The Pensacola News Journal is a microcosm of the forces bearing down on Gannett and its 85 mostly midsized dailies and 23 TV stations. That was the gist of a radio show interview I gave today to Rick Outzen, a Gannett Blog reader, blogger, publisher of a local alternative weekly and host on NewsRadio 1620 AM.Pensacola, in the far-western corner of Florida's Panhandle, has been whacked by the residential real estate meltdown. Indeed, Florida is one of four states -- the others are California, Arizona and Nevada -- especially hard hit in the housing crash. With newspapers in all four states, Gannett has suffered revenue losses in that meltdown, something management is likely to repeat next week during the Feb. 1 fourth-quarter earnings announcement.
Pensacola's surrounding Escambia County (population: 297,000) has a tourism-based economy still recovering from Hurricane Ivan in 2004. Rising gasoline prices would pinch spending by budget-conscience tourists who target what we fondly called the Redneck Riviera when I lived in Arkansas. The News Journal's circulation, about 75,000 Sunday and 60,000 daily, has been mostly flat in the past year -- which in this environment is good news.
The newsroom employs about 74 of the paper's 420 employees. And while staffing hasn't changed a lot from a year ago, as opposed to many other GCI papers, the News Journal has added more special sections and online features stretching staff resources further.
[Image: today's News Journal, Newseum. The lede story is a real talker: The Escambia County School Board on Tuesday night censured Superintendent Jim Paul for his Jan. 10 drunken-driving arrest in South Florida]
Employs 74 in the newsroom? Ha. Try 53 and declining. And about 20 percent of those are clueless managers. -- Aside from the pampered management, you'd be surprised at how much the newsroom has changed in a year.
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