of us.”

“You’re being a problematic and emotional woman,” Monnier told her, according to Lanuza-Saenz, in earshot of her husband, who confirmed the exchange to TheWrap. “You need to calm down.”

Lanuza-Saenz spoke on the record about the incident for the first time to TheWrap.

“He called me a ‘problematic and emotional woman’ multiple times,” she added. “This is the culture of CBR with women.”

Lanuza-Saenz’s husband, Julio Rodriguez, told TheWrap he overheard the meeting from an adjacent room and said to her: “What the f–k was that?”

Monnier and Edelman did not respond to The Wrap’s request for comment.

Valnet did not respond directly to TheWrap’s questions about this alleged incident: “This is clearly another attempt to publish defamatory and inaccurate information by you and The Wrap,” an unnamed representative wrote by email instead.

In tears, Lanuza-Saenz notified the two editors who worked for her, Jeanette White, CBR’s lead movie features editor and Gissane Sophia, lead TV features editor.

“We’d all been trying to advocate for our disabled colleague, so it was wildly shocking and inappropriate that a higher-up would be so dismissive and crude,” Sophia told TheWrap.

Although Edelman and CBR managing editor Jon Arvedon apologized later to Lanuza-Saenz, she quit CBR after this exchange on Sept. 1, 2023, also frustrated after being passed over for a promotion. Both White and Sophia stepped down with Lanuza-Saenz in a show of solidarity.

Another staffer who asked to remain anonymous also quit the following week. All said they did so because of the toxic work environment, pointing to the conversation over the disabled staffer as their breaking point.

“I didn’t want to work for a company that didn’t respect me or my female co-workers,” White said.

I don’t leave CBR in solitude. I walk away with my co-workers, @lizziethat and @GissaneSophia, two incredibly hard-working women whom I can’t even begin to properly thank. I’m lucky to call them my friends, forged through blood, sweat, and editorial tears.— Jeanette White (J.M. White) (@jmwhitefiction) September 1, 2023

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In the wake of TheWrap’s investigative article last month outlining alleged exploitive labor practices at Valnet entertainment news sites including CBR, Collider, Screen Rant and Movie Web, Valnet responded by suing TheWrap in Delaware and Canada for libel, claiming the allegations in the article were false. The article interviewed 15 current and former contributors who said Valnet routinely exploits writers by imposing untenable work quotas, replacing staff with contractors after acquiring a site and blacklisting those who complain.

One freelancer, Daniel Quintiliano, has filed a lawsuit claiming oppressive work conditions, and is seeking to establish a class action. TheWrap also published Valnet’s internal blacklist of more than 400 freelance writers who have criticized the company or have been banned for conduct such as “creating drama.”

Valnet threatened to take further legal action against TheWrap when asked about the 2023 incident involving Lanuza-Saenz and its subsequent resignations.

In the wake of the lawsuit, several former Valnet personnel — most of them contractors working full-time positions — went on the record to say the article accurately described work conditions.

“Newly fired Valnet editor here,” Diane Darcy wrote on Bluesky last Thursday. “It is NOT defamation when the accounts provided are actually true WITH receipts. From demoting senior writers in early 2024 without notifying their editors, to blatant mismanagement of both writers and editors’ workloads, there are more stories that haven’t been told.” In an interview with TheWrap, Darcy — a former CBR editor — confirmed the allegations outlined in her social post.

White, CBR’s lead movie features editor who worked under Lanuza-Saenz, described what she called a chaotic, toxic workplace where “things only got worse after a restructure that saw myself and my fellow lead editors demoted without warning and my emails to HR left unanswered.”

The restructure at CBR was referred to among staffers as “The Memorial Day massacre,” in which Valnet laid off 75% of the CBR staff, about two dozen people, in 2023. The remaining editors and staffers who survived the mass firing were found with even more work and “impossible quotas” to fill according to Lanuza-Saenz.

Darcy agreed. “What I personally experienced was the aftermath of that, and the fallout was absolutely brutal on the movies and TV editorial team,” Darcy told TheWrap.

I did not leave CBR to "pursue other opportunities," I left because I was overworked, underappreciated and because I was told by Valnet that asking for better conditions for my team made me "problematic" and I should try to be "less emotional." That's why I left.— Lizzie Read More