Regarding the pension freeze controversy, a reader says: "The problems in the newsroom at USA Today are almost beyond belief, even for a newspaper that has historically had its ups and downs. The level of disrespect is off the charts for older print staffers. The spinning by top editors about merging the paper and online site is almost laughable. Dissenting or even mildly concerned voices have simply been silenced in a variety of ways, including buyouts. Almost anything except the truth is condoned. Those being rewarded are those who play along, regardless of their talent levels. That is a bad practice for any business. At USA Today, the workload is also off the charts. The newsroom is a sweatshop with many staffers regretting that they didn't take or qualify for last year's buyout offer. A pension freeze hurts workers financially, but being lied daily to hurts the soul and spirit of everyone. The tricks that USA Today editors have conjured up (goofy awards, telling jokes at meetings, etc.) to try to address morale are transparent, phony and making a bad situation worse. There is nothing humanizing about these parochial management 101 tricks. It's disrespectful to treat people like they are idiots who will believe anything. So I can't get too worked up about pensions because far worse things are ahead."Join the debate, in the original post.
[Image: this morning's USA Today, Newseum]
Sweatshop!!!Who are you kidding. Have you read USA Today. I think the real sweatshop is the AP. Afterall, that is where all of our news comes from. You actually think Paulson and Wilson would have it any different?
ReplyDeleteOh, and have you seen the USAT website. Painful!!!
How about some updated stories on that website. Ir looks like the forget about the home page.
They should drop that shitty, no read, newspaper.
There is no doubt that the USA TODAY newsroom has suffered severe personnel losses, and the move to online emphasis is a work in progress.
ReplyDeleteBut the newspaper is making money, growing circulation and may very well be the last brand standing when all is said and done.
To call the place a 'sweatshop' is the kind of overstatement that makes the Internet and blogs so hard to take seriously as a reliable measure of what's really happening. Yes, the USA TODAY newsroom can be tough and unrelenting at times, especially in certain parts of the operation -- anything related to production of a page, in print or online -- but overall the place is healthy and full of new hires.
Things are far better at USA TODAY than at many places in the industry, and like his style or not, Ken Paulson has fought quietly and fiercely behind the scenes to keep the place's journalistic integrity amid great pressure to cut even more.
Can the newspaper do better, BE better? Yes, for certain. But the USA TODAY newsroom, as battered and beset as it is, still stands proud when compared to the carnage elsewhere.
Well I can assure you it's not an overstatement to say some of us another Gannett property work in a sweatshop.
ReplyDeleteWhere I work, at one of the corporation's bigger properties, the cafeteria concessionnaire is hurting because so few people actually get any lunch breaks, and when they do, many don't dare spend the money anymore for fear of when the other shoe is going to drop.
In many of our units, crappy bosses expect us to be in early, stay as late and I've begged to leave after 9 hours of labor because I had a sick child alone at home and got snapped at, "Your an exempt employee!" No kidding.
My workweeks are regulary close to 50 hours, but I'm required to fill out timesheets that claim I work 8 hours with a half-hour lunch. I'm hovered over and thrown more and more jobs to do constantly from the time I walk in the door, and then get badgered about when I will have this or that done. This isn't a breaking news unit, and I am an agile and efficient worker, with exceptional skills and more than 20 years at this newspaper.
The only thing that prevents us from being a literal sweatshop is that they keep the newsroom at 50-60 degrees, winter and summer. Literally. We put up a thermometer before we complained, to no avail.
I work at USA TODAY, and it's hardly a sweatshop. I worked at a smaller Gannett newspaper for a decade, and THAT was a sweatshop. I will grant you that when I came to USAT from the Gannett paper, I was blown away by the number of staff, the frequent free food, the relatively opulent budget for travel, expenses, etc., and the relatively short work week. That was 10 years ago. A lot has changed: fewer staff, smaller budget, etc. But still, I would never want to go back to the paper I came from.
ReplyDeleteUSAT's biggest problem right now is its Web site, which, despite many "redesigns," still falls far short of the organizations we're supposed to be competing against. Seen the NY Times' site lately? Kinsey Wilson, who heads our site, is a nice guy with a lot of great ideas that unfortunately he is unable to execute due to budget and time constraints that are far beyond his control.
Also, the business side of USAT is mightily screwed up. That's a classic case of way too many people not coordinating their efforts and basically getting nowhere.
USAT a sweatshop? Doubtful.
ReplyDeleteEven if the job is increasingly demanding and job security seems at risk, that just puts you on the same playing field as Gannettoids across the rest of he company.
In the meantime, you enjoy a real cafeteria and a gym/workout center complete with an indoor driving range for golfers.
The food at my last place was so bad that even the rats and cockroaches wouldn't touch it.
It's been known for years that Gannett has some of the lowest-morale newsrooms in the newspaper business, run by some of the worst editors around. They skirt labor laws. They distort truths. The censor their own people from speaking out. It's finally spread to the flagship USA TODAY. Yes, they have a shiny building with some perks that other Gannettoids don't enjoy at the smaller operations, but make no mistake about it. The morale at USA TODAY print couldn't be lower. Ask any of the folks who have left there in the last year or two -- folks who didn't want to leave but saw the writing on the wall. You name it, and it's pretty much broken at USA TODAY the paper. Would take years to repair, but there isn't any interest in even acknowledging that anything is wrong by the top dogs. The top editors are falling into line and some probably are even spewing out some counter propaganda on this blog. You can tell who they are by the language they use. They like talking about "brand" and such. In their worlds, everything is fine. Their paychecks are still fat. The mortgages are still being paid on their vacation homes. Believe me, USA TODAY print is on the verge of total collapse thanks to the gutless editors who won't even allow their top people to defend what is right anymore. It's bubbling up and going to get real ugly. The merger with online/the USAT web site is one of the most mismanaged endeavors I have ever seen in any business. Those complain about USA TODAY are not spoiled brats. They have legitimate concerns. And if the flagship newsroom people are being treated this way, I can only imagine what's going on elsewhere in Gannett.
ReplyDelete