Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Tuesday | Jan. 20 | Your News & Comments
Can't find the right spot for your comment? Post it here, in this open forum. Real Time Comments: parked here, 24/7. (Earlier editions.)
90 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)
I'm close to being done with my project.
ReplyDeleteFun! First comment! I hate gannett! But I love Obama!
ReplyDeleteLay offs today?
bring it on
ReplyDeleteJim - in mind of the Superbowl, is there any way in the documents you see to tell which papers pony up the bucks for luxury box seats at their local sports venue?
ReplyDeleteI would imagine it's a tax deductible expense, call it marketing or whatever, but if a luxury box rental goes for $100,000 or more annually, why don't we just buy really good tickets and save a couple jobs? (oops, I mean protect the dividend)
Everybody else, does your paper have luxury seats? What cities?
Can hardly wait!
ReplyDeleteFROM THIS WEEK'S NEWS WATCH:
ReplyDeleteA special NEWS WATCH note: A salute to Phil Currie
To recognize Senior Vice President/News Phil Currie’s contributions to the industry and to Gannett, several “friends of Phil Currie” have launched a scholarship fund at the University of Iowa School of Journalism in his name.
The group thought this lasting legacy was an appropriate way to “pay forward” the lessons they have learned from Phil. We have had several queries about this from editors and thought others might be interested in joining this effort. A donation form is available ...
(I can see Des Moines Register employees lining up to make their contributions, once they're back from their furloughs.)
So it's January 20th.
ReplyDeleteLet the layoffs begin (or in reality continue).
Hey Jim,
ReplyDeleteHere's an idea for you when you finish your project. How about another kinda-sorta project in which you challenge readers to come up with a way newspapers can save themselves in an era when everyone expects news for free on the Internet? Might get some good discussion, because, as we all know, the current way it works is not sustainable. Just a thought.
Good Jim- Add this. Layoffs in the mid-west! Furloughs and layoffs. Lieing bastards
ReplyDeleteI'm at a Gannett TV station - something was told to managers yesterday that had them buzzing. It didn't seem like bad news, either. Now I'm curious.
ReplyDeleteFunny, I'm close to being done with my breakfast. Coincidence? I think not!
ReplyDeleteI'm sure I speak for most blog readers when I say we are looking forward to learning what this is all about.
ReplyDeleteWow - 10:40 and no news yet on lay offs - don't they usually do it pretty early in the morning? Or maybe, everyone who would be posting is either in their managers office being let go and/or nobody wants to go on-line in case they're next.
ReplyDeleteAny news out there?
Once the new admin takes over. Wont the world be a better place?
ReplyDeleteNOT!!!
All I can say to 10:51 is Ha Ha Ha the people of all colors have spoken!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI worked for Gannett for 17 years or should I say the Asbury Park Press.I was fired for trying to make the powers that be Bob Collins stop poising its workers.Well it says in the employee handbook,if you find somthing that is illegal or emoral if you don't tell your as guilty as they are,and if you do you will find just what they meen by the power of the press.So if you get sick and don't know why thank Bob C. and Mike L. Hay Bob heard you built a new house,I hope the shitter backs-up on you too,and remember Clobber drain cleaner should only be used by profeshinals SO READ THE LABLE.
ReplyDeleteNot judging by the stock market this a.m. It is in the tank. MSNBC, which usually runs the ticker in the right lower corner, is not running it today. I guess it would get in the way of this great day. Banks are sinking, stocks again headed toward 8,000 and below. Not an auspicious beginning...
ReplyDeleteTrying to watch the video through USA Today. Choppy, buffered, freezing, essentially unwatchable. And I am on a symmetrical 10/10 fiber optic line, so it is not on our end. If this is the furue for Gannet, there is much work to be done.
ReplyDelete11:17, was that your real spelling or were you just being funny? If it's real, no wonder journalism is down the crapper.
ReplyDeleteOk so Obama is in, does that mean I will get a flood of job offers tomorrow? He specifically mentioned me..a laid off worker!
ReplyDeleteShout from the mountain and across the seas........."NO MORE BUSH"!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteThis off the local Gannett newpaper's real-time blog:
ReplyDelete"Comment From Guest]
Hi all, we had to pull the USA Today stream, but you can hear it along with people's responses from our LIVE stream at Nectars going on right now.
12:24
[Comment From norsehorse]
good quality live stream at PIC 2009:http://www.pic2009.org/page/content/live
12:24
[Comment From norsehorse]
http://www.pic2009.org/page/content/live"
I thought Gannett had grand plans for the company's survival based on the ability to deliver real-time streaming content today? Instead, community bloggers were sending the gannett audience to other content providers?
Who's in charge?
Dubow... What the hell happened?
Let's talk about Tucson and the closing of the Tucson Citizen, since that's the "threat" being bandied about in this blog. THIS COULD HAPPEN TO YOU! a blogger and Gannett apologist says from an earlier post.
ReplyDeleteThe Citizen, an afternoon paper, should have folded a long time ago. The city of Tucson has boomed in population over the past fifty years but the Citizen has not been able to garner any increased circulation because of this, and in fact has lost circulation.
So, what was Gannett's point in keeping the Citizen alive well past it's prime?
It's this: Gannett had visions of purchasing the morning newspaper, The Arizona Daily Star from the Pulitzer family. The Pulitzer's had taken a back seat in the running of T.N.I. (Tucson Newspapers, Inc. the joint operating agreement vehicle) and allowed Gannett free rein of operations. Allowed? Most assuredly, in classic Gannett fashion, they strong-armed their way in. Over the years this rubbed many within the Arizona Daily Star and Pulitzer family the wrong way, what with Gannett's dictatorial ways. You see, the Arizona Daily Star was and has always been the larger of the two, by far.
Gannett's planned, or hoped for purchase of the Star was thwarted by Lee Enterprises and the fact that the Pulitzer's desired not to sell to Gannett for reason mentioned above. Lee Enterprises, God bless them, did to Gannett what Gannett has done to so many before.
Gannett's parting shot is a telling story about the company. The soon to be closed Tucson Citizen, because of the terms of the JOA, is now worth more dead than alive!
I do not understand how the Asbury Park Press can get away with that.Who did you try to tell? Did anybody get sick,
ReplyDeleteMmmmmm ... Nectars. Burlington's jam-band venue. Wonder if anyone's getting a contact high just from being in there - or perhaps lighting up a big fattie to celebrate.
ReplyDeleteImagine Dickey? Gannett is spending $25,000 on this shit. People are getting layed off, furloughs etc. and this dude is taking a golf trip. Break a leg buddy, litterly. You putz!
ReplyDeleteHeh asbury, keep notes I have a few stories myself about executive stealing.
ReplyDelete"Comment From Guest]
ReplyDeleteHi all, we had to pull the USA Today stream, but you can hear it along with people's responses from our LIVE stream at Nectars going on right now."
Heh - a link to the actual stream would have been nice.
Newspaper executive Dickey on a golf trip costing how much??? What the hell is this about? I'm barely able to get my job done due to layoff's and this guy is taking a trip on Gannett. WOW
ReplyDeleteYA well no one cares about Asbury,not even that Bob C. used the building staff to do work on his house during working hours.Neather did OSHA care other then to send a letter not an investagator,the letter asked in short did you do this,and the APP answer NAAAAAA OK then. And if the advertizers knew that the numbers were added too in the monthly games to make it look like more people were playing,they woulded't care eather.Oh ya,and if the APP was trying to sell there building do you think anybody would care what the perk test would showw about the chemicals dumped everyday into the suers would show,or the patential buyers NAAAAAAAAAAAAA
ReplyDeleteJim, I like what 1:03 said. Proof that by your stunning efforts, you have surrounded yourself with people who have the functional intelligence of pencil sharpeners. "Litterly." Congrats.
ReplyDeleteTo paraphrase President Obama:
ReplyDelete"Gannett cannot prosper long, when it only favors the prosperous."
Are you listening, Craig and Bob?
Has anyone heard any updates on the Ashville/Hammer/Ihne lawsuit?
ReplyDeleteBTW, they don't come any better than Wayne Peragallo at APP ... shame he has to be lumped in with the other (leaders?), both past and present ...
ReplyDeleteBob C. Used everbody he could!
ReplyDeleteHey DICKey, what the hell is wrong with you. Our company is "finacially strong" yet you are on some damn golf outing and people are out of work or soon will be? You owe us some money, you putz
ReplyDeleteAmidst all the talk of "working smarter, not just working harder," and all the talk of additional lay-offs and furloughs, the Des Moines Register somehow finds the time and the money to pay a night-police reporter to Twitter its readers with the following urgent messages. (These "tweets" are now being compiled and published in the print edition of the paper, but are also on line at the Register's Web site and at: http://twitter.com/DM_in_the_PM)
ReplyDeleteI wonder if it's a crime that I got the police station vending machine to accept my Canadian quarter as a nickle toward a candy bar.
---
Three underage girls are asking for cigarettes in the parking lot of a east side store. Hope they don't try to smoke them in a bar, too.
---
Is it me, or is it harder to get the wrappers off of straws these days?
---
Kids throwing snowballs at cars, hiding in a snow fort. Will this horror never end?
---
Wonder what kind of ham the vending machine sandwiches at police hq are made from. It's allegedly good until Feb. 14. Happy Valentine's Day!
---
Just so you know, the vending machine tuna salad at the D.M. police station is gross.
---
The night man is taking a dinner break to cleanse the palate of that wretched tuna sandwich. The scanner is quiet at present.
I worked with Dickey once upon a time. The best part about that is that he was never there!! Always on the golf course or elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteMr. Dickey is very rich and an elitist...he has no compassion or respect for the working class believe me.
Greg Moore says he hasn't been interviewed for the USAT job:
ReplyDeletehttp://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2009/01/denver_post_editor_greg_moore.php
Newspaper executive Dickey on a golf trip costing how much??? What the hell is this about? I'm barely able to get my job done due to layoff's and this guy is taking a trip on Gannett. WOW
ReplyDelete1/20/2009 1:52 PM
I concur: How dare this man and other goonies are on a golf course for damn sure paid by Gannett? Or does anybody in their right mind believe they paid for it from their own money? Please, take off the rose-colored Disney glasses! But telling my co-workers and me to take a week furlough, which surely puts several underpaid workers in the doghouse.
Gosh, this trash got to go!!! But as the saying goes: The rats always leave the sinking ship last. Dickey, you are feeling our pain??? You don't even know what our pain is and even care less. Gannett is directed by greedy individuals in suits!!!!!!
Have any of you who were let go in December received your pension information paperwork yet?
ReplyDeleteYa Wayne was or is OK, Its Bob C. Joe C Mike L.Kathey A.Skip H.and some others that make you wonder,I know that keeping your job is one thing but not caring about others that I just don't get. Jack Roth is OK,Hope he dosen't turn like the others
ReplyDeleteYo 3:23 or should I call you LH? You are the one with no class or a clue. You're writing style gives you away evrey time. You don't like him because he never gave into your personal agenda.
ReplyDeleteSo on a day we were to flex our digital muscles and show the world who's the media boss of the future...
ReplyDeleteOur digital player couldn't keep up with the traffic (people inside our building were switching to other sites to watch) and we are forecasting fewer page views than yesterday, which was a holiday for many.
Great.
I got sick working over the print shop at the APP, the fumes were so thick. There was a young man there,who was telling us what was going on,I would like to know if someyone remembers his name I would like to speek to him
ReplyDeleteShout from the Mountaintops, and from the Tallest Buildings..............................KRISTA MUELLER TO THE RESCUE !!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDelete3:39 Yes! Paper work came the following week regarding pension. Make a phone call!
ReplyDeleteAsbury Park Press has a history of poisoning workers, and then hiding it, according to the grapevine. I remember when facilities had pesticides sprayed overnight and didn't tell anyone, before or after. There's no open ventilation in that building; no window opens and the air just recirculates.
ReplyDeleteThe pesticide permanently destroyed one of the workers' lungs. She sued, but APP fought it. I don't know if she ever got anything, because she wasn't able to return to work anywhere.
7:39 a.m. is absolutely right. It's a shame more people aren't discussing this.
ReplyDeleteIf it is true that Gannett and some of the suits are using corporate money for perks like golf outings and other such wasteful things like this...shame on them, shame on the board of directors and shame on anyone who has a hand in this. How dare they do this at a time like this when these idiots have ruined so many lives while continuing to live high on the hog. Just shows, again, that Gannett and the butt hole managers at each property don't give a damn about the workers who do what they do to make the money that pays for all of this. And shame on the jerks in management who continue to protect their friends at the community papers by keeping losers around who aren't worth a damn. This is an evil company.
ReplyDeleteYo 3:44! sorry wrong initials
ReplyDeletePersonal agenda? What is up with this guy? You mean to tell me this is decent behavior? A company lays people off-says how bad they're doing and this jerkoff is out on a golf course spending $$$$ ?
ReplyDeleteWhat the hell, you've obviously had your nose up the right ass. This company isn't decent. The people running it are ruthless. See you in the unemployment line buddy!
Golf event???? Our site can't even afford decent toilet paper.
ReplyDeleteHey Jersey !What's up with that new Caddy with the balloons parked out infront of your building??
ReplyDeleteSounds like somebody has been seeing the wrong kind of Doctors? Paging Doctor Strait Jacket....
ReplyDelete2:57,
ReplyDeleteThat Twitter stuff was nuts. My site used it today to keep folks updated about stuff in D.C. - crowds, inaugural gossip, etc. But if cop-shop ham sandwiches are the future of journalism, I quit.
You don't publish the editor's Christmas wish list just because you don't have anything else to put in the paper. Similarly, your standards for news and Twittering don't go down just because you've GOT TO HAVE SOMETHING FOR THE TWEET.... ANYTHING....
Re Caddy and Balloons: The winner of the advertising sales department contest was picked today. The contest was on going since before the mass layoffs. Still tacky if you ask me. And to 3:44 - Jack Roth feeds from the hand just like the rest of them! He fights for no one except himself!
ReplyDeleteHey 4:02 who did you call regarding 401k and Pension? I am STILL waiting?
ReplyDeleteSeriously, Gannett thinks this inaugural "experiment" is what's going to save the company? I'm watching the feeds on my local site, and comparing it with cnn/msnbc, etc. and even popular political blogs. The feeds are late, the headlines are behind what's happening ... really, people? Really?
ReplyDeleteSleaze, corruption and now venality. I thought for a moment that Dickey had some class coming to Tucson to announce the closing in person. But now we see it was all just a detour on his way to a golf tournament. What is worse, a golf tournament featuring pretty golf girls as sex objects. For God's sake, this is 2009, not 1949.
ReplyDelete12:57 is almost correct.
ReplyDeleteAt one time the Tucson Daily Citizen was the larger paper -- prolly back in the 40s or 50s.
I'm a former employee of the Star and we routinely, every 6 months or so, heard that Gannett was going to buy us from Mike Pulitzer.
Gannett definitely called the shots of the JOA.
Star alums -- remember the Christmas bonus??
Hey 5:24 Pension call Bridget Woodson 703-854-6000. You should have had something by now! She is a ditz, what else is new.
ReplyDeleteAsbury???? A Cadilac? Lunch meats served with dollar-land toys here
ReplyDeleteLink to JOA document. Maybe Jim can code to make it a direct link.
ReplyDeletehttp://blog.tucsonweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/Memorandum%20and%20Amended%20and%20Restated%20Joint%20Operating%20%20Agreement.pdf
Gannett sonds like it should be investagated have they ever bin? and for what? it sonds like a real bad place to work.My brother used to work for them,I never belived his story but now OH BOY
ReplyDelete5:23 do they still through the winners name back if they don't like the sond of it seen that done several times when cars were given away LOL
ReplyDeleteGannett is being investigated and the majority of executives working for them.
ReplyDeleteOnce they are hit with all the lawsuits, they won't have anything left!
ReplyDelete6:50 Do you realy think they will be fined,our will they just get away with their missdoings again?
ReplyDeleteIf Dickey can cavort with scantily-clad teenaged beauties at his exclusive golf retreat, is it ok now for the rest of us to hit on the interns?
ReplyDeleteReg 3:53 Do you mean that guy that worked in the print shop
ReplyDeleteHere's another huge death rattle: Google Tuesday shut down Google Print Ads service that was used by 800 newspapers. The business was not coming up with revenue. So much for Google coming up with ads for newspapers to run.
ReplyDeleteSource: Google's blog at
http://google-tmads.blogspot.com/2009/01/turning-page-on-print-ads.html
Go Bob, Go...we support you 100%, see you next week for the biggest party on the PGA circuit the FBR Open in Scottsdale. Guess what company has a massive box on the 18th green?? Just be careful of the Doug Parker Syndrome!
ReplyDelete6:33...ESL?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteAny plans for an informational picket at the golf tournament?
ReplyDeleteJim,
ReplyDeleteHave you given any thought to going to watch Dickey play or cheer him on?
Wow, that DM guy's tweets are an Gannett embarrassment. I guess this is him too: http://www.riverfronttimes.com/2004-12-29/news/blogger-s-remorse/
ReplyDeleteAnother fine example of the nonsensical choices for layoffs.
Does that problem about poisoning have anything to do with the day the Neptune building was evacuated while the bomb squad, dogs and all, searched the building?
ReplyDeleteIf the health danger Gannett exposes people to is in the print shop, why Neptune and not Freehold?
And what did Skip as EE have to do with all that? Someone thought people were trying to kill him, and he was promoted to publisher. I never got that one, either.
I would love for someone to give us the skinny on that bomb search. It always has bothered me that no one in HR or over the bridge ever told us what the risk was to cause evacuation. Maybe we'd like to make a choice about our safety for ourselves, thank you very much!
9:03 PM
ReplyDeleteWas Skippy in fear:) What a coward who was out to kill him? I think he has post traumatic stress disorder from when the kids took his lunch money. And the bomb scare what a joke not one word in the paper. Skippy said they didn't want copy cat crimes. Yet they report on bomb threats that happen in schools.
Feedback I received in regards to pension information (December layoff)is: in general, your retirement package is usually mailed within 45 – 60 days from the day the request was submitted. I spoke with
ReplyDeleteCarrie Oman at Gannett Corporate
Phone: (703) 854-6281. I am still waiting for my packet.
About removing 401k, Gannett has been totally hosing me from the start. The termination letter says, essentially, "don't call us, we'll call you," but when I corresponded via the ybr.com site in January, they claimed to have sent ALL of us a letter about it on Dec. 15. I didn't get one. I made them send it then, and they had the nerve to send me a statement backdated to Dec. 15. I kept the envelope showing they mailed it to me on Jan. 7, and only because I asked for it.
ReplyDeleteThen they gave me a new hoop to jump through, which I did and then heard nothing. I asked today when they are sending the rollover and now am told I didn't jump through that hoop to their liking. Now I have to do something else, something that is going to cost me money to get my 401k money rolled over directly to my bank IRA.
I've had a similar experience trying to get my pension out. Corporate points the finger at the paper, and the paper points the finger at corporate, so their 90-day clock doesn't start ticking because you don't know which one to tell or how to tell them officially to roll over the pension.
Methinks they don't want to part with the cash. I hope Craig hasn't moved it all to Bermuda.
Pension: Call your HR Dept. They start the ball rolling. It's up to them to file the paper work.
ReplyDelete9:54: Who submits the request? My HR, or me? Thanks for your help!
ReplyDeleteThe problem with what 9:54 says -- "in general, your retirement package is usually mailed within 45–60 days from the day the request was submitted" -- is that the submitted request is something the newspaper sends to corporate, listing your employment data. And it's that early link in the chain that seems deliberately open-ended.
ReplyDeleteAfter the paper sends the request -- and I'd venture to guess it hasn't been done for the person in question -- it then will take corporate another 45-60 days to send you a packet with a form to officially ask for your money, which corporate then has another 90 days by law to fulfill the roll over.
That's why I sent certified mail last week, sans newspaper submitting "a request." My letter stated I want my pension rolled over, so it has 90 days total to roll over my pension upon receipt of my letter. Corporate says the newspaper did send my request last week after I pestered them by email, but no one at the newspaper ever gave me the courtesy of reply and still has not sent me whatever they sent to corporate.
I think it was irresponsible that the newspaper didn't submit the request on Dec. 2, the same day as termination. What could be so hard it took a month to get employment data together, and if it was so hard to do, I think they should have reassigned staff to HR instead of laying us off.
Obama didn't use the word furlough, but he did talk about workers who accept shorter hours to avoid seeing friend fired. That's what we're doing, Jim! I just wish the golfers at the top were similarly frugal.
ReplyDeleteReg 9:46 somyone was fired,he did not take Bob Collins nor Skips Crap and lies,he alone stud up to thies non caring people,he did not threaten them,but I was told they thought that he would go postal.Just after he was fired they Bob posted armed guards at the doors THATS RIGHT ARMED!they also put his picture on the pc's and boards and if he was seen on or around the building,sacurity was to be notified ASAP.I know he was blamed for a bomb threat.When I myself told this person of the goings on at the Press he just laughed and said wile he never did anybody any harm he was glad that they were scared enough to keep them on there toes.He also thought that they must have known that they were wrong for what they did and who they hurt to be that scared. I knowing this guy too thought it was funny. I know that this guy did get sick,and I hope that he is OK now.Last time we spoke he was at Johns Hopkins seeing an Uncolagest.thank you for what you tried to do for us hope you are OK
ReplyDeleteJim,
ReplyDeleteHow about a jockey call for existing editors that could get the USAT EE job.
Will Gannett believe in their farm team or go outside? Who inside could handle the internal leadership challenge and also has the ability to represent the paper in DC venues?
Maybe a poll with some leading names? Will they go after Ward Bushee, a former Gannett editor who could easily sit in the seat?
GANNETT NOT ABLE TO EVEN KEEP THERE EMPLOYEES INFORMED!!!!!
ReplyDeletePHOENIX WE WERE GETTING A YEARS OF SERVICE BONUS. IT SEEMS GANNETT HAS DISCONTINUED THIS. DID THEY INFORM ANYONE. HELL NO!!!!!
PS I THINK THE MONEY FOR FURLOUGH WILL GO INTO THE PAYMENT THEY STATED THEY WOULD MAKE TO THE 401K SINCE FREEZING PENSION. OR HAVE THEY DISCONTINUED THAT ALSO?????
Thanks Mr. Dickey I'm one of those who lost my job and am close to lsoing my home to. And thanks for letting me know a month prior to Christmas. Our Holidays sucked but you musted have gotten some new clubs.
ReplyDelete