"Can you give them the stuff they want, even though there's less of it over all? I think you can."
-- Retired Gannett CEO Al Neuharth, in a New York Times story yesterday about the slow-motion collapse of Tribune Co.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
3 comments:
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The problem is figuring out what "stuff they want." Corporate seems to be of the opinion that all markets are pretty much the same -- readers want local, local, local, for example -- while the truth is that every market is unique. The people running each newspaper are in a better position to decide what "stuff" the readers want. But that's not the culture we're working in.
ReplyDeleteSo Zell is looking for the quantity writers and then weeding out the slackers. Trouble is, no two beats are the same; no two writers are the same. Any lame brain can spit back 2-3 press release-based stories a day but that sure keeps his or her quota high. When quotas become a mandate, you end up with a lot of the myopic "attaboy" garbage that infects the front pages of many Gannett papers. Beware, if the story counters find you down a month, you get called in, PIP'd, and shunted onto a track to resign under pressure.
ReplyDeleteif less is more, then i challenge neuharth and dubow to cut their compensation by the same percentage they've cut gannett news operations' staffing.
ReplyDeleteit may be hard for longtime gannettniks to believe, but some executives in other industries actually DO accept less pay -- sometimes only $1 a year plus stock options -- when their companies are hurting. when leaders actually lead, employees often follow more enthusiastically.
about 30 years ago, a washington dc paper fell on hard enough times that it wanted to lay off about 20% of its news staff. the guild said no, keep everyone but cut work weeks and pay by 20%. the company agreed and, as i recall, the paper survived -- at least long enough to be sold to someone with deeper pockets. (it may have been the moonies, but even that beats sudden death for 20% of staff jobs.