Following is the text of a letter I've just sent to the Law Department, regarding recent events associated with the Gannett Foundation.
Jan. 30, 2009
Barbara Wall
Vice president, associate general counsel
Gannett Co. Inc.
7950 Jones Branch Drive
McLean, Va.
Via e-mail
Barbara:
I am writing to you as a stockholder of the Gannett Co. Inc.
Would you please provide an update on the issues I raised in my Dec. 22 letter regarding Mr. Dubow?
Jim Hopkins
San Francisco, Calif.
Friday, January 30, 2009
8 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."
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
We love everyting your doing. Gannett has certainly barked up the wrong tree.
ReplyDeleteJim, you are the best!!
ReplyDeleteCopy editors:
ReplyDeleteShould that opening have been phrased, "I am writing as a stockholder of the Gannett Co. Inc." (omitting the "to you").
As it reads now, it might sound like I'm writing to stockholder Barbara Wall.
Then again, maybe I just need to quit blogging for the day, since it's 9:23 p.m. in San Francisco, California, USA, and I still haven't had dinner -- plus, look, now I'm sharing my interior thoughts with the whole dang world like some kind of craz
Talking to yourself is ok, Jim. Sometimes that's the only way you can find an intelligent audience who will actually listen.
ReplyDeleteHey! Come back here! I'm not done talking to
Jim, I think the "to you" is OK; I knew what you meant when I read the line.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all you do. I love this site!
As a former business reporter, I;m sure you did at least cursory review of other companies in the S&P index to see if Gannett's policy on executive-directed charitable contributions was similar or different than the the policies of other similar sized companies. What did you find out? (Prior to Gannett, I worked for two publicly traded companies, including another media company, and they had executive-directed charitable contribution policies almost identical to Gannett's--since it was several years in the past, perhaps, the policies of those and other companies in the S&P have been modified. I am curious what you discovered in your early research on this subject prior to your ethical complaint against Gannett).
ReplyDelete11:15 AM
ReplyDeleteThe complaint as I read it is not about whether Gannett's ethics policy is right or wrong, but about whether someone's actions violated the provisions in the company's ethics policy. I don't understand how background on or comparisons to other policies would make any difference.
Comment referred to Gannett's executive
ReplyDeleteCharitable contribution policy, not
Gannett's Ethics policy.