Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Tuesday | Sept. 23 | Got news, or a question?
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38 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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I've just started this new open-comments thread. You can always return to earlier editions by clicking on the Real Time Comments label in the blue sidebar, to the right.
ReplyDeleteYou know what's funny? I'm sitting on my couch, scrolling and clacking away, and BOOM! My newspaper is delivered unceremoniously at my front door.
ReplyDeleteBANG! WTF?! It almost breaks the window on my storm door and makes me shit my pants. Well, at least I should be grateful it didn't land in the bushes ... or in the driveway, or accidentally delivered to my neighbor across the street ... or yards from the door, where it usually lands. Or soaked with rain. Or missing a section. Or ...
And, what luck! They didn't leave tire tracks in my lawn, which they usually do to. I've re-seeded that area six (SIX) times this year, and they still like to scrape it away and leave a muddy fucking mess.
Christ I WORK at Gannett, and I want to cancel my subscription because the delivery of the paper is so fucking sporatic and worthless. What ever happened to "delivery" in delivery?
Sad.
Poor management is not limited to you good folks that write and sell.
ReplyDeleteLast night (Mon) at the Louisville C-J one press missed the first two editions. Work was done on one of the print towers last Sat and never tested. Of course,when we started up for KY run none of the color cylinders lined up. This lack of management has been a real problem here, especially since Tom Letto was hired as pressroom manager. He is in so far over his head that he has to spend all day doing the CYA thing. Our waste percentage is awful (8,000 spoils for a 32,00 run!), we have problems with the press that are met by blank stares by supervisors, suggestions by press operators that are ignored("we know what we're doing"), But I guess that's what you get when you hire a guy whose only qualification is that he scabbed in Detroit.
There is absolutely no preventive maintanence. In fact, Randi Austin of HR told us that it is not our job to tell them when to do maint but that they will tell us when we can.
After reading many of your concerns, I have to agree that the plan is to run print into the ground.
I'm a reporter, and I have a lot of respect for the people who deliver the newspaper. It's a long, hard, early-hour job in all types of weather, every day of the week. There are always a few bad apples, and the low-paying, temporary nature of newspaper delivery work seems to attract a bit more than its share.
ReplyDeleteI see circulation managers every day who work 10-12-hour days filling in for missing or vacant route drivers. They work their butts off. If I get laid off from the newsroom, which I expect to be within six months, I'm not sure I'd be up to a delivery job.
Amen to that! I remember delivering newspapers in Rhode Island winters, when I was a teenager lugging Sunday New York Timeses, Providence Journals, and other thick papers up a hill.
ReplyDeletef you all are waiting for digital revenue to be your savior, you need to think again.
ReplyDeleteWe will not see digital revenues come close to print revenues in our lifetime. Currently, digital is 10 percent of a newspaper's total ad revenue and print is 90%.
The print business requires the focus. There is plenty of value to be untapped there. As an industry, our websites are important for readers but the economics point to the premium print dollars.
Downsizing is necesary but we cannot allow print to go away completely.
There are so many innovative things Gannett could be doing besides slashing and burning.
Be thankful you're working for a paper that can make a bang when it hits the door on a weekday. Some sites, it's more of a flutter.
ReplyDeleteI also subscribe, but I got a rural box put on the front of my house (in the city) so i wouldn't have to go hunting for the paper. I tip pretty good too!
Philip Balboni thinks he can build the next great global news organization with the help of an unlikely ally: Capitalism.
ReplyDeleteThe chief of Boston-based Global News Enterprises, Balboni is preparing to launch a test version of his international news site later this fall, with a full-scale debut in January. He's signed roughly 40 correspondents and five regional editors with pedigrees ranging from Time Magazine to the Associated Press. Reporters in Asia and Eastern Europe are up next. Earlier this month, GNE stole Politico's Barbara Martinez as one of its managing editors.
"We are journalist entrepreneurs, and we have to find new models for journalism in the digital age," says Balboni.
He isn't alone. From Politico to Breaking Views to the Huffington Post to thousands upon thousands of blogs, droves of journalists have fled traditional newsrooms in the past decade looking for a way to make a living from the exploding world of digital media. So far, precious few have replicated the quality or impact--or profits--of the name-brand companies they left behind.
Keep in mind that most of that 10% of revenue the digital in bringing in is really allocated from print. They will never report it, but I would love to see true digital revenue. WE keep investing in digital which advertisers have said over and over they do not want. But we say "yes you do, in fact we will cut revenue generating expenses from print and buy more digital" Eventually we will succeed i killing print. Why do give away our content online, we must start charging for it.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, this encapsulates the underlying problem with newspapers and reporting in general:
ReplyDeletehttp://mediamatters.org/columns/200809230003?f=h_column
or
http://tinyurl.com/3gp9pr
Both go to the same column
to 4:24 am. Newspaper delivery has been a struggle ever since "youth" carriers were eliminated. Newspaper delivery has never been the same since.
ReplyDeleteThat is the fact that will never be admitted to. The only reason why Online shows the numbers they show is because of what is allocated from Print. For example - Recruitment packages have an allocation of the package to Online, which includes the online portion and every other upsell (print upsell that is) built into the package.
ReplyDeleteSo when online numbers include a high percentage of print and print people are being assaulted from management for the decline in revenue, pointing fingers towards online is being fully ignored.
The only real ad revenue that moved from print to online and will stay online is classified. That's it.
ReplyDeleteThe print industry (newspapers and magazines) should have the full focus of an urgency toward print.
The only way digital will ever catch up is for the revenue model to shift to consumers and away from advertisers.
The web has not been able to monetize itself fully because consumers get everything for free.
Ah ha. Interesting.
ReplyDeleteNew revenue stream, we've done everything else we can to our customers:
ReplyDeletehttp://notthelatimes.com/classaction.html
Any more news on bad news today from Nashville?
ReplyDeletefreakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/a-newspaper-paradigm-shift
ReplyDeleteHas anyone seen the VP of advertising in Nashville today?
ReplyDelete11:55 That LA Times article about suing the customers for abandoning their subscriptions is hilarious. Is it for real?
ReplyDeleteGeez.why don't they sue the digital wiz kids for inventing all the great web stuff that enticed readers online for free while they're at it.
I think someone here is satirically challenged.
ReplyDeleteWhy would Gannett's Newspaper Division post a job for a Mother's Helper in Cocoa Beach? It reads like a Florida Today job! That's the first time I've seen a non-industry job listed on the corporate site. Strange.
ReplyDeleteHey -- does anyone know anything about working for a CNHI newspaper? Any worse/better than Gannett?
ReplyDeleteThe thing I don't think some of you realize is that if we don't give this away for free online, somebody else will.
ReplyDeleteIt's not like you need a printing press to produce it and it's just a matter of time before some kid in a basement produces the website that eats your lunch because you've got everything behind a stinking pay wall that no one uses.
It's already been done to classifieds, nearly completely. Don't think it can't happen with journalism as well.
I work at a newspaper, I used to work in print. I'm almost thirty.
And I don't read our newspaper ... ever. I have no desire to deal with recycling, delivery or the time it takes. And every time I run into a pay wall or even a registration-required article, I just go somewhere else.
I'm the guy you're trying to reach ... and it will never be in print. Put a paywall up, and I'll find the alternative weekly in your town with a free website and read them instead ... or I'll help somebody build a local news site from scratch before I go through that hassle.
And again: I work in this industry.
Imagine what a normal person is like.
4:05pm
ReplyDeleteYou hit it on the head - what those who advocate paywalls refuse to admit is that the game ahs changed.
Nobody, nobody, nobody has a successful pay for content model - even the porn sites are losing to YouTube style smut purveyors.
You dont have to like it, or think its great for a free society - but blaming the folks in digital wont help either.
I'm also under 40 and have been in the industry (on the print side) for ten years and have recently cut my subscription.
4:05 you miss the point. The point is an economic one. The web is free. the only way websites make money is through advertising. That used to be tru for TV too until cable came along and look what happened. People pay large amounts of money on a monthly cable bill and do so gladly.
ReplyDeleteWith a down economy and companies cutting ad budgets because they are worried about their own survival (automotive, real estate, building, retails...) the media can no longer expect advertisers to pay the freight. If you are the guy with the financial spreaadsheet, you are going to pass charges onto to someone.
My son pays a lot of money to get movies in the mail through netflix. who would have thought it? dont be so sure the revenue models are not going to shift to the consuemr one way or another....it has to! It might not be a pay to read model but it will be a consumer model somehow someway. The only way media can exist otherwise would be through government and that wont happen in America.
The fact that you are 30 somethings just shows you were not around when the ad revenue model dominated. How the heck will media companies (including Google and all the web properties) survive without revenue?
ReplyDeleteIf ad models get severely diminished, consumers will pay or the alternative will be no media. You will be around to see that happen.
I want my MTV!
the cable model wasnt built on consumer paying for content, but rather consumers (primarily in rural and mountainous areas) paying for access.
ReplyDeleteThe plethora of choices came after - but even now they remain a largely ad-funded model - (otherwise why would they care about ratings???)
I dont deny that that model has to change - and certainly dont deny that innovation can create new pathways (like Netflixs) through virgin fields. I just wouldnt count on it going back to the old pay for content model
Yep---I remember perfectly that there would be NO commercials on cable. Didn't take long for that to change! And we have to pay to get those commercials.
ReplyDeleteI can not believe how out of touch most of you are. What colors are in your world, really? Oh and let he FLames begin.. You all seem to really enjoy that.
ReplyDeleteSo, seriously--no news about Nashville? Someone posted that something big was supposed to happen today, but nothing did that I know of.
ReplyDeleteFILL US IN!! Don't make generic posts like that if you are not willing to back up your rumor. We are all scared enough as it is.
I'm in Nashville, and I heard of nothing happening here today.
ReplyDeleteSomething did happen in Nashville but I can't provide the information until it becomes public. Should be tomorrow.
ReplyDelete10:10 pm, what are you talking about? Nothing happened in Nashville today.
ReplyDeleteDouble-posting this, originally written in response to a comment on the small-ish number of males in the leadership training program. The commenter seemed to imply that men were becoming under-represented in the news business (or what's left of it). The facts do not support that suggestion.
ReplyDeleteWomen have made up the majority of journalism/mass commuication undergraduates for more than 20 years. According to the Pew Center for Civic Journalism, women account for about two-third of all journalism students but only one-third of all journalism jobs.
Women work cheaper than men. No news flash there, regrettable, not right, etc. etc. But they still take the jobs for less than what a guy would be paid.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't it make sense to hire females, and push down the wages of the whole business? Not just ours, but any industry?
Let's try it now - put Hollingsworth in as CEO and see how much she gets paid. At least you know she reads a newspaper once in a while.....
hey if there are few qualified men graduating than companies hire women. when did MEN become an endangered species int he workforce. PLEASE!!!!!
ReplyDeleteInstead of fighting over whether to force customers to pay for content online (they won't), we could also ask why we don't give the daily papers away to get them in the hands of more readers and help build up advertising. It works in other countries - or so I've heard - and it seems to work with alt pubs. When I get a free paper on a commuter train, I read it. I probably wouldn't buy it. I am merely interested in this model, not advocating it. I don't pretend to know everything. Or lately, watching things crumble around me, much of anything.
ReplyDeleteas an ad person, I can tell you that advertisers pay alot of attention to who pays for the paper and value that reader at a higher premium.
ReplyDelete