No Saturday breaking news or Saturday sports coverage was in the Indianapolis Star's Sunday edition, Editor & Publisher says, citing the Star, which described the problem as a computer "storage issue." Managing Editor Pam Fine told E&P the problem occurred after the paper's CCI Publishing System went down and content placed in it was not accessible.Indianapolis blogger Ruth Holladay notes: "One person said that perhaps this is a sure sign -- too much money is spent for top corporate salaries and not enough on the basic nuts and bolts of running the paper, let alone reporters."
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[Image: today's Star, Newseum]
The "massive" computer glitch had nothing to do with anything so cynical as whether or not senior management are being overpaid. As is usually true, technical issues have technical origins and this one was no different. But why skip a chance to make a point whether it's true or not. Obviously the disk drive that failed went on strike because didn't have an iPhone.
ReplyDeletehttp://gannettblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/reader-editors-and-blackberries-dont.html
Technical failures also happen because not enough time, money or attention was paid to prevent them from happening.
ReplyDeleteTechnical failures sometime just happen, no matter how much systems are monitored and managed.
ReplyDeleteBut it's not out of the question to think resources - at the site - might have contributed. The V.P. of I.T. retired in 2007 - after having to make significant staff cuts during recent years. He was not replaced and the department was folded into Operations.
Still, it's a situation no paper ever wants to be in. And I sincerely hope everyone associated and involved gets the utmost support from management ... that it doesn't become a witch hunt.
Good luck to all involved.
Very, very interesting. That means Indy is at least the second Gannett newspaper to eliminate a top I.T. job. Hmmm...
ReplyDeleteThose of us at papers with CCI read this and shuddered.
ReplyDeleteIn response to tj's comment, again, this wasn't a problem with the CCI system. It was a problem with the SAN (storage area network). All systems attached to the SAN had problems. If Indy had been using a different editorial front-end system, they would have had the same or worse issues.
ReplyDelete"... that it doesn't become a witch hunt."
ReplyDeleteIn response to an obvious comment. That says a lot about Gannett's corporate culture right there.
If you can't publish the news, you failed to build enough redundancy and safeguards into the system. It should never happen. Why it happened, only The Star and Gannett know.
Gannett has a miserable history with technolgy.
Its lousy corporate systems (spelled I-n-f-i-n-e-t) have rendred some of its sites unuseable at times. Inexecusable for a company building its future on the Web.
Digital Collections? Crap.
EventTracker? Planet Discover? They hope to compete with Google with those? You must be kidding.
They have 90 or so newspapers all re-inventing the same wheel in isolation as they build their information centers, and they hope to turn them into profit centers? Puh-lease.
Why is one of the nation's major media companies buying an amateurish Web site like HighSchoolSports.net? They can't do better themselves?
The first leader of the innovation center has already bailed.
I could go on...
Our IT director *cough* cherry hill *cough* had his position eliminated 2 weeks before Christmas. He was a 20 year Gannett veteran. We might be your third paper that canned that very important position, if you're keeping track. IT was rolled into the Production dept.
ReplyDelete