Friday, January 30, 2009

Calling all employees who heard Dubow talk today

Has the CEO rejected my ethics policy complaint to the board of directors, about $40,000 in Gannett Foundation charitable money he steered to a North Carolina university with a scholarship fund named for him and his wife?

I ask after reading the following comments, which appear to concern remarks Craig Dubow (left) made during a 1 p.m. ET webconference with employees, ostensibly to discuss today's dismal fourth-quarter earnings report.

Anonymous@1:18 p.m. wrote: "Damn! Someone talked about Dubow and the Gannett (Foundation). . . . The Dickey golfing trip."

Then, Anonymous@1:21 p.m. said: "'No merit to the complaint whatsoever.'
HA! What a fucking punk! This $7 million-plus asshole couldn't even say, 'I'm sorry for any misunderstanding and will reimburse the foundation in full for the donation.' What a morally bankrupt son of a bitch, and what a pathetic set of management."

I am not authorized to access the webconference. ASAP, would someone please provide a transcript of the relevant section?

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.

17 comments:

  1. The ethics complaint was addressed. The board selected a third party law firm to fully investigate the complaint. The complaint was found to be without merit (as determined by the law firm) and the board accepted their finding.

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  2. And you are suprised ???

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  3. Oh yeah, right. A law firm hired by Gannett is a third party. Give me a break.

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  4. Here's what I find surprising:

    My allegations came in the form of a detailed complaint that I brought as a stockholder, alleging ethics violations by the chairman and CEO of the nation's No. 1 newspaper publisher.

    I e-mailed my complaint on Dec. 22 to Barbara Wall, vice president and associate general counsel; she also is the company's chief ethics officer. In a e-mail the next day, Wall acknowledged having received it:

    "Yes, I did receive the email you sent outlining your concerns and I forwarded it to Karen Hastie Williams yesterday. As I told you in my last email, the issues you raised are being carefully reviewed."

    To the best of my knowledge, however, I was never notified of the case's final disposition.

    I'll confirm all of this with Wall. Assuming this is the board's final decision, I'll move to the next step.

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  5. Can we say "FED's" or SEC

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  6. As a Gannett employee I can't believe they spent even one second on anything that has been talked about on this blog. The ethics complaint, bob playing golf, etc. Who cares? None of this is on point. It is distraction from the mission of transformation or just surviving. The very mention of these topics shows me that we are not focused on the problems in the company. To waste the CEOs time (and that he wanted to talk about it) on this little stuff when we are talking to the entire company on how we will stay in business longer than 2009 is SAD!!!

    After releasing such depressing numbers let's get on point. The opening of the call was good. But once we went down the road of these other topics I was greatly dissappointed.

    So Jim disrupted the critical communication to the employees again.

    We cannot let this happen again. It does not move us forward. So all you gannett employees out there that sent in those questions, get some perspective.

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  7. I agree with 7:12pm.

    If these topics from this blog are so important to cover then send out a seperate communication. Get your own blogger.

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  8. 7:02 This blog has raised serious ethical issues involving Gannett's top executives. Lower level people have gotten fired for violating the company's ethics policy. So I think Dubow should have been called to account for his alleged misdeeds, and asked for an explanation.
    What did you want, more suck-ass Superbowl questions?

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  9. Excuse me, 7:12, but what important work do you think Jim is disrupting -- more golfing trips? This blog happens to be doing something that used to be called "journalism." Given that you're a Gannett employee, I'm certain that is a scary and foreign concept to you.

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  10. Companies that allow unethical behavior have not and will not survive, IMHO. Period.

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  11. If people spent an iota of time working for the betterment of the company instead of constantly and consistently trying to bring it down, then maybe, just maybe, we could work our way out of this recession driven doldrums.

    Spending time on red herring, sensational but frivolous, comments about airplanes and donations and other dumb stuff is so very counterproductive, and, quite frankly, boring.

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  12. 7:12 yes, but talking about the super bowl was worth it????

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  13. Did anyone who is not a Gannett Blog reader listen to the audiocast? They were probably puzzled by it. Between the explanation of the financial thingy at the beginning, and the Super Bowl at the end, all of the questions were about things that have been discussed on the blog.

    Tara did mention at the beginning that this was the most people who have ever logged on for an audiocast, and the most questions they have ever received.

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  14. If anyone who visits this blog thinks that the CEO talking about items form this blog and anything from the super bowl is going to help this company improve then please leave the company right now!

    The questions answered were from employees which shows how off target they are right now. Someone needs to steer the conversation toward improvements in the info center, advertising and digital.

    Why is it so hard for all of you to see that these silly questions have no bearing on how the company must remake itself.

    Anyone who thinks Jim actually cares about the long term improvement or survival of Gannett needs to immediately seek a doctor's help. Jim only cares about Jim! He would love nothing more than to see the company declare bankruptcy.

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  15. 7:12 this line made me laugh: So Jim disrupted the critical communication to the employees again.

    WTF?! It's from Jim and those who write here that we get the critical communication; certainly not from Gannett!

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  16. 7:12's comment,"So Jim disrupted the critical communication to the employees again."

    Wow. This person sure is giving you a ton of power! You should remember that line in your marketing materials.

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  17. Hey 9:44: I couldn't agree with you more.

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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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