The ContentOne concept, which management concedes has not been fully thought out, will also eliminate Gannett News Service, which has to date collected and edited stories from papers and put them on its wire for all to use. There may be a few reporters and editors left at GNS, but they would be part of ContentOne. GNS's 60 employees will be able to ask for a buyout, but the terms and conditions of those buyouts won't be revealed until early January. Gannett wants GNS to cover the Obama inauguration, so it is deferring the buyouts and layoffs until after the inauguration.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
What happens to GNS after ContentOne's launch?
Regarding the new editorial service that CEO Craig Dubow unveiled before Wednesday's UBS conference, a reader tells me the following in an e-mail; can anyone else confirm -- and add details?
The ContentOne concept, which management concedes has not been fully thought out, will also eliminate Gannett News Service, which has to date collected and edited stories from papers and put them on its wire for all to use. There may be a few reporters and editors left at GNS, but they would be part of ContentOne. GNS's 60 employees will be able to ask for a buyout, but the terms and conditions of those buyouts won't be revealed until early January. Gannett wants GNS to cover the Obama inauguration, so it is deferring the buyouts and layoffs until after the inauguration.
The ContentOne concept, which management concedes has not been fully thought out, will also eliminate Gannett News Service, which has to date collected and edited stories from papers and put them on its wire for all to use. There may be a few reporters and editors left at GNS, but they would be part of ContentOne. GNS's 60 employees will be able to ask for a buyout, but the terms and conditions of those buyouts won't be revealed until early January. Gannett wants GNS to cover the Obama inauguration, so it is deferring the buyouts and layoffs until after the inauguration.
9 comments:
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The big value of GNS to regional papers is in covering the congressional delegations from D.C.
ReplyDeleteI fail to see how sharing stories between papers is going to give Wilmington, Del., more coverage of Mike Castle, Tom Carper and Ted Kaufman. GNS was vital this election season.
GNS vital? Nothing could be further from the truth.
ReplyDeleteIs GNS vital at beating AP for stories on deadline? No way.
Is GNS vital at supplying a depth of coverage that surpasses AP. No way.
Was GNS vital during convention time, when they sent the same stories AP did (only longer and later)? No way.
As all the community newspapers struggle to cover our areas in the wake of the job cuts, the last thing we need is for repetitive coverage from a group that feels it is immune from the realities of today's newspapers. If GNS had shown any understanding of newshole constraints, they would have stopped sending 50-inch stories years ago.
I don't know enough about ContentOne to know if it's the answer. But GNS sure isn't the right answer.
GNS has plenty of failings. We've found it more useful for feature sections than for the news columns, tho' if a paper only has AP, then GNS provides some added value. As anon 6:51 pointed out, GNS can be valuable for covering the doings of your local congresscritters.
ReplyDeleteContentOne, which will allow me to access a lot of stories my readers won't care anything about, is another sign of a foolish, desperate leadership that wants to cut every corner it can to save a buck.
If I wanted to destroy this company, I couldn't do a better job at it than these yokels.
8:24: My point was that GNS regional reporters in D.C. are, for many smaller papers, the only way that readers are going to get real coverage of their representatives and senators. Beyond press release rewrites and check presentations, that is.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you - they shouldn't be competing with the AP, or covering general/national stuff that Gannett papers can get faster from the wires. They should be focusing on regional/local coverage from the D.C. perspective.
Just to throw this out there - I've heard rumor of a company-wide front-end system where all stories and pages would be stored on a centralized server farm, similar to how content is handled for our websites now. This dovetails nicely with ContentOne as it would easily and seamlessly give corporate access to every property's news content.
ReplyDeletePlus, think of the regionalization possibilities!
As for GNS, it's an, underfunded, disorganized, technologically backward organization. As is most of Gannett.
I work at GNS, and while I support your right to debate about how worthless I truly am, I'd just ask that you not kick us while we're down.
ReplyDelete8:24: We don't feel immune to anything. How ANYONE could think they're bulletproof in this type of environment is beyond me.
Does anyone else find it strange that Gannett won't use the word "news" for any new initiative, including this one ?
ReplyDeleteWhat's wrong with news ? You've got to have news to succeed in this business, and that is a concept that seems to be lost on current management !
This kind of mirrors what's going on with the 'Green' web initiative. Share generic articles (on composting, say, or fall leaf color) and give them to each site to localize with a quick phone call. You get 'localized' content for little trouble, and you can market it to the national advertisers that have largely vanished from our pages.
ReplyDelete@2:54 PM:
ReplyDeleteThere will be a consolidated editorial system, though it may be regional, as opposed to a single company-wide one.
I'm sure you can guess the likely candidates for the software.
But - no matter what is picked, a bunch of you will be happy, and a bunch of you will be pissed off.