To be sure, Gannett's 84 community dailies haven't completely abandoned hard news and investigative stories. But a chunk of that has been given up in the drive to put more emphasis on digital offerings -- such as frequent feeds to websites, blogs and video -- while simultaneously cutting newsroom staffing.Here's reality: More than 16 months after Gannett unveiled the Information Center model favoring digital, the print paper still determines much of the locally produced content that goes online. Editors want to beef up websites and mobile offerings. But they start each day with one must-do task above all others: filling tomorrow's paper. Whatever content the staff generates for print will be the locally produced content for online, too.
So, if newsrooms are now supposed to report and write for the over-40 crowd, that's the staff content that will appear on websites and mobile gadgets. There is no way Gannett's understaffed newsrooms are going to be able to produce two completely different versions of the day's events.
[Image: this morning's Florida Today, Newseum. Online, the paper is now reporting: Florida Gov. Charlie Crist acknowledged in an interview with The Miami Herald that he "smoked marijuana recreationally long before going into public life. But he said he's not inclined to seek any changes to the state's drug laws."]
This is not a problem. What our online readers want are: sports, celebrities, photo galleries (of sports and celebrities and the weekly featured home tour), sports podcasts, sports video, and short-item breaking news: homicides, fires, traffic tie-ups, news of the weird, and did I mention sports? Except for the little breaking news items -- some of which are spun out into full-length stories for the dead-trees edition -- most of this stuff isn't generated by news reporters.
ReplyDeleteOur online audience shows little interest in enterprise and investigative news. You can put that on the web all you want, but they come for the sports. And celebs, etc.
Local sports -- right? That's certainly something Gannett could try to have on its own. But celebs? No way. Gannett sites will never be able to compete with the TMZ's Perez Hilton's, etc., of the world.
ReplyDeleteJim, There is more to entertainment than PerezHilton and TMZ. You have to be kidding. Clearly this unemployment thing has turned you into a Jerry Springer audience member.
ReplyDeleteFind a job dude, seriously. You are more laughable than before. What does Sparky think of all this?
You are, of course, correct. There is much more to entertainment; those were just two examples.
ReplyDeleteJim, Thanks for all you are doing. Your internet blog shows just how stupid the McLean crowd is. They assumed you were useless to the company because you were over 40 (and maybe earned a few bucks more than the fresh out of college crowd). I admire how you have taken the lemons that Gannett has given you and made lemonade. They can not see talent when it is standing in front of them. BTW, one of the regional executives came through recently looking for future layoff possibilities. Best wishes to all of us.
ReplyDeleteSure, there is more to entertainment than Perez Hilton and TMZ, but it's just not as entertaining.
ReplyDeleteIf Gannett wants to seriously draw the crowds to online, it'll start looking at adopting more of a tabloid flava. Or find a way to get some kind of arcade-type graphics and music to make the online crossword experience something to write Dear Abby about. I'm thinking a Pluck strip (as in shedding clothing) crossword?
Jim you are so short sighted. You think that joournalists can't do more? Is it possible that with the use of technology, crowd sourcing, and new sourcing techniques that journalists could do more? How have you changed your reporting efficiencies in the past 2 years? Of course if you don't change your process then you can't produce more. I see it as unwilling to look for new ways to accomplish the task at hand. Close minded people are what at times stands in the way.
ReplyDeleteGannett has been asking its employees to do more with less for years -- the very strategy that's gotten the company (and many other newspaper companies) into the huge mess it's in now. You are suggesting more of the same. And that, as I noted in the following post, is the definition of insanity: http://tinyurl.com/2nal4j
ReplyDeleteThe print edition has always been the elephant in the room, and for journalists who ARE doing more - blogs, video, podcasts, whatever - in addition to their "old-school" duties, it still remains the top priority. The Web has no deadlines; if I take five minutes longer to do a story than I thought I would, the site doesn't crash to a halt and my boss doesn't get angry.
ReplyDeleteIf I'm laying out a page and I'm five minutes past deadline, the press has to hold, delivery people have to wait, and so on, all of which costs the company money.
So no matter what I'm doing in the digital media world at this minute, I still have to factor in how it will affect the time I need - NEED - to put out the print edition. It still looms over everything.
All: I now have the 14-page task force report scanned into a .pdf file. Want a copy? Send me your e-mail address, and I'll shoot it to you.
ReplyDeleteI have read the blog on the boomer singles dating site called Boomermingle dot com.
ReplyDeleteI love print newspapers, and I hope we'll have them forever.
ReplyDeleteHowever, since I'm writing two blogs, I'm reading a lot of news online.
I write a boomer consumer blog called The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide at http://boomersurvive-thriveguide.typepad.com and a blog called the Boomer Consumer for the Seattle Post Intelligencer at http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/boomerconsumer/.
Rita