Regarding my over-the-top effort to get official publicist Tara Connell's attention, Anonymous@11:51 p.m. comments: "This is a mild, very mild, taste of Gannett's own medicine."
Hello, up there on The 11th Floor. Do you wonder why the help isn't more grateful for having a job? Pay attention, because the answer is spread all across this site, in thousands of comments by employees worldwide. It is inescapable.
Your predecessors mistreated us. You denied us overtime pay -- knowing we wouldn't fight back, for fear of losing our jobs. You kept us isolated, blocking our legal right to organize. You created scholarships for yourselves, while depriving our children. You took food from our table, while indulging yourselves. You paid lip service to the First Amendment, while rendering our papers to glue factories. You called us family, but treated us like shit. And you're still doing it.
We took it, because we didn't have a choice. No more.
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Well stated, Jim. I can't help but think that Gannett Corp., in its beginnings, was wholly set up for what it has become now. It's always been about the money.
ReplyDeleteThis isn't reporting any more, just inciting because there is no news to report.
ReplyDeleteWere YOU ever denied OT pay; were YOU ever denied a scholorship for your own child; did YOU ever try to organized? I suspect your years at USA TODAY were actually quite good until YOU decided to take a voluntary buy out.
I may have been treated like shit by some maagers along the way but that happened )and did happen) at other companies as well. I know plenty of other companies dropping staff like flies, all around the country and even around the world.
And I can't speak to the perks executive level managment uses or perhaps even abuses but, again, it happens at every company and is apparently legal.
Anyone that "took it" did have a choice: leave. Staying left your mark of approval, blessing and acceptance. Now it is difficult to leave and go someplace else because every other company is going through the same thing.
You had a year to find a job. Are you now living off of Sparky? I doubt you'll make it from this blog, especially with no news.
By the way, I'm no executive, just a working stiff trying to make it through this reccesion intact.
7:01 just doesn't get it. It's the critical mass of all these things piling up: The lousy management, the inability to plan for the future beyond fads that change every two years, the constantly rotating pool of publishers and EEs that lack ties to their communities, the refusal to communicate with employees beyond platitudes and lies ("I don't know if there are going to be any more layoffs" - I call bullshit, Ledford!), the two sets of rules for execs and the worker bees, Big Al's cavalier looting of the funds for his wife's business, Dickey's tone-deafness over the golf trip, Tara's asinine answers that a student fresh out of J-school would laugh at, Craig's refusal to acknowledge personal responsibility for any of the negative things that have happened under his watch.
ReplyDeleteAnd those perks may be legal, but they damn sure aren't RIGHT. What, a couple million bucks isn't fucking ENOUGH???
7:01: Are you SURE you're not management? That kind of clueless disregard for reality is the hallmark of a Gannetteer executive editor who couldn't find the community with a map and compass. A lot of us "took it" because we love journalism, if not the small-minded, jelly-spined, spiteful, stupid incompetence raining down from the top.
ReplyDeleteI left a Gannett paper after years of being treated like crap and being denied hundreds of hours of overtime pay. I went into marketing, realized I missed journalism, and made my return to the newsroom -- at a non-Gannett paper -- last year. Now, I am scooping the state's Gannett papers like a Baskin-Robbins counter boy building a sundae. Every day I go to work happy, knowing I'm making my former employer more irrelevant by the minute and having fun while doing so. Karma indeed.
I was denied overtime pay - many times. Partly my own fault because I wanted to do a good job but my work load was too high. What were my options -- do a bad job and work 40 hours, or do it right (and meet expectations) and not put down the hours? It was my fault, but managers were knowingly encouraging it.
ReplyDeleteThis is why many journalists are so upset over the changes -- we cared about our jobs and kept giving more of ourselves, only to have the newspapers turned into MetroMix, Moms blogs and layoffs of good people. I guess we all should have quit caring long ago.
I don't care any longer. I got out and went into a different field before the economy hit the skids.
I did care about my job, and my reward was getting laid off.
ReplyDelete7:01 a.m., you snipe at Jim for "living off of Sparky." You insult all of us who are jobless not by our own choice and forced to rely on loving spouses or partners while we carve new careers or search for jobs. This dark period is the real test of marriage, commitment or a civil ceremony. I cannot adequately express my appreciation to my spouse for supporting me through this terrible time.
I was at two Gannett papers, and one that was bought by Gannett when I was there. I even worked with Jim, though he probably doesn't remember me. Y
ReplyDeletees, the whole newspaper world is a mess right now, but the mess in McClatchy or Tribune or Scripps is nothing compared to the senseless crap that people working for Gannett have to put up with.
Gannett started this trainwreck of a mess in newspapers, wringing out the talent and watering down papers to the point that they lost relevance in their own communities. And, of course, people eventually will stop paying for something that has no relevance to their lives. They cut out the expensive stuff -- the deep investigations -- that only newspapers can do, and replaced it with drivel like News 2000, and whatever the latest fad is.
THAT, my friends, started with Gannett, drove up profits and forced other publicly held newspaper companies to eventually march to the same drummer.
And we wonder why so many newspapers are on a spiral.
So if you are doing an autopsy on what is killing newspaper journalism, Gannett started the infection that has spread like the plague.
Good job with this blog, Jim. As a former Gannett drone, I weep when I read it. And the happiest day of my professional life was when I left Gannett for the last time.
The "corporate culture" here at Gannett is fear. Prior to our paper being bought by GCI we used to appreciate our customers in whatever capacity, vendor or buyer, as well as our employees. Now these customers are just about revenue and the employees are fodder(or cattle). It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out its all about the money to Virginia so the high and mighty can enjoy the perks.
ReplyDeleteGCI corporate management would have been fired by now if they had lower level management jobs for gross incompetence, wasting corporate assets and failure to produce.
I thought GCI had a board of directors whose job it was to oversee the results of thier management team? If you or I had used the same management style as our exec's while losing as much ground as they have I feel confident my supereviwor would have had me on probation or out the door.
Isn't the definition of insane: doing the same thing all the time but expecting different results
If this was ever family, it is the most dysfunctional family unit I have ever encountered. It has more of the elements of a Mafia than a family, with a patriarchial setup and often weird and crazy orders coming from the top and filtering down. The non-disclosure agreements forced on bought-out employees shows how paranoid management is that their errors not be disseminated to the public. Before blogs like this, employees had no way of publicizing the corruption and venality of those in control. Shine light, and the roaches start running. Unlike 7:01 and other GCI boosters, there are many of us out here who have come to hate this company, and to demand reform. I think the structure will eventually collapse under the weight of its own corruption, and like the Pheonix, a new and better GCI will emerge from the ashes. I am sticking around in hopes of seeing that day come, and I am more sure today that it will than I was last week.
ReplyDeleteI worked at Scripps in Naples Fl, and the management wasa a joke. They spent their day belittling anyone who did not join their click even if they did a very good job. They self promoted themselves and did nothing else.
ReplyDeleteSome of those managers are gone now but some of the bad apples are still there spreading the disease.
send her some roses Jim
ReplyDeleteTo the 9:31 commenter.
ReplyDeleteWhat the hell would I want with roses you fool?
I take it you're a rotten apple!
I work for Gannett now and am much happier, but there is a need for change.
I am glad there wasn't a Gannett blog when I started with Gannett all those decades ago. I thought the company was giving me an opportunity and I jumped on the merry-go-round and kept grabbing for the brass ring. I worked my ass off for whatever newspaper I was employed back and I did good work. I have the Well Dones and natioinal journalism awards to prove it. But over the years the pressures increased and expectations rose beyond my capability to perform. In the end I left, proud of my accomplishment but sad about what the company and its newspapers have become. I am happier and healthier since leaving. But I still miss the good times, the excitement and the friendships I enjoyed in the newsroom.
ReplyDeleteI think it was good that for most of my career I was completely unaware of the dark side of the company. Knowing would have forever crushed my soul.
you have jumped the shark
ReplyDelete7:01 am: The answer is yes, over and over and over. You have missed an enormous chapter in my life that has driven this blog from the start. It is the reason you and I are even having this conversation.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, I worked at USA Today for eight years and, yes, they were very cushy years. But I earned that time, based on how I allowed Gannett to treat me in Boise, and in Little Rock, Ark.
The following is from my post on Jan. 11, 2008 -- the day I first put my name on this blog. This part of my story begins in 1987, when I joined the now-shuttered Arkansas Gazette in Little Rock; read the full post, here: http://tinyurl.com/cd248d
My Arkansas Gazette experience in its final, sad months is one of the reasons I launched this blog. It was fall 1991, five years after Gannett had stumbled into Little Rock. The Gazette was by then losing $30 million or so a year in a bitter war with its cross-town rival, the Arkansas Democrat. The U.S. economy was sliding into recession. Rumors flew that Gannett was planning to sell us to the competition, or dump us into a joint-operating agreement. More than 700 employee families were desperate for information.
I had a personal crisis unfolding as well. My domestic partner, Danny Bryant, had just been diagnosed with AIDS. (I was fortunate to remain HIV-negative.) I was our only means of support, so knowing my future at the Gazette was vital.
As the paper's business news editor, I managed some of the newsroom staffers reporting on the Gazette's demise. We called Gannett's Corporate office, pleading for information, over and over. And again and again, we got this: No comment. "Gannett's silence chilled me to the bone,'' Max Brantley, one of the paper's senior editors, said later.
In the end, Gannett closed the Arkansas Gazette -- selling its name, presses and other assets to the competition. I managed to find work at The Idaho Statesman in Boise, owned by Gannett at the time. Danny (left) died there within a year. He was 37.
In 1996, I transferred to The Courier-Journal in Louisville, where I worked until early 2000 as an investigative reporter. I next took a business reporting job at USA Today in San Francisco. I left that job yesterday, ending my mostly happy 20 years with Gannett.
I totally concur with everything said in this posting. I was "family"...that is, until I got laid off in December after years of sacrifice, loyalty and stellar work. I guess I wasn't family in the eyes of the man who held the hatchet. And since no one bothered to monitor his decisions, choices and general managerial horror show, I am now sitting unemployed. Doubtful the family will ever welcome me or anyone else back who might have gotten a raw deal in December, but it would be a nice first step to changing the deteriorating karma at Gannett if they did.
ReplyDeleteThe list of misdeeds against employees by GCI/USAT is growing. If the suits don't think that has a subliminal effect on business, they are seriously incorrect. You don't throw loyal employees out on the street during the worse economic times for personal reasons. You don't use the economy to cut more jobs than you really have to. And if you do cut jobs, you need to be more prudent with whom you dispose of. That's not just good karma, it's good business.
GCI's and USA Today's bedside manner is atrocious. Its method of compensating for its shortcomings in this area are transparent and phony, which just fans the flames.
If this company is going to screw people out of OT and create other ridiculous hardships on people, the very least they could have done was protect more jobs. Too many people too far into their careers were abandoned with nowhere to go, no time or money to retrain. That, to me, was the most ruthless act that karma will settle the score with.
It's not Tara Connell's fault guys. She's just played the game.
ReplyDeleteFinger pointing begins and ends with Neuharth. He created the present day corporate culture within Gannett. He still pulls the strings in many ways. He's a control freak.
Tara is simply smart enough over the years to be the right kind of 'Yes' person to butter her toast at the expense of others who have attempted at making real content for the readers.
The corporation has incited this backlash, and the internet is the forum that prevents Gannett from hiding their employees anger under a rock.
10:15 am: I concur 100% about Connell and her role. I don't blame her. She is just the messenger.
ReplyDeleteBut so am I. The difference is that we're delivering very, very, very different messages.
At the risk of stating the obvious, the following observation -- from Anonymous@10:15 a.m. -- may be the the single, most-insightful comment that has ever been posted on Gannett Blog.
ReplyDelete"Finger pointing begins and ends with Neuharth. He created the present day corporate culture within Gannett. He still pulls the strings in many ways. He's a control freak."
You have balls of steel, my friend. I want to personally thank you for standing up to those who would silence the truth. Thank you. Your reporting and writing helped me cope with a very difficult layoff by this company.
ReplyDeleteI just hit the button for my first donation. What a joy it is to pay for our underground press.
As a blue collar NON-EXEMPT worker bee who worked unpaid overtime out of fear and is about to be shown the door, I have to say that the disgusting lack of PERSONAL HONOR is what really annoys me. I understand economically needed lay-offs.
ReplyDeleteBut when times were good for the company and Bobby (I think I'm George Patton) Collins wanted his performance bonus, supervisors told people to work 6 & 7 day weeks for extended periods and at the same time said (always verbally, never in writing) that we couldn't put more than 37.5 hours on our time-sheets (what-the-f*ck are the time-sheets for if your a manager?).
I wonder if old Bobby Collins ever paid income tax on all the "alleged" work he had Gannett employees do on his house? Maybe he pulled a Tim Giethner.
Oh spare us your sanctimony, Jim.
ReplyDeleteANY profession sucks at the beginning, is sweet at the end.
You skip the free flights cross country, the indulgent work pace at USA Today (working on a cover story for two weeks, etc.), the great salary, the benefits...
If you were treated badly at Boise or Little Rock, well, yes. You're starting out.
To suddenly be some woeful member of the proletariat, forced to remain silent all these years...just doesn't fly.
This is a great profession; the industry has turned very bad. Gannett has done and is doing many things wrong.
But the sack and cloth act is really transparent, Mr. Buy Out.
I speak the truth.
ReplyDelete...true gannett promotes a sweatshop ethos, but we are the enablers. why? because we got into journalism to do something we love(d). and we allow(ed) gannett -- and other papers -- to take advantage.. so who is to blame?
ReplyDelete...we all are responsible for ourselves..
Jim: Can't wait to read the book - it's going to be a wonderful read!
ReplyDeleteIf folks would have fought back, Gannett editors and publishers wouldn't have gotten away with all these injustices for all these years, culminating in the recent layoffs. But people are generally afraid to fight or to speak up when they should. Did a single employee say a thing about any of the people lost in December? Did anyone protest or suggest that any of those layoffs would do great damage to the operation? Or did everyone just let these crazy managers cut whomever they wanted for whatever reason, regardless of what it would do to the staff, workload, product, etc?
ReplyDeleteThe suits get away with this stuff because there isn't enough backbone and honor in those who work here. Not sure we need a union, but we do need more balls! I have found that employees here are generally not the types I'd want to be in a fox hole with. People seem to take care of themselves and not do anything to risk their own hides. I see very few acts of bravery or selflessness. I see managers throwing loyal employees under the bus. I see snap decisions made without much thought that often harms employees. And I see a workforce afraid of its own shadow.
So who really is to blame for the bad karma?
What also happens when you treat us this way is that loyal employees who used to work their asses off to better the company become complacent and refuse to put in the countless hours of overtime they once did. In the end, the product suffers and the stock price continues to fall.
ReplyDeleteFor years, I gave my Gannett job my all. Then, it became clear that I could work half as hard as I used to and still produce better work than most of the reporters around me. What's more, weak, inexperienced editors would sometimes insert errors into even my best stories.
And my ideas to make the paper better were (are) routinely dismissed. So, I now do exactly what is asked of me and don't take a step beyond that. The paper is worse for it, but I no longer see that as my problem. This company is sinking and all it means to me is a paycheck, just as all I am to them is someone to fill the white space around ads. Only the ads are going away.
That, too, is what happens when you treat us this way.
Mistreated employees also tend to leak internal company documents -- including, especially, OC members. Corporate: You badly mishandled that September layoff of 100 managers.
ReplyDeleteI am a former Gannett manager with lots of secrets to tell. They should not have laid me off! Just waiting for the right time and venue to share with the world what I know and have experienced first hand with this company. I was loyal to a fault. And when they laid me off, all that loyalty just washed away.
ReplyDeleteI think an ancient philosopher (was it Sun-Tzu, The Art of War?) said that more change has been wrought throughout history by "incremental-izm" as opposed to the sword.
ReplyDeleteCould this be Gannett's mission statement?
I was lucky to have worked for a really decent regime at the start of my short run at a Gannett paper. But then we had regime change, and everything became entirely corporate-driven from that point on. I think I realized that the company went over the edge about five years ago when it offered a $25 cash bonus for volunteering for a "wellness" survey. Little did people know that they were being entrapped into admitting they were smokers with serious health problems. Of course, within a year, Gannett was jacking up its health insurance premiums for smokers. What a bunch of weasels.
ReplyDelete10:59 wrote: "If you were treated badly at Boise or Little Rock, well, yes. You're starting out."
ReplyDeletePlease, STFU. No one should have to be treated like shit, no matter what position they're in, no matter where they work, no matter how bad the business is.
I have been in the business two decades. I love and respect journalists. I do have one observation about their view of the business before they start their careers. For the most part they learn the basic elements of their craft in J School. For the most part they learn from professors who for the most part never worked a day in their life in a real newspaper or TV station. They fill their student’s heads with philosophical bullshit and then let them loose in the real world. After a few years they realize the truth and then the jaded attitude begins. Most journalists focus their anger at their company. Their anger would be better directed at the schmucks back at the university who are teaching the same bullshit they did 50 years ago. The business has changed; they haven’t. Just one jaded dudes observation.
ReplyDeleteOK 7:54, 7:01 does get it, more than you could possibly know.
ReplyDeleteThere are many bad managers in any company, just like there are many good ones as well. I've worked for both and probably been both myself, although hopefully more of the latter.
Many times managers know no more than you do regarding layoffs. We often get surprised, just like you.
Big Al's looting and pillaging has nothing to do with Gannett; that's all his foundation and it is legal so change the laws or shut up.
I don't know what is behind Dickey's golf and don't really care. And I don't have a clue what CD thinks or what he has owned up to.
And those perks? Well, I think they suck but since they are legal my only recourse is to work to change the laws or just deal with it. I doubt I'll be successful with the former but I can certainly deal with it but moving on. So, I stand behind my opening statement in my 7:01 posting. Deal with it.
To 8:22: good for you. You left Gannett behind but apparently you can't really leave it behind because you are reading this blog. There isn’t any good reason to do so unless you are a) a Gannett employee or b) you feed off the cynicism of this blog and haven't moved on with your life. That is sad. The day I am no longer with this company is the day I no longer care what happens around here. It is as simple as that.
To 8:38: Yes, I did snipe at Jim about living off Sparky. Jim spent half of his buyout money in Ibiza so he blew the opportunity to do something. Obviously that worked for him and good for him for being able to do so. He won't make a San Fran-style living with this blog. It doesn't change that he made his decision and is now living off Sparky. That's just facts!
To 8:58: you actually think these other newspaper chains are any different from Gannett? And I pity you as well since you left the company but are also one of those that can't move on.
To 9:25: I am not a GCI booster - far from it. I've lost a lot with worthless stock, etc. I don't like a lot of what has gone on around here. I do face reality. I deal with it. I don't expect to be able to reform a company unless I have the cold hard cash to purchase a controlling interest. This isn't a democracy. There is no voting. Nothing you do will change that or the company. Deal with it or leave; those are your two simple choices.
To 9:30: thanks for helping justify my position on this crap! It is appreciated and refreshing.
To 10:59: I bow to you. You words are true and from the heart.
To 11:39: kudos to you. Personal responsibility is missing, possibly from Gannett executives but most assuredly from many of the posters here.
To 2:24: if this was your company you would be doing the same thing. Why should my insurance rates go up because you smoke and cost the company more??
To the Jaded dude at 4:43: man, you are really a realist. Thank you for a spot on comment. I think you hit the nail on the head with this perspective most of the j-school graduates have about the company. They don't understand it is a business and business basically sucks when times are bad. Your last post gave me the exit
Westchester got caught not paying for hours worked in the late 80s/early 90s and had to cut some big checks for people who worked long hours. If anyone thinks that newsroom isn't putting in extra hours to do the work of the furloughed employees, they're not paying attention. The photo staff is cut to the bone and now there are extra people off on given weeks. I would be willing to bet photographers are working longer hours than usual and are afraid to ask for OT. Reporters in the bureaus are probably getting hammered with work to make up for the missing people. And if they ask for OT, management will ask them to just take the time off, adding another burden to the already overworked rest fo the staff.
ReplyDelete7:01 AM, what you describe is analogous of my abusive ex-husband. If I didn't accept that he beat me and our kids, I was free to leave. What you said is almost exactly what HE said to me!
ReplyDeleteAnd we left. But he has to PAY the FUCKING child support and abide by a criminal restraining order. Is Gannett similarly held accountable for its failure to abide by fundamental human decency?
In short, the fact that we can leave something doesn't itself mean someone has the right to do what they are doing. Your rationale holds no logic.
Word verification: refibr
Hee hee, I leave Newspaper Guild flyers in the coffee station drawers and slap magnetic NG business cards on anything metal.
ReplyDeleteI'm told by a Guild officer that she hears from a lot of us. Until the Employee Free Choice Act passes, we're screwed, though. That's the bottom line there.
7:42, sorry your life is a mess and you have to resort to abusive language. Guess you learned that from your abusive husband?
ReplyDeleteStill, that doesn't mean my logic holds no water. Spousal abuse has nothing to do with a company operating in a legal manner. If it did, you'd be earning child support from Gannett in addition to your spouse.
You don't like how things are where you are, find someplace else, just like you did with your spouse.
Don't blame the messenger.
I don't understand why Neuharth is still allowed to pull Gannett's strings. Someone please explain that.
ReplyDelete8:27 PM
ReplyDeleteDo analogies always stump you?
7:42 PM
Good points.
What a blockhead. You, 827 PM.
ReplyDelete4:43 -- Why should we blame college professors for teaching journalism the way it should be done. Gannett and other newspaper chains claim that they are providing unbiased news to their customers, and it is certainly possible to do this and still make money.
ReplyDeletePapers that cared about journalism did it for years and some still do. The trouble is you can't make the ridiculous profits that Gannett always demanded and risk offending advertisers. Sure, times are tough now, but all of this started long before the current financial slump.
If Gannett and other papers aren't willing to do real journalism than the only ethical thing to do would be to report this to their subscribers. They should note that they are unwilling to tackle tough issues because it could offend and advertiser and that they will sell editorial space whenever possible. It's a business, right? Trouble is most readers wouldn't support that type of journalism.
So, the company is essentially lying to its readers. Do you really want us to teach that sort of practice in our colleges?
Well, well, well, 10:12, you are killing me here. Is “stump” a tree reference, a cricket reference, the remains of a severed limb, a drinking game? Oh, I get it – you were making fun of me! How clever. I guess Sarcasm and humor floats over your head like a gazelle over the Serengeti Plain. And 11:11…I mean, blockhead? I haven’t heard that one in years. I’ll give you bonus points (ding, ding, ding) for really digging deep so you can cut me to the very core. I just love the Charlie Brown reference. Did you mean to infer I am stupid or merely stubborn? There wasn’t enough to your statement for me to be clear. At least you were more creative than dropping f-bombs and screaming.
ReplyDeleteYou crack me up taking all this so seriously! The power of the blog at its best; must be time to buy some stock.
Well, well, well, 10:12, you are killing me here. Is “stump” a tree reference, a cricket reference, the remains of a severed limb, a drinking game? Oh, I get it – you were making fun of me! How clever. I guess Sarcasm and humor floats over your head like a gazelle over the Serengeti Plain. And 11:11…I mean, blockhead? I haven’t heard that one in years. I’ll give you bonus points (ding, ding, ding) for really digging deep so you can cut me to the very core. I just love the Charlie Brown reference. Did you mean to infer I am stupid or merely stubborn? There wasn’t enough to your statement for me to be clear. At least you were more creative than dropping f-bombs and screaming.
ReplyDeleteYou crack me up taking all this so seriously! The power of the blog at its best; must be time to buy some stock.
6:53 AM
ReplyDeleteI pity you.
Now get back to your information center and, and----plan to think about innovating, and then spend an hour thinking about how to execute your innovation.
12:11: thank you so much for your pity. It means so much to me. I pity all the miserable people that post here, especially the former employees that just can't let go.
ReplyDeleteHey 8:01, I can't agree more. What a bunch of losers that whine here. Rumors are great but the constant bitching gets old fast.
ReplyDelete