Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Vote: Which N.J. paper is the most miserable?
Now, here's an election we can really get excited about! Inspired by a Gannett Blog reader, I've just launched a special new survey, at the bottom of the green sidebar, right. Commenting on this post, the reader says: "Winner can have its IT department offshored to the part of Dubai shaped like N.J."
10 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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Neptune, because it was closest to the center of the hell that was Collins. Cherry hill is a close second, since he left that in a shambles before getting the good life near the shore.
ReplyDelete"We're All in This Together"! Thanks to the S.S. Collins!
ReplyDeleteJim
ReplyDeleteTried voing, but when I vote I get a message that says this webpage cannot be displayed. So, tally a vote for Cherry Hill for me!
come now maybe all of planet gannett want to be in on this!! lol
ReplyDeleteNone of the above. It's the direct competitor to Cherry Hill that has no nightside sports editor, news editor or reporter, and once hired a former Utica editor on the dirt-cheap in a cynical diversity campaign after said editor had been run out of Gannett.
ReplyDeleteCherry Hill's direct competitor is the Inquirer and Daily News. Which now boasts having Cherry Hill's former publisher, ad director, circulation director, and the yesmen and token blond sweet young thing they took with them.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if they'll spend all the money in Philly and leave it broke like they left us.
Collins may have been a jerk and a tyrant, but you knew when he said something there was no BS. And now we have the Phantom Publisher who came in with promises of making things better but always seems to be stopped by decisions at "Corporate Level."
ReplyDeleteOh, wait, we're getting lessons in "How to avoid a Hostile Workplace." How about by undoing all the moves in the last shake-up that put incompetent people in positions they can't handle. That should end a lot of grumbling I hear just about every day when I speak with other managers.
The Press suffers not only from the remnants of Collin's take-no-prisoners, over-the-top, I'll-squash-you-like a bug attitude, (though I watched Hidlay bristle when someone reported that people had complianed about the lack of local news -- after all, he had polls to show otherwise) but also from a hangover from the Plangere/Lass days when people were moved up and hired not because they earned it but because they were someone's protege or someone liked them personally. (Such as the Sunday Projects editor who didn't produce one project in two years except for her relationship with a senior editor.)
Let's make up our minds, I heard as much about how a former editor ("everyone" in the newsroom rejoiced when he "left") was ruining the Press as about Collins.
Anon 6:22 PM seems to be a case of 'hostage survivor' syndrome. There is no excuse for Collins behavior. Your current pub may not be able to make all the calls, but would you rather he berate you, transfer you into crap job, or work you into the ground? It wasn't always what Collins did, it was HOW he did it.
ReplyDeleteBob was all BS, a player, cards and the horses all the time. He always accused people of "playing" him. How come no one ever looked into a NJ Group leader whose favorite thing to do was gamble. Is that someone you would trust with your money?
ReplyDeleteResponding to 5/8/08 at 6:22 p.m. about incompetent people being put in positions they can't handle:
ReplyDeleteI don't want to identify my Gannett paper by name. After enough people read and respond to this, it will be obvious, anyway. But the big problems here are symptomatic of Gannett all over.
The problem is not so much with our now-ex EE (who recently departed for a publisher's job) or ME, who both are knowledgable and competent, but with many of the so-called "department head level" managers under them, a number of whom function on the "supervisors are not workers" theory.
I think this is what causes a huge amount of resentment and bad morale across Gannett. These people don't do shit and still get taken care of much better than the rank and file who do work hard.
Our "online editor" was named employee of the year, for work largely done by her overworked, underpaid and very unrecognized staff. Before her current job, this woman was night editor, a role she fulfilled mainly by sitting in her glass office all night long while the copy desk put the paper together.
One time, the word soldiers got misspelled in a big front page headline as "soliders." Did she get the blame? No, the copy chief did. To upper management, this woman can do no wrong.
When she was night editor, somehow every mistake the copy desk made was someone else's fault. But hey, she's employee of the year. Why not just have everyone line up and take a kick in the teeth?
The current night editor is basically a glorified page designer, while better qualified people who have been around for decades get passed over.
One key "editor" can't manage his way out of a paper bag. He's absent-minded, disorganized and generally incompetent. But no one ever holds him accountable. It's like a family where there's a retarded son, and the parents know he's peeing on the floor, but they take the attitude of, "what else can you do other than smile and pretend you don't see it."
He manages by delegation. He sits in his glass office, gives orders via computer message and generally does nothing himself. Oh wait, I forgot, he harangues reporters about how many minority sources we're developing.
One woman whose department basically ceased to exist after the transition to the local information center took place is now the "local editor for web planning" -- which seems to be a way of justifying her continuing to have a glass office.
The sports editor job has been a revolving door. One previous sports editor was suspended and demoted and now works on the copy desk. In his defense, what's kind of unfair is that the mistakes in a special section for which he was punished were made by a longtime reporter (and former sports editor) who did not get so much as a slap on the wrist. Guess he knows where the bodies are buried.