In an e-mail, an employee at one of Gannett's bigger newspapers writes: "I've been asked by my editor to re-engineer the print content into fewer sections and cut 10% of our newshole. Basically, it's a re-thinking or redesign of the entire product. . . . I'm working with one other content editor in secrecy."
The editor's request, and the employee's secret work, was prompted by a teleconference on Wednesday, where News Department chief Phil Currie (left) began counseling top editors on how they will meet Corporate's demand for a 10% staff reduction.In a note to editors about the cuts, Currie wrote: "We have thoughts to share on possible content changes that -- while regrettable -- might be least damaging. You have been working on contingencies, and we also hope to learn of creative ideas being considered across the company so that we can share them.''
How are you preparing for the 10% cut? Post replies in the comments section, below. E-mail gannettblog[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the green sidebar, upper right.
Stupendous! A smaller paper just in time for our increase of the single-copy price. That'll be a fun one to explain.
ReplyDeleteI gotta suggestion -- cut much of the statistical matter that runs in Sports sections. Same as with stock reports in Biz sections, statistical matter for games is easily and widely available on the Web. Keep box scores for local teams' games, but do we really need box scores for every baseball game, every NFL game, every NBA game? Do we need long charts of top hitters, pitchers, etc., each Sunday? Then beef up our Web site with more of that kind of information.
ReplyDeleteSure there would be a reader outcry, but they'd get over it, and we'd save staff energy and newsprint.
There's this thing that people can hook their home "computers" to via a "modem". We think we might be able to give them our news that way and offer advertisers a chance to sell their wares between the news stories.
ReplyDeleteSounds far fetched but our EE is really gung ho over the whole idea.
Middle management does NOT gather content. If Gannett axes a bunch of lower-level reporters, videographers and photographers, who work by moving their feet, middle management will become even more irrelevant.
ReplyDeleteBesides, they don't get paid very much anyway, so it would seem pretty self-destructive to do that.
Unless that's really the goal.
Gannett: Where management, not content, is king?
Yea, good. There's people who have stopped buying the paper because some theaters stopped putting their movies and times in. Just because people now go sit in front of a second idiot screen...that doesn't mean EVERYBODY does or will. Doesn't any Gannett papers have the gumption to do what's right instead of what Gannett Olympus orders? Gannett shooting ITSELF in the foot and looking around to see who shot them!
ReplyDeleteOK, I gotta speak up for the newsroom middle managers here, tho I took the buyout and am no longer one.
ReplyDelete2:35 pm, either you really don't know what middle managers do, or you're surrounded by a bunch of lazyass ones. I constantly wrote copy, either for the Web or print. I think in my last year I wrote every single day. A lot of times if my reporters were tied up on bigger stories and couldn't make their quota for stories to fill our weeklies, I'd write something to fill the hole. Then there were all the times I took info over phone and acted as rewrite person for Web. Or the times I had to merge copy from a dayside reporter and a nightside reporter into one coherent story for print. You bet your sweet ass I gathered content. And I was by no means the exception for middle management at my paper.
Besides, if you get rid of middle management, who will stand up for the reporters to the higher ups?
Don't these people have just one, single creative idea to make the newspaper look good, instead of cutting staff, reducing the size of the paper, and now eliminating pages? Just one simple good idea for improving circulation, attracting advertisers, and making the staff happy and content? Every week on this blog it is the same old same old: layoffs, cuts and reductions. Hello, two new Gannett directors: THIS IS NOT THE WAY TO RUN THIS SHIP.
ReplyDeleteHow does one get to be a director on the board? Do they ask you, do you volunteer your name?
ReplyDeleteJust curious on how the process works.
One Jersey paper is handing out chapstick...
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post, 3:22! I am a middle manager, and I can tell you that we do our jobs and often the jobs of those who left who are not being replaced. I'm currently doing some of the duties of two gone-but-not-forgottens -- worked them into my day because the work still needs to be done. When staff cuts come, it is often the lower-level/middle managers who pick up the slack. And why? Because we care about serving our community and putting out as good a product as possible.
ReplyDelete4:34 p.m.: I suspect you aren't eligible for the overtime that those two now-gone staffers might have once earned. As Gannett sheds more hourly employees, the company can shift their work onto the backs of middle managers who aren't eligible for overtime.
ReplyDeleteYep, I am one of those exempt people.
ReplyDelete3:22 - Sadly, for every great editor like you, there are many more who suck. But the same goes for reporters too. In fact I think you find the same pattern repeating in most office environments. There will always be the minority that does the real work, and the majority that gets by with minimum effort, maximum gain.
ReplyDeleteDirectors: they ask you, and you are paid something like $20,000 a year plus expenses for attending meetings and reviewing business plans.
ReplyDeleteI just volunteered to be laid off after spending the better part of my adult life with Gannett. I'm trying to decide whether it was the smartest thing I've ever done or the dumbest.
ReplyDelete5:14 PM
ReplyDeleteGotta disagree that Gannett's ways are true in most office environments. That certainly has not been my experience. I'm guessing it goes back to how well companies articulate goals, set work patterns to meet the goals and then, finally, evaluate individual performance toward meeting well-defined work objectives. Think about it. Gannett doesn't articulate goals other than the financial ones. Performance appraisals are a joke. The company panics when it falls short of financial goals, and then implements some half-baked plan for payroll reductions and buyouts, seemingly with little thought to what impact cutting positions will have on future profits. It's just ridiculous. Gannett was the most screwed up, inefficient place I'd seen in my adult worklife.
I find in interesting that most of the blogs from middle management in this section today have time to blog. Seems to me that if you are sooooo busy during your workday, you might want to save a visit to gannettblog for after hours. Just a suggestion.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, from reading this blog for months now, I've come to realize that there are actually people who can be cut and Gannett not feel much pain. Sounds like from the readers on this blog, there is dead wood in almost every paper and almost every department.
ReplyDeleteSo maybe once we cut that we will still have great peopel left and can kep doing what we do.
7:09 PM
ReplyDeleteCheck your assumptions, please. (Nobody should have to tell you that if you are a reporter.) How do you know the middle managers were posting comments on work time?
It's intuitive leaps and unsupported assumptions,like the kind you made, that cause readers to laugh when they read some of the crap that's being passed off as news these days.
The trouble with 7:14's comment is that there's less dead wood than there used to be, and it's often not the dead wood that gets cut.
ReplyDeleteIn our last round of layoffs, we lost some of the most talented and hardest working staff members in the newsroom. It's true that the paper still gets out, but the quality of the publication I work for has deteriorated substantially over the past three years.
Gannett is not feeling the pain of the cuts now because the company is no longer concerned about putting out anything approaching a quality product in many markets. Basically, they trim expenses to a point where the profit margin is more comfortable.
Trouble is audiences are losing respect for the products, meaning circulation will likely decline at an even faster rate than we've seen so far. And, with Internet revenue only a fraction of what print is, this will hurt Gannett in the end.
It takes time to drive a product into the ground, though, so advertisers will continue to purchase ads until papers lose so much circulation that they are more or less worthless.
This prospect would concern some people, but Wall Street is driven by short-term success. Why would a CEO worry about the long-term viability of a company when he stands to make $30 million for losing his job. In many ways, the payout is almost as good if you fail ... particularly if you're approaching retirement.
Bottom line: There is no room to cut if we want to put out respectable newspapers. Since this hasn't been the goal for a long time, Gannett can cut just about anyone it wants and there won't be any "financial" pain for quite some time.
I agree with the 8:12. The local paper in my city has been really short-staffed for a while, and yet they are cutting more. Reporters push aside many in-depth stories that they learn about because they know they don't have time to spend on them. If a photographer is available to shoot art, it's a miracle, and getting photos, as well as video and online elements, is just another time-consuming thing that becomes the reporter's responsibility to organize taking up even more of their time. Photographers also never get a breather. This coupled with abysmally low morale makes the environment almost intolerable and most definitely hostile.
ReplyDeleteIn response to anon 8:12:
ReplyDeleteThis is why terrible newspapers need to be attacked until they die. A fast death will be far better than a slow one.
Why don't they just invision the future, make a staffing plan, eliminate the jobs that aren't in the plan and be done with it. Seems Gannett is making this whole ordeal way too difficult, but I guess all this planning to plan to meet to plan equals jobs security for some of the higher ups.
ReplyDeleteTo 10:47:
ReplyDeleteI wrote the 8:12 post, and I agree with you. It would be much better if the paper in the community that I work in died, leaving the door open for somebody else to launch a good alternative.
Unfortunately, Gannett has a history of throwing cash around when -- and only when -- its market share is threatened. That makes it tough for competitors. Then, once the competition is dead, Gannett scales back again.
I don't know if that would apply in this economy, but it certainly has in the past.
At many of the smaller papers there's a lot of talk about being an invaluable resource to the community, but the papers ultimately offer very little. These days, with the outsourcing and such, they aren't even a part of the community the way they used to be, despite what they trumpet in print. What's more, there are a lot of readers begining to see through the smoke and mirrors.
It's really no wonder that we're in free fall while a number of well run weeklies and family run dailies are continuing to succeed.
Hey 7:29
ReplyDeleteI think that the time and date stamps on each and every one of these blogs supports the fact that many are written during work hours. I for one don't have the time to even run to the bathroom until it's almost too late. Can't imagine how all these blogs in the middle of the day are fit in to a heavy work schedule. And yes, I know some folks are on different shifts and in different time zones. However there are way too many comments in middle of the day. I have even witnessed my manager on gannettblog: reading, but not sure if she's posting.
7:42 AM
ReplyDeleteJust because someone posts during work hours doesn't mean he or she is working at that time. Again, assumptions can be so dangerous. Frankly, if I were in your shoes, I'm make potty breaks priority over witnessing my manager's online behavior---but that's just me.
what constitutes a work "day?" I report to work at 4 pm, leave at 1 am, so I post on Jim's blog during the "day"....from home.
ReplyDelete