Sunday, November 09, 2008
Sunday | Nov. 9 | Got news, or a question?
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58 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 visited the Apple store in downtown San Francisco on Saturday to get one-on-one training on how to use the company's iMovie software.
ReplyDeleteThis might be a handy link for some of you out there:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.john-zhu.com/blog/how-to-voluntarily-become-an-ex-journalist/
You know Jim, if you keep track of where the comments flow from - Westchester, New Jersey and the Crystal Palace should get together and create a NPR-esque Leadership Ring to sponsor you.
ReplyDeleteListening to those guys, you'd hardly know that U.S. Community Publishing (STUPID NAME, btw) has operations in Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin, Michigan, even Louisiana.
With the plummeting share price, does anyone know what the market value of the Newsquest arm of Gannett would be these days, if Gannett were indeed to sell?
ReplyDeleteIsn't anyone up yet! - still can't sleep - tossed and turned all night!
ReplyDeleteIs HNT the only one of the NJ Group that's tanking or are there others? Do like the title of Mothership for APP/Neptune! It really fits - but are they one of the 2 that are sinking? or are they holding there own - that's the impression mgmt. is giving all. Again, who are the 2 of the group that are doing realllly bad? Anyone?
Forty-five people in Poughkeepsie are being laid off for the benefit more profits and the very temporary salvation of a pres. and its board. Profits mongers at corporate and Wall Street have wrecked this paper. Once it was one of the best community papers in the country. Where is the reporting that people care about anymore? NOT in the paper anymore. The events covered at the paper now pander to the advertisers. You can't sell papers that just kiss up to advertisers. News and real journalism sell papers.
ReplyDeleteHow much profit is enough for the Corporate inept? Hey corporate , come on up to Poughkeepsie and take a look at the pressmen and women and tell them why their jobs are being cut. You're acting cowards hiding under your desks. It doesn't take courage to fire people. Courage and brains build companies.
Sell the Poughkeepsie Journal and save the first amendment and the community.
Just read some pretty awful reader-generated Obama comments on one forum. Got me wondering if Gannett made plans to beef up its forum monitoring to make sure readers follow TOS?
ReplyDelete8:21
ReplyDeleteSoon the newspaper will be a coupon mailer. The only news inside will be the release of the next coupon mailer.
So has anybody out there either voluntered or know of anyone that has taken the layoff,and if so what paper?
ReplyDeleteI am not sure what the NJ comments are referring to, but Jim posted the ABC numbers a week or two ago, and Morristown and Bridgewater were among the worst (or were THE worst) in the entire chain. I am a former East Brunswick employee and I was there when HNT was sold to Gannett and didn't understand then or now why they didn't consolidate HNT with Bridgewater into one paper. It might have helped both papers to survive (longer, anyway).
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone have any info on lay offs in the southern section of the country? Who or how many? Which papers? When? Been a long week-end.....
ReplyDeleteHey 8:03, once upon a time APP/Neptune used to be known as the Death Star (key the Darth Vader music...)
ReplyDeleteHey 10:58 - why the Death Star - not getting it? Not getting the correlation on that one. Are they the evil ones? And if HNT and CN are the losers why aren't they depicted as broken down drones?
ReplyDelete11:19, it was the Death Star because that's where Collins' office was. 'Nuff said.
ReplyDeleteHas any study or research been done on "layoff echoes", those who quit their jobs after being scared into looking for other work by the announcement of layoffs? Since the announcement of the forthcoming December layoffs, I've been looking, which I will continue to do even if I survive this round. If something good comes up, I'm out of here.
ReplyDeleteWith regards to 2 NJ papers, I would guess Courier and Daily Record - their circ is sinking and both buildings are for sale or sold. Just a guess though. I know good people at both sites and I feel for them.
ReplyDeleteSo, Scripps is having a big layoff too.
ReplyDeleteGee, just the other day people said that the company and its papers were doing great and we'd be lucky to have Gannett papers bought by them. Wanna retract that statement?
Like I said in the first place: Name me a newspaper/media company that's not going to s**t right now. Just look at the journalismjobs.com
web site - it's sad to see how few jobs are listed daily.
Gannett may be leading the way on the road to hell, but everyone else is close behind.
Vive la revolution! How do you get a newspaper out of Gannett's grasp though?
ReplyDeleteCollins was an intellectually insecure megelomanic. He was NO DARTH VADER.
ReplyDeletePeople allow other people to have dominion over them. Regardless of how desparate you are for you paycheck, don't allow inferiors to have control over your soul.
If you pushed-back (the right way) Collins would fold like a little pussy; just like Katen (get away from the slushi machine)Ganhdi.
12:34 PM: You might be correct. The Courier News is definitely one of the sinking newspapers. Look at the newspaper itself and take a serious look at the staff: a prodcution manager and her sidekick who are both in way over their heads, a classified manager who is never around and acts clueless, an advertising manager with the people skills of a Mafia boss, newsroom editors who cannot communicate half as well as their cub reporters, and a circulation department in which no one has any idea why they are still there. Then there is a HR department consisting of one person who originally set out to make the HR department not seem like the enemy of the workers. She also failed.
ReplyDeleteWalking into this newspaper each day, the remaining employees should be given Lexipro or Zoloft!
Sorry, but the NJ Group has nothing left to offer readers: and Bridgewater, East Brunswick and Morristown are always on the store shelves after every other newspaper has been sold out! Does that tell us anything?
8:44 AM
ReplyDeleteWhat is "TOS"?
Terms of Service.
ReplyDeleteactually Neptune got its name Death Star before Gannett bought us - the building was black glass and shiny and menacing and that's where all great ideas got killed off...
ReplyDeleteWith apologies to Jonathan Swift, here's an idea: let's all get married! Seriously, if every hourly GCI worker got married to another worker of the opposite gender in the next two weeks (or the same gender in certain states), it would throw complete havoc into the layoff process, perhaps stalling it entirely, and allow far more employees to keep their health insurance. Sure, there would be lots of divorces on paper, but the schadenfreude would be worth it by a mile.
ReplyDelete10:01, prior to the Home News merger with the News Tribune in 1994, Gannett wanted to merge the Courier News with the News Tribune. There were discussions in Bridgewater on how to combine the papers' staff and a contingency on merging without the other paper's staff. The Trib was doing very well in eastern Union/Middlesex, while the Courier was OK in western Union/Middlesex. The deal fell apart because Gannett didn't want to pay much for the Trib and the Trib owner did not want to buy the Courier, which would have been embarrassing for Gannett. It was one of Gannett's first papers.
ReplyDeleteI agree, it didn't make sense not to combine when Gannett eventually bought the Home News Tribune and the Asbury Park Press.
So, has any other "leader" in a newspaper site stepped forward and followed Craig's "lead" to take a pay cut? Just curious. I think I already know the answer.
ReplyDelete2:50 - if I can get the idea past my wife, I'm going to nail, um, I mean, MARRY one of those cute blond inside salespeople..... you know, take a bullet for the team.
ReplyDeleteI'll be needing a transfer to St. George too, get me a bunch of wives, go Mormon old-style.
I hope all this talk of the Death Star from the NJ papers doesn't cause Westchester to do another Alien Sightings story.
ReplyDeleteReplying to: Anonymous said... Just read some pretty awful reader-generated Obama comments on one forum. Got me wondering if Gannett made plans to beef up its forum monitoring to make sure readers follow TOS? 11/09/2008 8:44 AM
ReplyDeleteManagement's mixed message is frustrating. We're told the online newspaper and the community conversations are our primary focus now, except that every day we have fewer editors, those of us assigned to moderate forums are told our priority is to push out more print pages even if it means not moderating forums. Then we're criticized for what gets through in story comments. Damned if we do and damned if we don't.
Why are investors getting any dividend if the papers are losing money? I don't get that. It's not a profitable business right now, so why are they profiting? If they don't like the reality of their investment not returning profits, they should sell those papers at a competitive market price, to individual owners if public corporations are no longer attracted in this business. There are plenty of middle-wealthy who would buy individual papers for some millions. None today are worth what they were 5 years ago; in investment, you win some, you lose some. They should have read the writing on the wall better or hired better CEOs that could. Next thing you know, they'll be lining us up to have plasma drawn to sell for $20 bucks a bag so the corporation can give more dividends to investors.
Didn't HNT & CN just merge? Heard it was basically a done deal. Won't that help CN out of the losing category and just leave DR hanging out by themselves? What will they call the paper now and where will their homebase be? Another rumor says Somerville - any word on this and any of the above?
ReplyDeleteGannett's failure to plan for an increase in hateful postings on those forums, given the recent historic election outcome, will lead to some huge problems for the company, I think. It's just plain irresponsible of the company to expect that the posters will police themselves right now. This, I believe, is an area where corporate needs to step up, set some absolute standards, monitor the sites and make swift leadership changes (publishers and EEs) if hateful posts linger on those forums.
ReplyDeleteAs for reporters being held resposible for removing posts, I hope they gave you that in writing. I hope you get paid for the 24-hour a day time involved to do the job right, too.
Hey after all the negative crap that's been said leading up to the election about each and every candidate, why should it stop now? Everyone has a right to their opinion. And you know what they say about everyone else's opinion...
ReplyDeleteThere's a huge difference in my mind between "negative" and "hateful."
ReplyDeleteWhile I would agree that everyone has a right to an opinion, I would also agree with the many Terms of Service agreements that prohibit making hateful posts to forums.
One also has a right to hate whomever he or she wants. If you don't want to see, hear or read about hateful thoughts or ideas, then change the channel, switch off the radio and don't read the blog.
ReplyDeleteAnd it's a shame that there IS so much hate in the world, but there's also a lot of love. Focus on that.
No one is policing the blogs and postings at the Ohio papers, I know that for a fact. They don't have the people. Period. And they stay silent. In Ohio, the dailies aquired there in 2000 have always felt seperate and unequal - probably because most of those papers were crap to start. Problem was, those newsrooms started out with great hope that Gannett would come in, raise the miserable Thomson salaies and improve the papers. Sadly, that didn't happen. The good people quit, and the idiots were promoted. These papers have gone from bad to worse under Gannett. So it is no wonder they are pretty silent. They have been beaten into silence after 7 years of abuse from Gannett people like that idiot Phil Curry. What say you, Gannett staffers in Ohio (Cincy don't count)?
ReplyDelete4:13 PM- CN is said to have signed an "intent to lease" on E Main St in Somerville. That's what the mafia princess said in late September. Things may have changed since then, with the downward spiral of ad revenue and circulation.
ReplyDeleteThere's obviously vacant space in Somerville-- check out loopnet.
The building in Bridgewater HAS been sold and will change hands in a couple of months. The space in Somerville is having office space "built" as we speak. The movers have been hired. Furniture, equipment, etc. have been inventoried. Some of the staff will move in with HNT, the rest will go to the "Somerville Bureau" sometime in December. And, of course, some will be laid-off. Happy Holidaze to all!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteJim
ReplyDeleteWhat's with leaving the racist comment on Ketan up here? I am no fan of his whatsoever, but since when do you let racist stuff like that stand? Since I am a paid subscriber, I would like to think this blog is better than that.
7:04 pm: Please point me to the comment you have in mind; are you talking about the one at 2:02 pm? If so, I do not understand your concern.
ReplyDeleteI just deleted two comments that appeared to be personal attacks on individuals identified by name. Please don't do that; you create unnecessary work for me.
ReplyDeleteYes, that is the comment. Perhaps I am being too sensitive, but it seemed to be implying that the dearly departed Asian Indian publisher would now be working at a 7-11.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was a VERY funny comment. If we can't point out the positive AND negative comments about one another in this grand old US of A, God help us! It's been going on for years and will continue forever on. It's a free country and we all have the right to say and feel whatever we like. Again, don't read the blog if you don't like it!
ReplyDeleteI don't see what's so funny about a racist and painfully obvious stereotype, but then again Ketan is the one laughing last as he's gainfully employed across the river while we wait to see if we are getting severance in our Christmas stockings. Anyway, I have great respect for Jim and defer to him on this one.
ReplyDeleteThis has nothing to do with having respect for Jim. I have a right to read and laugh about what a previous blogger wrote. That blogger has a right to post it. And anyway, I don't see anything painful about that stereotype. Owners of small businesses such as 7-11 work long, hard hours and put themselves at risk for whatever the dregs of this society want to dish out in regards to theft, violence, etc. And they, too, are laughing all the way to the bank!
ReplyDeleteI disagree. This has everything to do with Jim and respecting his right to keep it up or take it down. It's his blog. He's ultimately responsible for anything that lingers on here, much the same way Gannett is responsible for what remains on the company forums.
ReplyDelete"I have a right to read and laugh about what a previous blogger wrote. That blogger has a right to post it."
ReplyDeleteOh please! Did you discover these rights in the Constitution? The Voting Rights Act? A California Supreme Court ruling? The UN Declaration on Human Rights?
You have exercised your right to sound silly to an audience of people who know something about civil and criminal rights.
8:03am - Thanks for the compliment (Mothership - APP/Neptune) I coined that: refering to all production is usually in Neptune's hands. Missing work, Neptune calls you, etc. Ads are released to the system in Neptune, then pagelayout is in Neptune, eventually pages get released to Freehold for printing: APP, Courier News and Home News Tribune. Answering to Mother! Anyway, we outside of Neptune are the red-headed stepchildren! :)
ReplyDeleteI remove comments with great reluctance; when I do so, it always feels a bit like an abuse of my own privilege. Although I'm nominally the publisher/editor, I keep this blog in trust for Gannett's employees.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, this is a blog for adults; now and then, stuff will appear that folks won't like. That comes with the territory.
Hey 7:57 pm
ReplyDeleteI have the utmost respect for Jim and, you're right he can delete any post he chooses. However, I also respect that he's smart enough to decide which comment HE deems inappropriate. Who died and left you boss of gannettblog?
And as for you, 8:08 pm
WHATEVER
Just for the record, I did not post any of the "racial" or "stereotypical" comments mentioned above. I just thought they were funny. Nuff sed.
O pleeze 8:18 pm: The term "mothership" and "red-headed step children" as well as many other names, have been used to refer to APP in Neptune and its subsidiaries for many years. How arrogant of you to assume YOU are the one who "coined" the phrase. Crawl back under your rock.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like people are getting increasingly tense and angry as this about-to-be-laidoff-or-maybe-not period of uncertainty continues. The blog reflects the feelings boiling up across the country at Gannett properties.
ReplyDelete10:24 (saturday) asked about the 401k and pension boosts for longtime/older staffers.
ReplyDeleteif you aren't "employed" on 12/31, yes, i'm pretty sure you are out of luck on the 401K bumps and cola.
however, i don't know whether "employed" consists of just being on the payroll or whether you have to be actually working (or on vacation but not laid off).
anyone in hr who can answer this better, pls speak up -- people who might volunteer need to know this.
It's tough all over. A couple of weeks ago I pitched a story to O At Home, an O magazine spinoff, and was thrilled when they bit. It was a big hit.
ReplyDeleteThen on Friday, I was looking at some media news and saw that Hearst had folded O At Home.
Even Oprah is not immune to the media downturn.
Comments readers leave on stories are not always just "opinions" that readers can choose not to read or should have to grin and bear.
ReplyDeleteReaders there have come to read a professional newspaper story, and if we want to have any dignity and integrity we have to make sure the comments hold to some standard of decency. We don't ask for much. The biggies are profanities and vulgarities, hate speech, personal attacks on other posters, ad spam and plagiarism. Comments that post such should be deleted in a timely manner, and chronic problem posters should be blocked.
It's an embarrassment to the bylined reporter and to everyone working for the newspaper when trash is left up.
OK folks, last week I read a comment on this blog about President Elect Obama stating the reason why he turned out OK (I'm paraphrasing) is because he was raised by WHITE grandparents. This comment is blatantly racist. Can't help but hope the author soon joins the ranks of the laid-off. Certainly you have every right to your bigotry but In these uncertain and troubling times for our industry, Gannett needs the best and brightest, and you are obviously neither.
ReplyDeleteTo 8:49 PM:
ReplyDeleteSorry, I "coined" it here on the blog, I don't take credit for it in general in the NJ paper group. P.S. I don't live under a rock, I live in a box on the side of the road: it's all I can afford with what Gannett pays me! ;)