- Cancel my paper! Circulation plunged at New Jersey's Courier News, where publisher Ketan Gandhi is still missing in action.
- Bad blogger: Readers spanked me over my annual shareholders meeting coverage. (Software, it turns out, isn't foolproof.)
- Binge drinker: Gannett lifer Sue Clark-Johnson mainlined the purple stuff when she wrote her farewell speech.
Monday, May 05, 2008
Monday Recap: Overdosing on Kool-Aid ain't pretty
Posts you might have missed last week, while Big Al became Big Man on campus:
14 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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Jim - Given SCJ's upcoming departure, I thought you'd be interested in the last words of her predecessor, Gary Watson.
ReplyDeleteTwo points of interest not contained below: he had all of Gannett's publishers together at a conference in McLean on August 22nd, yet didn't share it there, and the most intesting of all, the word file was named, friends not.
VIA E-MAIL
September 2, 2005
TO: Gannett Friends
FROM: Gary Watson
Dear One and All:
It is with a mixture of emotions that I inform you I am retiring at the end of September.
It’s been an incredible run with great people and the best company. But after spending two-thirds of my life with Gannett and half that time herding cats in the Newspaper Division, it’s time to go.
Sure, I will miss the budgeting process and the monthly explanations about why our NIBT has fallen short of the budget AGAIN. And the lack of those periodic meetings with the Wall Street types will leave a definite void.
But even more so, I will miss the challenge and excitement of working with you in continuing to reshape our businesses to ensure they will remain viable and prosperous in the years and decades to come.
Actually, I’m looking forward to the most complex strategic or tactical decision I must make on a given day is whether to hit an 8-iron or 9-iron on whether my next international travel destination will be London or Rome.
Unlike an old soldier, I don’t plan to fade away. After a respite, I’ll be looking to keep my hand in our great business, either at home or abroad. I don’t know everything – and have increasingly forgotten much of it. But, hopefully, there will be a company or two that will see value in picking what’s left of my brain.
Craig Dubow and Sue Clark-Johnson need smart, innovative people to help them redirect the focus of our company’s endeavors to address our rapidly changing future. You are the folks who can provide Craig and Sue with this vital support. I urge you to do so.
But for now, all the best to you and your Gannett and personal families.
So does this mean that News 2000 was a failure, Gary?
ReplyDeleteYou make Nero look good in what you've accomplished at Gannett.
I remember when on a whim you decided almost overnight to change Westchester's southern edition broadsheets into tabloids to compete against the well-established NYC tabloids.
Great idea, especially refusing to spend money on marketing to let readers know.
So they ended up confused and stopped reading the paper.
I hope all the martinis in the world won't dull the truth that YOU were an incompetent, resulting in thousands of talented, dedicated people losing their jobs.
In your case wealth definitely doesn't equate to success.
Oh, yes, memories of that tabloid disaster at Westchester.
ReplyDeleteThere was another problem with the decision to produce tabloids for Mount Vernon, New Rochelle and Yonkers: They were not true tabloids.
The Lifestyles and Business sections were kept as broadsheets and inserted into the tab, giving the reader the pleasure of two formats for his or her reading pleasure.
This Rube Goldberg contraption also required the news and copy desks to completely repackage all news and sports content from the broadsheet editions for the new tabs.
It was all doomed to fail, as did most of the Petri dish experiments in Westchester/Rockland/Putnam.
The papers have been so homogenized in the past 15 years that they barely resemble those glorious circa 1993 tabloid-broadsheet days.
At least there were boots on the ground back then.
Why pick on Gary? What's the point? It didn't work, the margins were shitty, and the chaos at the paper continued(es). The sales staff in Westchester never knew what they were selling.
ReplyDeleteTerse or lax personality...competition found a way to get at newspaper profit margins.
And the advertising pricing policy...dealt the death hand. Gary just added insult to injury.
Marketing was never a Gannett strong-suit. It hasn't changed. Too expendable, too avoidable, and gone. Speak with forked tongue.
ReplyDeleteWestchester...the cause for my angina...and ultimate burn-out. Many a wasted soul from there. And to think that there was a day in the 1980's when Classified ad galleys were left on the floor...too many to hit the press deadline.
ReplyDeleteGannett never needed Marketing and Management 404...but rather 101.
Gannett Suburban Newspapers shall not rise again. Thank God.
Et tu Brutus. The King rarely saw his own clothes. He never liked a 8 or 9 iron. It always was that big dog...a Driver.
ReplyDeleteGLW often thought about the choice between an 8 or 9 iron for most of the years he was in charge at GCI. It was just that now he will use his choice to hit a golf ball instead of sticking the club up someone's ass....soory but no matter how you shake it glw made a lot of bad calls especially with people. the ones he seemed to like the best were actually the most incompetent. Many many many talented people he chased away...
ReplyDeleteI hear through the grapevine that life in Westchester is absolutely horrible, deafening, defeatist, and lost.
ReplyDeleteGary, you suck. Watch out for the lighting bolt on the course.
ReplyDeleteI've met the new publisher in Westchester....a real glad hander. Where do they get these guys?? Didn't strike me as a real hands on type. Those are ususally the ones that take the wheel after someone gets them through the turbulence and later serve them up to the gannett gods as the sacrificial lamb. No new ideas, just here to hold the reins.
ReplyDeleteThey could save the $150,000 plus salary of the publisher and allow the VP's to run the paper. But he has a great view of the nice trees outside. Just another toy soldier.
ReplyDelete$150,000????hahaha try about $350,000 to $400,000....shhhh
ReplyDeleteSCJ always took good care of her cronies out of the west.
Now we're talking money. A retired Gannett division president was only making $200,000 in salary when he left. Sounds like the West people must have been kissing real royal ass.
ReplyDeleteNow, doesn't it really make sense to tell Gannett to shove their measely 2% annual increase or less.
By the way, should the Cherry Hill bathroom need new equipment next year, shouldn't it be ordered from India. Where all the good shit goes.