Saturday, April 11, 2009
Saturday | April 11 | Your News & Comments
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26 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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OoooooWeeee....Florida Today wins the Gannett Gold Medal of Excellence. If this represents the best of Gannett, we're surely all in trouble Now if only it can hit the streets early enough to be read, with all the sections, and accurate (read the forums and letters to the editor at times) reporting, they surely would be top of the line!
ReplyDeleteJim - with unemployment figures as they come out, do you consider yourself employed, unemployed, underemployed, no longer looking for work or retired? Just curious, not looking to start a fight.
ReplyDeleteI would count myself as employed part-time.
ReplyDeleteI work for the partnership in Detroit. I saw on a friends facebook page that the Free Press was recognized as Gannett's newspaper of the year. Did anybody think to communicate that to any of the partnership employees? I guess not since there was absolutely no mention of it via email which is how everything is communicated. A bright spot was ignored.
ReplyDeleteInstead we received, as noted in posts here the other day, an email that said that our severance policy (which used to be two weeks pay for every year of service up to twenty-six weeks) was being changed to match the corporate policy. The message was clear in that severance is at the company's discretion and may or may not be given depending on financial conditions.
So right there, any incentive that staff had to stick around until they are finally shown the door is gone. Most people that I have spoken to got the message that there is no more severance. So many of us are now planning accordingly by beginning serious job searches and trying to get out before we are told to get out. No sense sticking around to help keep things running if the company isn't going to reward loyalty by providing severance to help see us through a layoff.
Morale hasn't been great lately and the Griffon project had given everyone a glimmer of hope. But the latest severance announcement has dropped morale down another couple of notches to its lowest ever.
You work for Gannett in Detroit. Did you think it was going to end with rainbows and sunshine?
ReplyDeleteThe ignorance of many people here is astounding.
My predictions: I think the Detroit Experiment will work--and Gannett will STILL find a way to hand over the whole operation in Detroit to Dean Singleton, who will then merge the papers into a single paper: The Detroit News and Free Press. My gut tells me that one of the main objectives of the Detroit Experiment (besides stopping losing money) is for Gannett to find an honorable way OUT of Detroit. If the Detroit Experiment stops the losses, Gannett can say it found a way to produce an economically viable paper in Detroit. Then, it would let Singleton take over a combined publication that would produce just enough profit to keep him happy. Gannett will NEVER get the profit levels it demands of papers out of Detroit. That metro area is going through at least a decade of wrenching economic restructuring.
ReplyDeleteTo 10:44: No, I do not think that things will end with rainbows and sunshine. Far from it in fact.
ReplyDeleteThe points that I was trying to make is a lack of communicating something positive and the fact that we will probably begin to see an exodus of people that may have stayed around until the end because there was severance. With severance being eliminated so goes what little incentive there was for people to stick around.
The Onion: Boss Gets Into Groove After 3rd Round Of Layoffs
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theonion.com/content/news/boss_gets_into_groove_after_3rd
You think Craig is starting to get into his groove?
I think The Onion might actually be the only newspaper worth saving.
I have a tip for newsroom folks who have been laid off or are looking to get out:
ReplyDeleteRemove all newspaper jargon from your resumes, and use simple words to convey your skills. Just say, "write, edit, interview, research, design," etc. And don't forget to tell them what "regular" computer skills you have, such as Microsoft Word or Excel or PowerPoint, etc.
"Regular" people don't understand what we do at a newspaper, so there's no point in confusing them. They don't have the time to figure it out either. I was able to cut the words on my resume in half.
I did this to apply for a legal assisting job and got a call back the very next day.
The hiring manager said she got over 500 resumes for the position in two days, and mine was the first one she called.
Don't know if I'll get the job, but it will be only the second interview in over four months.
Hope this helps someone else.
1:09 p.m.
ReplyDeleteBest of luck to you!
Now I'm off to read the Onion.
I knew Singleton when he was working in Jersey and if you think he is the great hope to save Detroit, you are sadly mistaken. He is pure slash and burn, leaving scorched earth in the wake of his destruction of journalism. I in fact heard him say that he struck a deal to buy a newspaper while playing croquet (!) with the owners of the other publication. He can put on whatever airs he wants but I would not wish him upon my worst enemy.
ReplyDeleteSingleton has so much debt, he won't make it through this economic turmoil. He already has a deal relieving him of a debt payment this month, but that is an only one-time deal. We are going to see humongous losses when newspapers tell their Q1 stories this month, and bankers won't give out any more money for money-losers especially in a town where the major employer is about to file for bankruptcy.
ReplyDelete1:09pm
ReplyDeleteThanks! This is very helpful.
Sorry, I would wish Singleton on my worst enemy. At least that way, revenge for my career ruined by this miserable company would be assured.
ReplyDeleteApart from most slimy Gannett publishers, there are few things as assured in this world as the destructive power of Singleton toward real journalism and quality products.
Like Gannett, Singleton values only ad staffs and $$$ and refuses to believe that content matters.
Yes, I would wish him on my woirst enemies - and they are in gannett today!
Here's an immediate cost savings for the company. For a few years now we have been sending photos to regional toning centers, where either the Amish or hillbillies sit with Photoshop and figure out how to wash out outdoor shots and at the same time make all the people too yellow.
ReplyDeleteWe all have to send money to Des Moines or Louisville for what? A nebulous 'improvement' in quality? Hey, guess what -nobody quit reading or advertising because the photos are poor. They sure as hell don't start because the photos are good.
We did better work, cheaper, and faster, when we did it ourselves. Give us our FTE's back, a copy of Intellitune and stop thinking that centralizing work actually always saves money.
Look at the grand equation of what we need to keep strong to grow after the recession. What are the skills we need to preserve? We need to bite the bullet and keep our good writers, photographers and editors. Print or web, we need good content. We need to encourage the salespeople who can sell across products to stay until people buy again. The graphic artists who know the peculiarities of all the Realtors in the markets. The circulators who can motivate independent contractors and reduce reader churn.
ReplyDeleteThese are the jobs we can't just throw a net out and get quality hires when we need them. We've grown these people, we need to make sure we keep them.
I'm not saying that accounts payable clerks aren't as vital to the company - it's just that it reasonably easy to find that skill set on the street.
Dear 2:19 p.m. and 1:30 p.m.: I hear you about Singleton's bad reputation in the New Jersey era about 20 years ago. But by all accounts at The Detroit News, Singleton has been a good guy to the staff. He and his people have freed the paper of the Gannett formulas rigidly imposed on it by Mark Silverman. The paper has done well as a result--winning national awards since Singleton took over in 2005 for its autos and sports coverage.
ReplyDeleteAnd 2:19 p.m.: Your statement is based on the assumption that Singleton will actually have to pay a significant amount of money to be given the reins of the partnership. Please note that Singleton paid almost nothing when Gannett handed over the El Paso, Texas, paper to him several years ago. Singleton and Gannett are enmeshed in many "partnerships" across the nation. I could see Gannett giving Singleton the Detroit Media Partnership for nearly nothing but maintaining an equity stake in it.
2:19, some companies may report Q1 losses but not Gannett. Made big money again.
ReplyDeleteFrom AP via Editor & Publisher:
ReplyDeleteGannett Rejects Offer to Buy Tucson Paper
The would-be buyer bid for (and lost out on) the Honolulu Star-Bulletin when it was in a JOA with Gannett.
To 3:55 p.m. Here here!
ReplyDeleteSent: Thursday, April 09, 2009 12:00 PM
ReplyDeleteTo:
DetroitFreePress-All; DetroitNews-All; DetroitNewspaperPartnership-All
All –
REVISED SEVERANCE PAY POLICY
Gannett recently implemented changes to their severance pay practices for workforce reductions. This change will also affect non-union employees of The Detroit News, Detroit Media Partnership, and the Detroit Free Press. Effective immediately, the Severance Pay policy on pages 49 & 50 of the employee handbook is no longer applicable to any employee.
If there are future workforce reductions affecting non-union employees, the severance to be provided to such employees, if any, will be determined by the company based on the economic health and financial condition of the company at the time of the workforce reduction.
This policy does not apply to employees covered by a collective bargaining agreement.
the severance to be provided to such employees, if any, will be determined by the company based on the economic health and financial condition of the company at the time of the workforce reduction.
ReplyDeleteThe reason I've not even looked for another job opportunity in this recession is my twenty years in the saddle. You even HINT that I can't get a severance check when we're still making 10%... OR BETTER... profits, well, I can't even make a threat. I know it's the company's prerogative.
Just like it's my prerogative on whether I continue to create substantially more value than I cost. Can't treat people like crap forever. There's more of us than there are of you.
I hate to be the bearer of a reality check, but the media company I work for has laid off workers and provided them with NO, repeat - NO severance of any kind except for unused vacation days.
ReplyDeleteNot all companies provide a "severance" package. Especially smaller media companies. We are lucky to get anything at all..
Of course, we are ultimately lucky because, despite these shortcomings it could be far, far worse - we could work for Gannett.
Yeah, I really hope no one is counting on that severance these days. Sad fact is I know of a couple long-timers (20, 25-plus years) who are banking on just that fact if they're laid off. They're likely to get just as much as I will, with only a handful of years under my belt.
ReplyDelete9:03 p.m. hear, hear!
ReplyDeleteIf Gannett wants to save more money, they could transfer the RTC to the St. Augustine School for the Blind. I bet the output quality would be better too.
ReplyDelete