Guild targets GCI partner in $500,000 campaign

The Newspaper Guild is spending $500,000 to organize as many as 300 Northern California newspaper workers employed by Gannett business partner MediaNews Group, led by CEO William Dean Singleton (left). Guild president Linda Foley says the campaign is perhaps the most important now under way in the industry, SF Weekly says.

Anyone who runs newspapers even more profitably than Gannett is worth knowing about -- especially if GCI expands its partnerships with the company. The two have been in newspaper publishing ventures in California, Texas, New Mexico, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

SF Weekly says: "Singleton's success has been characterized by purchasing financially troubled newspapers and revitalizing them by making deep staffing cuts and then clustering newsrooms to save on printing and administrative costs. The editorial content of his newspapers typically declines as sharply as the overhead. Singleton's ruthless efficiency has given him dual reputations as either the scourge of the newspaper industry for elevating the bottom line over quality journalism, or a hero who has saved more papers, and thus jobs, than he has eliminated."

The cluster concept is one Gannett's been pushing as a cost-saver that could lead to more customer service warehouses and deals like the surprise sale of four GCI papers last April. After all, a MediaNews executive said, clustering means you don't need copy editors at every paper.

[Hat tip, Romenesko; image: Bloomberg News]