Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Saturday | Aug. 23 | News? Post it, here!
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21 comments:
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ReplyDeleteJackson,TN lost 14 - 12 from open positions and 2 layoffs.
ReplyDeleteThe Tennessean posted an ad today to hire a government/public service editor.
ReplyDeleteI am drunk. I have been drinking since I got off work, and I am really drunk
ReplyDelete@11:09: be careful where you fall asleep. :-)
ReplyDeleteBurington (VT) Free Press laid off a 79 y.o. proofreader who had worked at the paper for almost 45 years.
ReplyDeleteWay to go Publisher Brad Robertson! You must feel like such a powerful big man. Here's hoping the typos in your obit don't get caught.
Reno, where the air is as rare as intelligent decisions, is losing 7.
ReplyDelete5 are gone, not sure about the other two. It has been strongly inferred that it is NOT to be discussed on the property.
The first two to go, had the most to do with the security of the building. Monitoring cameras, patrolling the grounds, controlling the badge/lock system
Most people do not know the whole list of who has been laid off. Lots of whispering.
While I'm sure everyone who gets the boot will just take their personal items and go home, moving on with their lives. Here is the situation:
There is no security.
We don't know who belongs in the building, and who does not. Because nobody knows the whole list of layoffs. Like I said, I doubt that anyone would snap, and go off the deep end. But there are people who were royally screwed, who could come and go as they please.
We are truly a microcosm of Gannett
stupidity
Funny you mention that about security. Our site just got a new security system, mostly due to the fact that some nut case walked in the building and ended up holding the HR department hostage for more than an hour. The swat team was dispatched and streets were closed (it only got a small brief in the paper, though). The receptionist in the lobby could tell that something was wrong with the guy so she found a convenient excuse to get out of there. So he headed to HR. But, yeah a lot of my coworkers are wondering who we hold the door open for and who we slam it on since the layoff list is such a hush thing. You never know these days.
ReplyDeleteGoing back to that whole swat team event at our paper, if that scenario had played out at any other business, it would have taken up most of the front page of the newspaper with a screaming 100-plus point headline and all sorts of expanded coverage, photo galleries, videos, yada, yada.
Don't forget 'man-in-the-newsroom' reaction. Local local local!
ReplyDeletei feel sorry for security staffs these days. they've been gutted in recent years, but they get to know staffers and then find themselves having to escort them out like perps who might go postal.
ReplyDeletedoes it never occur to hr that being treated like perps could CAUSE people to go postal?
Well 8:56, that's what did me in. Hovering over me till I left as though I was being fired for doing something really bad instead of thanking me for my years of service. Yes, Mr. Dubow and corporate HR, you should be thanking all of us who were let go or at least training HR better, as we are contributing to the retention of your excessive salary and bonus. How do you sleep at night? I think I know the answer to that.
ReplyDeleteSecurity? My newspaper has never had security. We are resorting to turing off the lights in the bathroom when we leave, using the back side of copy paper,etc to save money. I always figured the bigger papers (50K+) had a lot more fat the cut them the smaller newspapers. We are truly cutting revenue generating position, people that easily bring in more then thier pay. Corp needs to look at sites like Nashville, Phoenix, Detroit, etc for he cuts. Maybe cut off thr service that cleans the plastic plants? Maybe some of the numerous layers of management? But since those sites are the places they visit the most amd know the most people they will never cut them. It would be awkward on thier summer vacations
ReplyDeleteI couldn't find my original posts (search doesn't seem to search comments, just the main posting), but about eight months ago I posted that working for Collins, for all his stupid habits and egomaniacal predilections was not difficult if you did your job and stayed one step ahead of him, which was not difficult since we are not talking about a Machiavellian intellect.
ReplyDeleteI pointed out that Collins was at least honest in his Caligula-like way. You knew where you stood and could maneuver around him. For all his love of Patton, Collins was not a great tactician and could be outflanked easily. He could only exploit obvious weaknesses, like veeps who just cried "Poor me!" and never came up with an alternate plan.
At the time I was castigated and told that Donovan was going to save the Press. (After all, look at the things he said in his initial employee meetings -- gee, how much of that came true?)
So now how do people feel? Will you believe ANYTHING Donovan says at the next set of employee meetings on Aug. 27? There will be two of them. (I guess there aren't enough employees left to make a third one necessary. Or maybe Donovan doesn't want to come out of hiding for too long.)
Last time he told us the layoff were deep so there would not me more in the near future.
Last time he said how "amazing" and "powerful" our new products (like the Community sections) were. So "amazing" and "powerful" that they couldn't justify keeping the employees (like the Community sports staff) on salary.
How is he going to re-establish ANY credibility with the remaining employees? Does he even care to?
Would Gannett consider any of these "solutions?"
ReplyDeleteFrom Newspaper Death Watch:
As Panic Sets In, All Options Are On the Table
By paulgillin | August 22, 2008 - 8:41 am -
Editor & Publisher has a 3,000-word special report on the newspaper industry’s prospects that doesn’t turn up much new ground but documents the panic that has set in across the business. Everything is on the table, industry execs now say. In the coming year, expect a lot of papers to eliminate money-losing Monday, Tuesday and Saturday editions, dump their classified advertising sections and combine forces with rivals or outsource overseas. Recent redesigns like those at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel are intended to be produced by smaller staffs. Some papers consider giving up on courting the youth audience and decide to just focus on giving their older readers something they’ll want to consume for the next 25 years."
http://www.visualeditors.com/apple/2008/08/des-moines-register-lays-off-art-director-jeff-bash/
ReplyDeleteHere is a gut wrenching story of another great and talented guy at the Des Moines Register.
What is the Des Moines Register thinking?
You're all wondering why the layoffs weren't executed right after all the pub letters came out. Corporate forbid (yes, forbid) any of the sites to let anyone go before Monday the 18th. So don't take it out on your local site they more than likely didn't want to let anyone go anyway. Change is needed at the top. When is Mr. Dubow going to forego his huge bonus and freeze his salary and pension? Gannett Board of Directors...are you out there? Are you listening to any of this?
ReplyDelete12:24, you aren't the only one who felt that for all of Collins' bad points, you always knew where you stood. His biggest, biggest screwup was bringing in Skip Hidlay, who redefined gamesmanship and was the most inhumane person I have ever worked for. For all of Donovan's talk about changing things, anyone who was in the newsroom knew the culture of fear was never, ever going to change as long as Skip was around, because in Collins' eyes, and his words, Skip was the second coming. The folks at the HNT who think Skip is so great are in for a rude awakening come January or February, because they'll begin to see the real Skip. He took a sports department at the Press that had won awards and national recognition for its high school sports coverage and gutted it; then proclaimed to the staff that he wanted them to "own high school sports." He then proceeded to fill just two openings in the department in the past three years; at least eight people have departed.
ReplyDeleteDonovan lost credibility the minute he allowed Skip to remain as EE at the Press. Anyone in the newsroom who thought Donovan would change things knew that was off the table when Skip was allowed to remain in power.
35 people getting LAID OFf in the pressroom in "phoenix" no buyouts the scumbag management is fine with that! Some of the people have 16 years!! wWho is stealing the money?
ReplyDeleteYes 8.15 when the money gets tight the theives will stoop lower then street thugs..............and they call themselves white collar!?
ReplyDeleteHello 8.15, I find it hard to even if I hate the person to hate thier family and children where do these people come from but self centered anti- american people that believe that the "dollar " means more than then "american People" and their own soul. God dammit If I ever had a choice to chose betwee the american woker and their loyalty and picking an third world country.......................Oh boy I guess I would be a "Bush" millionaire!
ReplyDeleteSkip was really a mixed bag. One good thing about him at the APP is that he believed in investigative reporting and let some of us do pretty good, important stories. Unfortunately this created a very obnoxious "star system" that eventually pushed a lot of great talent out the door. You had a "projects team" that would sit around and maybe produce a story once every three or four months, and a lot of what they would do was just based on obtaining public records and hyping up things the paper should have been reporting all along. Meanwhile everyone else would be busting their humps filing 20 online updates an hour or whatever.
ReplyDeleteCollins was a total fucking scumbag. Anyone who defends him is an idiot. I hate to be so harsh but the guy was a sexist pig who set the ruin of the APP in motion. It was a fantastic, ascendant newspaper before he got there. It wasn't perfect, it still needed room to improve, but it was getting there. Collins rode in on his little warpony and all that went up in smoke.