As a 20-year company veteran, I've run across screamers, ashtray throwers, newspaper tossers, dysfunctional alcoholics, and assorted other graduates of the Gannett Management U.Together, they helped enforce the culture of fear that Gannett still uses to whip its now 46,000-employee workforce into obedience. My question: How long have these fear tactics been in force -- and who was responsible for making them an integral part of the 102-year-old company?
Some Gannett Blog readers have fingered Al Neuharth, who retired as CEO in 1986 after 13 years in that job. (Now 84, Neuharth famously had his desk set on a platform, so everyone sitting before him would feel small.) Now-retired John Curley took Neuharth's place. Other major players included former newspaper division chief Gary Watson, and his successor, Sue Clark-Johnson, who retired three months ago.
Corporate's all-time prince of darkness, it appears, was chain-smoking retired regional newspaper boss Robert T. Collins. My readers say he inspired subordinates by channelling soldier-slapping World War II general George S. Patton. Collins retired in March after 48 years with Gannett, plenty of time to hone his skills.
"Neuharth trained Watson," a reader said here in a comment yesterday. "Curley tolerated Watson. Watson supported Collins, even though he thought he was a clown. Watson hired some of those still-remaining nasty bullies. SCJ was just another shill cut from the same cloth."
Collins fascinates me. What was his hold on Corporate? Why did CEOs Curley, Doug McCorkindale and, finally, Craig Dubow (left), tolerate and encourage tactics like his "dollar drill,'' where operating committee members were put through the business equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition?"Collins was so rude and vile,'' a reader wrote early this morning, "he insisted on smoking wherever he went -- even in the 'dollar drill' meetings, oblivious to no-smoking policies and the needs and feelings of the people he would spend hours drilling. Behavior like that in the 21st century is so out of line it cannot be justified and must not be tolerated. Such behavior was just plain stupid, offensive and counter-productive."
In yesterday's much-discussed post on OC members working in misery, a reader said: "I keep wondering if the newspaper division will change at all with Bob Dickey."
Well, Bob?
Earlier: It takes a village (of CEOs) to lead a company astray
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[Image: heartless boss C. Montgomery Burns of The Simpsons]
All these years, I blamed the Robert T. Collins Charm School. Who knew???
ReplyDeleteI knew that the mid-1980s "onsites" were dreaded by members of the operataing committees, but other than the "clean up or else" mandate for the newsroom, we were mostly spared.
ReplyDeleteWhat filtered out about the preps were the construction of extensive binders filled with facts and figures ... likely to give our top editor some semblance of justification for our existance I now realize.
The antics of "corporate" preceeded them, so people steeled themselves for the worse and drank heavily in relief when they left.
Probably the thing that scandalized the small paper newsroom about these visits were the unrealistic demands by Newharth and his crew. The publisher's executive assistant had a motel repaint the rooms of top corporate visitors because of those requirements. The room was stocked with special food and wine (and the paper's budget absorbed the cost, even if they didn't crack a cork.)
I remember the editor polling the newsroom and other departments for people who had nicer cars to serve as chauffeurs from the small local airport (corp. jet) to cut the cost of a towncar service (which only had one car).
It is a whole different world in Gannett's small community papers compared to USA Today and other major metros.
Special food and wine, indeed! The tales of stocking up on Pouilly-Fuissé, Big Al's fave, in advance of one of his visits to the hinterlands (where I started with Mother Gannett before moving the USAT at a stay-free-mini-pad loaner in '83) were legendary. Cases of the stuff. Fortunately, we were in a city that had a lot of alcohol sales and so the local liquor distributor could oblige...
ReplyDeleteI think Al's taste in wine rubbed off on his underlings. It was stocked even when he wasn't in the house ...
Neuharth in a landslide. If you knew Paul Miller (Neuharths predecessor) you would know the worst aspects of Gannett culture didn't exist prior to AHN taking over. If you read his book SOB he brags about it. Without Neuharth and the fanatical drive to "never having a down quarter year over year" and the draconian measures taken during USAT launch. this company would be more "Millerish". Gannett was able to grow through acquisitions during the Miller era because local owners... families trusted him with their newspapers. With Neuharth who had much more financial resources it was just win the bidding process. Without Neuharth Watson and Collins don't happen and the culture while still more business oriented than the other chains is ratcheded down several notches.
ReplyDeleteJin ask how much Al still gets paid for his worthless column. I bet it is around $250,000 a year.
ReplyDeleteI personally have never had a bad boss at Gannett. They have all been good competent people who knew their jobs and took care of their people. I've also worked with a lot of other people throughout the company and have rarely come across anyone who ranted raved or didn't care about what they were doing. Your mileage may vary but it seems like only the negative gets posted here.
ReplyDeleteSo, Gannett is fair game, but their competition isn't mentioned? I'm sure you're quite familiar with Gannett nemesis John Starr, former editor of the Arkansas Democrat. One of the biggest a-holes in the business, who thrived on having his employees fear him. Calling him a bully would be way to nice.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I worked under the Bob Collins regime for many years. He was (and is) a crude scumbag of a person who clearly took great joy in humiliating people especially in public forums. His fouled-mouthed tirades were what he enjoyed so much. He knew how to dance to the corporate tune to better himself in order to gain more power. His funeral sometime in the future will be a celebration by just about anyone who knows him. And I don't mean in the form of a tribute to him or his nasty behavior. Rather, that he's gone off of this earth forever. Hope it's soon.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you, 10:43 AM, there are many publishers & directors out there who are respected. Not everyone in Gannett is heartless.
ReplyDeleteIt starts with Big Al for setting the imperial tone from on high. But when it comes to the disproportionate number of heavy-handed fearmongers, I pin the blame on Watson.
ReplyDeleteHe was a famous jerk (who also BTW smoked anywhere he wanted long after the non-smoking rules came around) who promoted many, many people like himself to positions of authority. Like Collins.
Some competent and humane types survived. But under Watson, their prospects were limited. Thus, the beloved and respected Arnie Garson (whom I do not know myself) is not running the company today.
Organizations always reflect the top leadership. Or, as the colorful aphorism has it, "The fish rots from the head down."
Let's not forget Sue Clark-Johnson. Now there was a really rotten fish!
ReplyDelete"Your mileage may vary."
ReplyDeleteI get .23 per mile. You?
Collins wasn't "oblivious" to the no-smoking rules. He was just too arrogant to care or comply.
ReplyDeleteAmen 5:10. Anyone who worked in Asbury during the Collins years can tell you it was well-known that "across the bridge," as we called it, smoking was de riguer.
ReplyDeleteAs for the culture of fear, Collins so deeply bred it into the culture there through his fearmonger, Skip Hidlay, that Asbury will never be the same. Skip would scream at you that he wanted teamwork, but a moment later call in other employees and grill them for negative remarks about an employee he wanted to get rid of. When the sports editor who was in place when Skip dared to butt heads with Skip, sports department employees were called in and grilled about what kind of a manager the sports editor was. Skip encouraged -- even berated -- people to trash the guy. He was fortunate enough to escape. Scarred, like the rest of us, but he escaped.
I wouldn't be too quick to defend that sports editor. By all accounts, he didn't have a clue.
ReplyDeleteIt's unfortunate that many of the other incompetents that Skip put in place -- like the "metro editor" who can't manage his way out of a paper bag, or the "online editor" who gets honored as employee of the year when her underlings did all the grunt work for which she got credit -- remain there. These people are really what has dragged Asbury down.
A number of the "department head" level managers seem to be classic cases of do-nothings who sit in their glass offices all day and manage by delegation, but those two really take the cake.
Both are so astonishingly incompetent that it is difficult to see how they have managed to hold on to their jobs. The short answer is, both were Skip favorites, for whatever ungodly reason. Hopefully, the next EE (if they ever appoint one) will see through the smoke and mirrors and promptly replace both of them.
Oh, 9:56, don't you know that unless an employee has a history of bad performance reviews, they can't be "promptly replaced."
ReplyDeleteAnd most managers are too scared to give poor performance reviews because they are afraid if it came to litigation, they would be unable to justify their judgements because they really aren't capable of making any in the first place?
As for the sports editor being clueless, well he's been ably replaced with our fishing editor who can't proofread and writes in the same disjointed monotone he speaks in. (But he's apparently fishing buds with our ME.)
I couldn’t agree more about the “culture of fear’’ that exists at the APP. The story about the sports editor is absolutely true, but leaves out the fact that there were three more sports editor treated exactly the same way! I, myself, was fired after filing a complaint to Gannett corporate about the hostile work environment that existed there. The environment that, for example, in my opinion may have contributed in some way to the death of a woman who was fired over the phone on Christmas Eve and months later took her own life.
ReplyDeleteBut never worry that Gannett takes these claims of hostility and fear-inspiring tactics seriously. After all, they launched their own investigation into my hostile work environment claims. Surprise, surprise, they found that most people were happy and thought Skippy was a good communicator. I guess it takes someone with the distance of a Gannett disciple all the way from Delaware to draw that conclusion. But in order to do so, you have to make sure you carefully interview the right people and ignore the names and number s of the dozens of people I recommended the “investigators’’ call. I mean, talking about stacking the deck in your favor. I have a pending EEOC complaint against them, too. I’m sure THAT won’t be like spitting into the wind either, right? You can’t win.
The only solace I cling to is that Collins “retired’’ with a two week time period following the investigation, just kind of picked up and left on a random Tuesday… the sounds of maintenance dismantling his parking sign before the end of the day ringing in his ears. Then, Skippy gets moved to his new position, undoubtedly bringing all his finely honed fear mongering skills learned at Collins’ knee to another lucky staff. Not saying I was responsible for it… but saying it was at least “something.’’
Amusing to me is the fact that outside of the newspaper arena… away from the “protection’’ of his little army of disciples… say, for instance, if you were to run into Skip at a place like Home Depot… Skip isn’t quite so bold or brazen. Ever see someone who owes you money or something try to get away from you really, really fast as they babble and start moonwalking away from you? Well, when it’s the person who single-handedly ruined your chance at keeping the career that you loved forever, there is a little joy that comes with seeing that. Nice to know fear comes full circle every once in a while.
In Cherry Hill, Skip was a wonderful leader. Anyone who worked there under him (and I did for the entire time he was editor) will tell you the paper's best days were the Skip years. APP was well known as a disaster before skip got there. It was a pathetic excuse for Gannett's New Jersey flag ship newspaper. Anyone who doesnt admit that is being dishonest.
ReplyDeleteWow, 7:48, you must be the only person on the planet that Skip didn't abuse because I know some of your cohorts in Cherry Hill and they paint a far different picture of that egomaniac. Asbury had its rough spots, but the newsroom wasn't the ulcer-inducing hate-filled center it became within 6 months of his arrival.
ReplyDeleteTo exclude Margaret Buchanan’s name from the discussion would be doing a great disservice to those who’ve watched her antics in action and or were the target of her often vicious attacks.
ReplyDeleteMore than a few observers – including at senior level ranks, have been amazed by her history of less than professional behavior, let alone that Gannett’s tolerated it for so long. And, that’s the heart of what’s wrong with this company – its character.
And, it won’t improve until poster children like her are gone
Oh how quickly we all forget at the APP...
ReplyDeleteSkip had his flaws (and yes I've had my share of his screamfest moments) but everyone seems to forget how pathetic his predecessor, Ray Ollwerther was...someone who truly had no people skills, wouldn't stand up for his reporters and who had no guts whatsoever when it came to hard-hitting journalism. (Example: Ray had to be browbeaten by subordinates the morning of 9/11 to produce a bulldog on the attack, and this was one of his first directives as the WTC was burning: "We need to see if the ATM machines are still working.") Honest to God. At least Skip- for all his flaws - managed to breathe some life back into the place, before the whole industry came crashing down.
10:10 how about the EXTREME turnover from Ray to Skip? The HR VP Mike Lorenca when I suggested they should get a revolving door with the way people were leaving said they should rip off the door entirely.
ReplyDeleteAny word on how Ketan is doing in Philly? Has he been de-Gannetized yet and fitting in with the masses?
ReplyDeleteExtreme turnover? People in newsroom were practically dancing in the aisles when Ray left. A lot of people already had been looking to escape prior to Skip's arrival, and when their offers came through, they left; but it was one of the APP's periodic exoduses (if you're talking extreme, nothing beats the exodus when Gannett took Press over.) As I said, Skip definitely has his flaws, but let's not re-write history. APP was no bed of roses before he came.
ReplyDelete10:10, I didn't forget what Ray was like. I sat in the newsroom and watched the paralysis he created on 9-11 when he couldn't make a decision about anything we were doing that day. The bulldog certainly got out in spite of him. Ray may have had the personality of a puddle, but he wasn't outright abusive the way Skip was. Skip breathed some life, but then slit the throats of the very people who could have really done wonders with that desire for investigative journalism. The drain of institutional knowledge since Skip arrived has sucked what life he breathed into the place out of it.
ReplyDelete11:45, are you still at the APP or no? Have you seen how many of the hard-working people have left in the last three years?
ReplyDelete12:01: Agreed. That first rush of journalistic excitment is certainly nowhere to be found today. Wonder how APP and NJ group will fare with new round of layoffs??
ReplyDelete