Indeed, how would cooperating with me help Connell do her job as chief company spokeswoman and nominal head of employee communications -- given this site's often-confrontational tone?Nearly three months after I extended an olive branch to Corporate, here's how I respond: More employees read this blog more often than any other Gannett communication vehicle, based on research I've done. My more than 10,000 monthly readers include well over 6,000 of GCI's 46,000 employees, according to Google Analytics; an ongoing "Where do you work?" survey (blue sidebar, right), and other data.
Corporate wants to stay in touch with its employees. It doesn't publish a company blog of its own, as The New York Times reported yesterday, in a damning story about the price Gannett paid for ignoring the blogosphere. How about feeding me the occasional memo about an upcoming workforce reduction? I'm going to get 'em anyway, so why not try currying a little favor? That's plain old press relations.
Plus, trying to keep a lid on stuff like that only breeds distrust among employees -- particularly at a company whose raison d'être is the First Amendment. Besides, Connell is a former USA Today managing editor; surely, she remembers the push-pull nature of relations between companies and journalists?
OK, what's in it for Hopkins?
To be honest, I'm not sure there is any advantage for me -- given the fact so many employees have learned to hit the forward button the moment a company memo arrives in their in-box. Still, I've always thought journalists and the subjects of their stories gain more when communication channels are wide open. Maybe that's true for Gannett, and Gannett Blog.
Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write gannettblog[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the green sidebar, upper right.
You realize, Jim, you just may be forcing a much needed change to Gannett's corporate culture. You are the true innovator---the very type person Gannett needs, but apparently can't handle right now.
ReplyDeleteYou have the undying gratitude of former Gannettoids everywhere, but I realize that's not gonna keep you warm.
ReplyDeleteEver since the Gannetteer went tiny and the muckety muck pictures got even smaller on the inside back cover, I've needed to get my official corporate gossip fix elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteOfficial or not, here I am.
If GCI was a more open company, this blog would be seriously diminished and less untrue gossip would be distributed to the world and to the press.
ReplyDeleteThat is what is in it for GCI.
Sounds pretty compelling to me.
Jim is getting a hell of a lot of mileage out of that NYT piece. Here is another link for your clip file, with a favorable mention of Jim's David v. Goliath battle with Corporate to tell the truth about GCI:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newspaperdeathwatch.com/
Big closed-door summit of newspaper execs at the American Press Institute next week. Of course, the press is not allowed.
ReplyDeleteJim,
ReplyDeleteI have to disagree with your statement:
"More employees read this blog more often than any other Gannett communication vehicle, based on research I've done"
I can't imagine that less than 6000 people read their company email, which is the largest Gannett communication vehicle, with around 32,000 mailboxes.
Perhaps this is a more accurate statement:
"More employees read this blog more often than any other unofficial Gannett communication vehicle, based on research I've done"
I also smiled when I read:
"...so many employees have learned to hit the forward button the moment a company memo arrives in their in-box."
When you ask that folks not send you email from the company email system (because all email is logged)
I support you and the blog, but I still believe that sending non-public company information is a violation of the ethics policy. It's not a first amendment right, which some folks here have tried to argue - just look at the reporter from Cincy who cost Gannett $10M when he stole voicemails from Dole. Sending company emails to a third party is identical to that.
That being said, people are judging the risks for themselves, and hopefully are protecting themselves.
Disclaimer: I'm a former Gannettoid who was never in management.
BTW: The employee readership numbers I cited are my most conservative.
ReplyDeleteIt was Chiquita...the forwarded emails. :)
ReplyDeleteNot all GCI employees have company email.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, in productions I'd venture a guess that probably less than 20% do.
6:47 p.m.: Thanks for stopping by, but I must disagree.
ReplyDeleteLast month alone, I posted 199 times to my blog -- an average of more than six items daily. How many all-employee messages did Corporate send to those 32,000 e-mail accounts during that month?
I was on company e-mail during the entire time I worked for USA Today. Over those nearly eight years, I can recall only three all-employee e-mails from Gannett. I certainly never received one from Tara Connell. Bottom line: an in-box is just an in-box if it doesn't have anything in it.
As to your point about the First Amendment/ethics issues in employees sharing memos, etc., outside the company: First, employees don't forward messages to me from their company accounts; they use other means. Second, employee-supplied corporate documents have been the bread and butter of investigative journalists everywhere for as long as I've been in the business.
If you've signed the ethics agreement, you're bound to abide by it... except if you can justify to yourself that you are doing it for the greater good?
ReplyDeleteI'm very careful not to comment here on anything that is not the public domain. Not because I'm anyone important, not because I worry I'll be tracked. But because it just isn't right.