Inspired by Sorgatz and Anonymous@5:03 p.m., I decided we need a Virtual Time Capsule to preserve the memos, e-mail and other primary documents historians will need to figure out what happened to the newspaper industry during the early part of this century.
First item in the capsule: a 2004 article in News Watch, the News Department's weekly newsletter. It's by Phil Currie (left), who ran the department until his retirement last month, after 44 years in Gannett. He's writing on Feb. 13 (a Friday, in fact) about an editorial quality-control program at the time -- "Real Life, Real News." Here, he suggests reporters evaluate a story before it hits print:"The system needs tests along the way,'' Currie writes. He offers a series of questions that I bet will stump every future historian:
- How does the Moments of Life aspect enter into the reporting? Has the reporter put news in the story along with recognizing the Moment of Life?
- What aspect of the story is the "connector," the one point the writer is fairly certain will ring true with the readers and connect with them? Remember to look for the "connector."
- What ways can a story in an "outer circle" of the Circles of Life better relate to the inner circles, especially the core circle involving an individual or the family/friends circle in which the individual will be very interested?
Got something for our Time Capsule? Please post it in the comments section, below. You may also e-mail via gannettblog[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the green sidebar, upper right.
I am so sending you money, Jim.
ReplyDeleteIf only the mother ship understood half as much as you...
Every time I think I've seen the lowest level of dysfunctionality this company has to offer - BAM - it sinks to yet a more surreal level.
This is just some sort of bad cable TV show now. I'd laugh (okay, I'd laugh HARDER) if my salary, health benefits, pension, 401K and mental health weren't in such jeopardy.
http://www.libertyroundtable.org/library/essay.drudge.html
ReplyDeleteThis article predates that by six years. It was dead on.
Oy. This guy and his Legos -- pyramids, circles, stacks (aka First Five Paragraphs). And still, the writing sucks. Which, as a lover of language, I am convinced is big part of the reason people shed the newspaper habit. Craigslist didn't do a fraction of the damge that dull, uninspired, personality-free, formulaic writing has done.
ReplyDeleteCan we call it
ReplyDelete"The Nauseum"
Please?
I have cultivated an intense dislike for these templates for Gannett writing over the years.
ReplyDeleteLet me tell the story. Let my editor ask for more context or something more personal to make it pop. Then publish it and let the reader comments roll in.
Worrying about inner and outer cores, first five paragraphs, whether a person of color is quoted or cited, determining if key topics are addressed was such a drag. You would be amazed, when I did cram all that stuff in, how much got cut ... for space and small news hole.
Questions you should ask yourself about the story:
ReplyDelete1. Are there too many facts in here, making it confusing for our readers?
2. Can we shave off any pointy edges? Stories should read like a Xanax and nice glass of wine.
3. Is there a way to replace a number with a puppy, to make this story cuddlier?
4. Any pictures of puppies, or women showing cleavage out at a bar? Both?
5. Wait, five is way too many things for anyone to remember.
The swine.
ReplyDeleteTypical of Gannett's obsession with process rather than outcome.
ReplyDeleteThe truth rings trues with readers always.
ReplyDeleteNothing---I say nothing---can top Dubow's national head to the local content gathering bodies comment!
ReplyDeleteA quick history of the ongoing collapse of USA TODAY:
ReplyDeleteMarch 2004 -- USA Today discloses that an investigation had uncovered "strong evidence" that reporter Jack Kelley "fabricated substantial portions of at least eight major stories, lifted nearly two dozen quotes or other material from competing publications, lied in speeches he gave for the newspaper and conspired to mislead those investigating his work." A subsequent report excoriated newsroom managers, saying: "This is not a culture that promotes the give-and-take that sharpens and refines thought, the collegiality that magnifies the impact of resources, the spirit that shares rewards and ameliorates distress, out of which great journalism arises." A wave of resignations of top newsroom managers, including USA Today's editor and managing editor of news, soon follows.
April 2004 -- Ken Paulson is named USA Today editor. "Who?" is a question often asked in the newsroom.
December 2005 -- USA Today announces it will merge the print and the online newsrooms and dot-com boss Kinsey Wilson becomes an executive editor, creating a co-editorship in the position with John Hillkirk. (Question: Has anyone ever seen a co-editorship work well? )
What isn't mentioned at the time is that, although the dot-com operation has been growing rapidly in readership, Wilson has been told that he can't hire any more dot-com staff. This was one of the driving factors in the merger: In the face of growth, Gannett decided to act like Gannett again, and the only way to get more staff resources for online projects was to poach or share staff with the newspaper. Strangely, the newspaper-only folks don't think this is such a hot idea, and thus does the fun begin.
Spring/summer 2006 -- After months of navel-gazing/retreat-ing/endless meetings, the merger finally begins in earnest. A rewrite desk of dot-com and print people is dropped in the middle of the newsroom, to much grumbling; it's considered an early success because the staffers don't kill each other. The sports department tears itself completely up and reorganizes so that nobody knows who's doing what any more; digital and print staff in other sections more or less begin to start working together, or at least create the credible illusion that they are working together even though they really aren't.
2006-2007 -- Some of the reorg is working; some isn't (which is really no big suprise, since this is all new). However, one expected outcome isn't taking place. There had been hope among higher-ups that as people left USAT, they could be replaced by reporters/editors/producers with 'webby' backgrounds (and smaller paychecks) for new jobs. The problem is that turnover crawls to a near-halt as the newspaper industry slows down. So:
November 2007: USAT announces it will cut 45 newsroom jobs, seeking buyouts first from longtime veterans and threatening layoffs if that doesn't work. Less-publicized is the fact that USAT also plans to hire about 30 people into largely digital or digital-only jobs (again, at lower salaries) to re-populate some of those slots. Taking the hint, an entire wave of veteran USA Today staffers heads out the door, taking fat paychecks with them but also taking decades of journalism experience and institutional knowledge.
2008: It becomes increasingly clear that the market for newspaper advertising is collapsing, as the paper shrinks dramatically. The new digital people start showing up but there seems to be little or no new stuff on the website; video is rare; interactive stuff starts looking like the stuff on other sites three years earlier; there's less original copy than at other competitors. The website nudges upward in readership, but at a slower rate than many of its competitors. It's losing market share.
The Gannett Blog spotlights a
hot, persistent rumor -- that Paulson will be leaving. In staff meetings, he denies it.
June 2008: Gannett freezes its retirement plan, denying thousands of employees many thousands of dollars of future benefits. It increases its 401K match -- in Gannett stock, which is dropping like a rock -- but acknowledges that this is a losing deal for many employees.
September 2008: Wilson, who is pretty much synonymous with all things dot-com, says he's leaving for NPR. This came out of nowhere and immediately triggers a huge wave of rumors that he knows something others don't. His departure is followed, in rapid succession over the next few months, by the departure/announced departure of the graphics ME, the rewrite desk editor, the website's most popular blogger and finally, in December, Paulson himself.
November 2008: Out come the axes! There won't be a buyout this time, Paulson tells the staff, announcing there will be 20 newsroom layoffs and begging for volunteers. He gets a handful of volunteer takers but, with only a one-week deadline for staff to make a decision, most of the cuts are made by forcibly shoving people out of the door. Departure pay is half what was offered to those who took the buyout a year earlier.
January 2009: Staff is told that they must take one week of unpaid leave in the first quarter and is told that their pay will be frozen for a year.
And now we wait for whatever comes next.
I sat in a meeting years ago and a young Phil Curry humiliated my editor in front of the entire group. I have always waited for him to get his. Believe me folks he didn't decide to retire, they put him out to pasture. Phil I've waited along time but now you are the old dude that got tossed out because the younger generation no longer found value in your work. It was a long time coming but my buddy finally received justice.Tough to be on the other end heh pal? Shame on you. Think about that every day of your retirement.
ReplyDeleteI usually felt bad for the top editor when he called a meeting to explain the next greatest Gannett initiative out to save the world of newspapering. From Real Life, Real News (gark) to the godawful information center, I wondered how he could keep a straight face when he spewed the garbage. He had to pretend like he believed it and was fully behind it but we knew better.
ReplyDeleteAnd they always said this is not a passing fad!
Thank god RL,RN was a passing fad; several times HR made me redo an employee evaluation because I didn't focus enough on that crap. So I just dropped the same graf into every evaluation and no one said a word.
Hey, anybody know where Jack Kelley is now?
ReplyDeleteYes, it's a serious question. I wonder how a guy like that recovers from that kind of scandal.
How about that cool dinosaur poster Phil came up with? Who is the dinosaur now Phillie boy?
ReplyDeleteHaving been in a number of meetings over the years with Phil Curry and having worked for one of the larger GCI papers, I can tell you that Curry was like almost all the top GCI "editors," clueless, laughable, without talent, small-paper minded and highly overpaid.
ReplyDeleteHe wouldn't have been hired at my paper as a reporter, let alone an editor.
To be fair, Phil was okay as long as the enwspaper was the single source for information. As soon as the information highway, or what Sue Clark Johnson called a dirt highway that we didn't have to worry about, came in Phil didn't have the capacity to compete. He was a product of the wrong period of time. Its not his fault. He just stayed around too long.
ReplyDeleteCan we finally throw out that stupid dinosaur poster?
ReplyDeleteGawd, nothing like a Far Side ripoff to show everyone exactly where you think your division is going.
Yes, Currie's writing prescriptions surely sucked. But this is not all. He also recited Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech at site-visit meetings with top newsroom editors. Why did he do this? Why not play a tape of MLK delivering it himself? On this day especially, I ask, what was Curry trying to pull?
ReplyDeleteCurrie and his little toadie, Calvin Stovall, were arrogant assholes who thought they invented journalism. And they lorded it over their realm of pissant newspapers. Their message was clear: Anything your newspaper did before Gannett came along wasn't worth the newsprint it was printed on. Good riddance, jackass.
ReplyDelete