My posts about the unpaid overtime controversy at the troubled Courier-Post in Cherry Hill, N.J., helped drive the number of visitors above 1,900 yesterday -- one of the highest daily totals since I started Gannett Blog more than a year ago. Thanks!
Jim says: "Proceed with caution; this is a free-for-all comment zone. I try to correct or clarify incorrect information. But I can't catch everything. Please keep your posts focused on Gannett and media-related subjects. Note that I occasionally review comments in advance, to reject inappropriate ones. And I ignore hostile posters, and recommend you do, too."
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Too bad Gannett can't figure out how to get that much traffic to their sites..
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, all the wbesites for NJ newspapers are awful.
ReplyDeleteI actually like CP's new design. It actually looks like it belongs in this decade.
ReplyDeleteAdmit it the poop factor helped. But great work Jim -- especially while on the road. Who's taking Johnson's place?
ReplyDeleteThanks! But it must be a day with too much sun; who is Johnson?
ReplyDeleteThe Courier's new design looks like someone spilled a bowl of alphabet fruit loops on a web page template.
ReplyDeletewho is sue clark's replacement?
ReplyDeleteIt's actually sad to see and hear some of what's going on in Cherry Hill. People get the wrong impression of the paper from this blog. It's a great paper with hard working dedicated employees. of course not everyone will be, or can be, happy. It's a job that's been paying to house notes for decades for many employees and their families. Maybe some things have changed recently, but they've changed everywhere. Most publishers have an open door policy...why wasnt this "crap" brought to Lafferty's attention instead of a memo to corp? All the management there can't be painted with the same brush as EJ or Walt. They have (some) fine senior managers there and some great employees who appreciate the fact that when they walk in everyday that the doors are still open. It's only a matter of time before the Inquirer takes over that market but in the meantime, they need to make the best of a bad situation. The new management team Lafferty and Mitchell has only been there for less then two years, maybe they just need to connect more with the employees so they can see the talent the employees have. A union is not the answer. The answer is open and honest communication.
ReplyDeleteTo the last poster:
ReplyDeleteIf you don't see how much the daily paper has degraded under the current leadership and how much great reporting and writing has gone by the wayside because most people are asked to do way too much, you're fooling yourself.
hey, everyone has options. don't forget you can always leave and find another job with another company with the same problems. at least you know what you're in for there. you don't know how it will be somewhere else. not a lot of places are hiring 50k reporters with the benefits of gannett. so again, you have options. the prior publisher was local so he was more widely respected for coming up through the ranks but i'm sure he dealt with the same issues from the same people. the difference was that he actually cared about the market and employees but i can guarantee you that people complained when he was there too, so let's not just blame it all on Mitchell and Lafferty, they came in at a tough time and made changes that didn't go well and have no personal knowledge of employees since they were both outsiders. give them a chance and see what happens and in the end if you don't like it....organize or find another job but just remember the jobs arent as plentiful as they used to be. also, i'm hearing that production, finance and circulation all have horrible morale too...the publisher needs to have some kind of building wide meeting to get a pulse on the employees before it's too late to make a difference. if he's too stupid to do that then Gannett should fire him, but out of fairness he needs to be given the opportunity to communicate.
ReplyDeleteLafferty holds more meetings with employees than the last publisher EVER did. But, boy, his pep rallies are less than inspiring. At a recent meeting, when a reporter asked about the possibility of hiring more reporters due to low morale and the reduced newsroom workforce, he said something to the effect of "I have to ask you to work a little harder." I wish he would have recognized that we ARE already working hard. It would have been nice to hear anyway.
ReplyDeleteIn his defense, the biz is truly scary. Corporate is demanding more from the paper, circulation and ad revenue are down, the news hole shrinks daily, the cost of newsprint keeps going up and we can't cover the news like we used to.
It would be nice if the paper's management would say, "hey, these are the realities and we appreciate everything you're doing. Because we have less space and fewer people, we're going to scale back our reach and concentrate our efforts on putting out a really good, smaller, product. Here are the priorities ... now go kick some butt."
I really miss kicking butt.