Monday, March 30, 2009
Monday | March 30 | Your News & Comments
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55 comments:
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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First post of the new week! Let's hear the best, I can't believe what happened when I was on furlough last week stories!.....Best stories will be sent to Kate Marymount and you will win a week's unpaid vacation.
ReplyDeleteAnyone know the date when the group presidents meet to go over the Q1 results?
ReplyDeleteJim
ReplyDeleteWhy not alternate your "focus on track" rather than NJ everyday. Take a look at what is going on at each site individually. I know I would tune in when it was my sites "turn in the barrel". I am sure this type of site specific look would really drive your readership.
bail! run for your lives - start lining up work folks. the axe will fall, hard.
ReplyDeleteretrain, regroup, brace yourself. we are going to hit and hit hard.
I hope Al wakes up at night, with visions of the homeless man he ran over, years ago.
ReplyDeleteThe house swap thing is funny, but stupid. First, you need a match of where you want to go, then with a person you trust, and with the same time off.
ReplyDeleteAgain, funny if satire, but if anyone seriously makes a deal out of this, I'll be stunned.
Be very aware fellow bloggers that corporate public relations is monitering this site and writing in with its "kool-aid" perspective! If you don'e believe me look at sundays' blog.They are getting scared of the union talk and the truth telling and disgruntleness of its employees! I am just wondering "JIM" if they can trace my blog listings?
ReplyDeleteGannett equals mental pain!!
ReplyDeleteIs "gannett" planning a hostile takeover of this blog?
ReplyDeleteHas anyone heard about the newspaper re-org? Who is doing what?
ReplyDeleteIn Re: Making money or this blog will die off.
ReplyDeleteIt just occurred to me that the business model Jim is using to drive this blog, namely the goal of making $6K per quarter, is the nearly the same one used at GannettCoInc. To wit, use a free domain to give people information they'll get eventually anyway from other sources and want or expect to make money from it. Interesting that a lifelong Gannetteer would do such a thing.
Given that Blogger is a free service for anyone who wants to use it to blog about anything under the sun, the idea of expecting to use it to make $12 to $18 per hour for a 40 hour week, year round, seems a bit ambitious. This comment isn't meant to be adversarial, but just observational.
If one wants to charge for or sell a service online, one normally gets a business plan together, purchases a domain name and gets to work. If you're blogging with any expectation of great wealth, your priorities are usually misplaced.
Just a few observations.
Love the blog, Jim, btw.
Hey lets have a great day! The market well be going down today but Gannett should hold steady.
ReplyDeleteCirculation comment. Single Copy is the cheapest way to keep circulation in the state areas. I could not imagine a Cir. Director cutting the single copy before he looks at the expenses of home delivery in the area. The company has not looked at revenue lost just newsprint savings. I would think in the end they loose money and readers. It might be a good idea to get some newspaper folks back in our buisness. Just a redneck circulator in the south.
ReplyDeleteTo 1:48 tell us more facts?
ReplyDelete3/30/2009 1:34 AM and 3/30/2009 6:01 AM and 3/30/2009 7:47 AM
ReplyDeleteDid you people not take your meds. today? Why is it that people think the worst?
Yes things are not good in ALL of Corp. America but your comments reflect a paranoid and angry person....I work for Gannett as a middle Manager but refused to be angry at Gannett... get over the drama.......!
..."There is no place where Gannetblog cannot act. We operate near and far, and carry out strikes in a manner that strengthens our deterrence" ...
ReplyDeleteI send Jim a few bucks every quarter because I like to know what is going on with Gannett since I left the company. Being a newspaper person, I like knowing the scoop as early as possible. I really miss not knowing the news before the first paper rolls off the press. This is the second blog/website I go to every morning.
ReplyDeleteNewzHound: What's the first site you visit each day?
ReplyDeleteGannett equals mental abuse.
ReplyDeleteHa! This was on the wire this morning regarding Detroit:
ReplyDelete"We believe in great newspapers seven days a week," Dave Hunke, chief executive of Detroit Media Partnership and publisher of the Free Press, said in a statement.
Huh? But home delivery and a "real" newspaper just three days a week?
Law one of economics - LESS is LESS.
More is More.
Less is never more. You can never do more with less. With less you get less. You do less. You EARN less!
And less we forget (ouch, sorry about that pun) - Gannett does not care what the reader wants or gets. They get less.
10:04 It is not good all over corporate America. Amazon.Com is soaring, as are other Internet stocks. So why didn't GCI see this coming and get into the Internet age? Lousy, self-serving and selfish management is the reason. I am not in a mood to get over the drama because I want corporate to be held responsible for leading this company into these straits. It did not have to happen and astute managers would have ensued that it would have been avoided.
ReplyDelete"NewzHound: What's the first site you visit each day?"
ReplyDeletewww.thehun.com
Note how well Gannett stock is NOW doing....
ReplyDeleteRight back to just over 2 stinking bucks. Wow. That furlough announcement sure turned things around.
face it - everryone with worthless Gannett stock - it is ALWAYS going to be worthless. It will never rise to above the level you bought in at (unless of course you JUST bought in - ha!)
Gannett is making news on the TV side.
ReplyDeleteThe Detroit Free Press will provide material for newscasts on CBS' Detroit station starting in May.
Down in Little Rock, Today's THV adds an extra newscast next Monday.
And the stock go a tumblin down.
ReplyDeleteI heard, from a VERY reliable source that I'm very sorry I can't say their name, that layoffs will be happening in May. A LOT of layoffs. Detroit and USA Today will be exempt. 2,000 layoffs folks. 2,000! Possibly some paper closures. GCI wanted to consolidate some copy editing across the country in May, but it looks like that idea is on hold, but they want papers to reorganize their newsroom copy desks. No longer will there be any separate desks for sports, biz, etc. This is where most of the layoffs are coming. This also goes for page designers. Papers will be encouraged to have more copy editor/design combo folk. If you are a designer, I suggest you find yourself a new job because Gannett is leaning toward getting rid of many high-priced artsy folk. bye-bye.
Doing more with less depends on WHO and if the remaining people are ready to grow, expand capabilities. In some cases, less management can streamline. Less can be more if the decisions realign staff on efforts with real return and ROI.
ReplyDeleteJust to clarify...I agree with the sentiment but not the use of NEVER when we deal with less. Losing a leg doesn't mean you'll never run a marathon, for example.
NEWS: Tara Connell named VICE president of Content None:
ReplyDeletehttp://finance.yahoo.com/news/Gannett-names-Tara-Connell-bw-14783686.html
So who's president?
Thought I read a post that said she was leaving?
To 10:37:
ReplyDeleteThe reader is actually getting more, in a different format. It might help if you understood what was happening. Have you learned how to read yet?
Reposting because I don't think my earlier post went through:
ReplyDeleteThe first site I visit every morning is www.TBfriends.com
It is a Throughbred horse rescue's Website. I visit it loyally daily as the site doesn't have an archive. If you miss a post, it is gone forever.
Today's entry on the TBfriends blog is especially heartbreaking.
Gannett names Tara Connell Vice President of ContentOne
ReplyDeleteMCLEAN, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI) today named Tara Connell vice president of ContentOne, a new company-wide initiative to enhance and improve the way Gannett gathers and delivers the news and information customers want.
Connell, who was a reporter and editor for 27 years before joining the corporate staff, currently is vice president of Corporate Communications. A successor will be named shortly.
Said Craig A. Dubow, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Gannett: “The mission of ContentOne is to make Gannett smarter, better and more efficient at delivering news and information to our customers. ContentOne will guide major event coverage across the company, allow our community journalists to focus on local news and information and help end duplication. At the same time, ContentOne will seek new ways to use our content across multiple platforms and in multiple venues as our customers’ media consumption habits change.
“Tara has been central to discussions about content development across the company and about the creation of ContentOne over the past few years. Her deep journalism experience, her knowledge of all facets of Gannett and a fundamentally strategic approach make her the right person to take ContentOne to the next level,” Dubow said.
Connell began her career as a reporter with Gannett’s Westchester operations in 1972 covering local government and the judicial system. She was a founding staffer at USA TODAY in 1982. She worked at USA TODAY as a reporter and editor and was named managing editor of page one in 1996. Connell was named director of Media Relations for Gannett in 1999 and was named vice president of Corporate Communications in 2003.
She was awarded an American Bar Association Silver Gavel for her judicial reporting in 1979 and was named Gannett’s Corporate Staffer of the Year in 2002.
8:36 -- Excellent point. Now, we need to ask ourselves. If Jim is struggling mightily to make $24,000 a year on a blog that ranks in the top 15 percent of all blogs -- I believe that's what he has reported -- how will Gannett fund entire newsrooms with a similar model?
ReplyDeleteThe answer: It won't. At least not newsrooms that exist as they do today.
At most newspapers, the Web brings in about 15 percent of the revenue, yet it depends on content created both for the Web and the paper. It just goes to reason that the only way a Web-only operation will survive is with vastly reduced newsgathering operations.
Anyone who thinks things are looking up for this company isn't looking at it from an employee-friendly view.
We are certain to see newspapers sold and closed, plus staff reductions at those that we maintain. The question is, what will the timeline be?
3/30/2009 6:50 AM wrote:
ReplyDelete"I've not gotten less than a 3.5% raise in my last ten years, and mostly 4's."
Where the f**k do you work, dude? I wanna go there ASAP.
I haven't seen a 4% raise that I can remember (maybe 10-11 years ago) - recent years have been under 3, and this year's (just under the wire last month) was 1.5%. Just enough to make up for 1 furlough week - NOT 2.
And yes, I bust my ass too - but that seems to make no difference.
Dubow is the million dollar TURD.
ReplyDeleteSomeone should market a bobblehead cast in his likeness, complete with bobbling TURD-head. We can rename it the "bobble-turd".
Just told they walked 1/2 the single copy sales managers out the door this morning in Phoenix. Ofcourse they were the worker bees who were out in the field 24/7 and actually had Single Copy Sales up year over year here at the Arizona Republic - probably one of the only Single Copy departments in all of Gannett that can say that. Gannett just can't stand the idea of actually growing circulation and increasing revenue.
ReplyDeleteTo: 10:04AM
ReplyDeleteI am too much of a lady to directly respond to your "atta boy" sermon in the words of the gutter where you reside.
Delicately put-- you are a moronic example of the brain dead thinking Gannett treasures in its employees.
As a middle manager, you should be aware that you're probably going to be axed with the rest of us, even though you have kissed enough buttocks on the blog to place you in the Dubow Hall of Fame!
Stop it, stop it, stop it! Or we will see that Lorena Bobbitt pays you a visit.
H
Lansing will be the next michigan paper to reduce Home Delivery and days newspaper printing. This will be happening very soon.
ReplyDeleteAny news on the mail in the "KOOL AIDE " Protest?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete2:58pm said... "...single copy sales managers out the door this morning in Phoenix."
ReplyDeleteMaybe Gannett wants AZ Republic to slide more so they can come through and make BIG changes. Why else sack people who make them money?
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeletePHX market is now part of the LA market what other markets were effected today?????
ReplyDeleteTo 3:44 pm . . .
ReplyDeleteDetails?
Mr. Hopkins, I would like to thank you for this blog. I learned that I would have to do another 3 months worth of furloughs for my union a good 2 weeks before my union told me so. Your blog does make getting screwed over a little easier to handle. Thank you,thank you, thank you.
ReplyDeleteIf you read this blog from work: YES
ReplyDeleteFrom home: No
Too bad if they don't like it. Maybe if they tried to talk to their employees, in say a monthly company meeting, they wouldn't have to hide behind closed doors with their decisions. Gannett— be honest. What is so hard about that?
I am just wondering "JIM" if they can trace my blog listings?
You do work for a newspaper, correct? Do you not read what the media is saying about newspapers? It's everywhere — from radio, print, online, stock reporting agencies. The writing is on the wall. It is not being negative, it is a fact.
ReplyDeleteDid you people not take your meds. today? Why is it that people think the worst?
I understand your source says most of the layoffs will come from news but did they say how it will effect other departments? I would imagine each department already has their list completed, just waiting in the wings. Once again, sad that Gannett would not have the publishers at each site hold a montly meeting to inform employees about what is happening. It's not like the employees have that many places to go. Please just be honest, that is why we are on this blog— searching for tidbits of information.
ReplyDeleteAnd the stock go a tumblin down.
I heard, from a VERY reliable source that I'm very sorry I can't say their name, that layoffs will be happening in May. A LOT of layoffs. Detroit and USA Today will be exempt. 2,000 layoffs folks. 2,000! Possibly some paper closures. GCI wanted to consolidate some copy editing across the country in May, but it looks like that idea is on hold, but they want papers to reorganize their newsroom copy desks. No longer will there be any separate desks for sports, biz, etc. This is where most of the layoffs are coming. This also goes for page designers. Papers will be encouraged to have more copy editor/design combo folk. If you are a designer, I suggest you find yourself a new job because Gannett is leaning toward getting rid of many high-priced artsy folk. bye-bye.
7.31 what union do you belong or are you a troll making up stuff?
ReplyDelete9:04 -- declare yourself! How in hell do you know all this stuff??
ReplyDeleteAlong with the circulation staff, two designers in Phoenix were let go today; an (advertising) artist supervisor and an advertising production artist. Caught the department by surprise. Guess the furloughs are not enough of a cost savings. I already started poking around for a new job but will intensify the efforts. After Gannett I am DONE with the newspaper business. DONE. If it's not "done" first.
ReplyDeleteExcempt from this round of furloughs count. I'll start.
ReplyDelete1.
Regarding 9:04 pm's comment:
ReplyDeleteI've been told it's now very likely there will be some newspaper division layoffs the week of April 6 -- next week. But I haven't been given any companywide figures.
@10:08 I saw the writing on the wall at the Republic over 4 years ago and got the hell out. I was a advertising artist as well and knew once they disbanded teams (Gannett's doing, as they didn't BELIEVE in them) that it was only a matter of time before they started outsourcing and degrading our jobs. Some others who had had enough also left. Others stayed, many complained and some were given a false sense of security. It's really very sad.
ReplyDeleteMake finding another job your FULL TIME priority. It CAN be done. You can succeed in other parts of your field. I've been working ever since.
Hang in there and good luck!
7:02 can you elaborate on who was affected?
ReplyDeleteI was the one who posted about designers and artists losing there jobs soon and look what happened shortly after I posted it. I told you so. I'm telling you, massive layoffs for designers and artists are coming. Copy editors will be trained to design pages. Consolidated desks are coming and soon. You don't believe me do you. Well, just wait until April 6 my SOURCE tells me. This is a reliable source. April 6 will be a day of immense pain for designers especially. Bye-Bye cute pages with Photoshop illustrations. Good bye high-paid useless designers and hello Grey.
ReplyDelete9:26 pm. I belong to the teamsters union in Indy. When the first furlough came out, GCI said it was up to the union to accept the furlough. Teamsters did not and I, along with 4 others were laid off until April. Now, with the next round of furloughs, my union told me that, " As long as GCI does a furlough, you will not work."
ReplyDelete