Thursday, February 05, 2009

Reader: About 22 GNS employees take buyouts

The Gannett News Service workers were motivated mostly by fear, a reader tells me in an e-mail today: "Not sure how many more have to go through layoffs. Tara Connell, new ContentOne chief, spoke to the Washington employees, one-on-one on Tuesday. Her message was very pessimistic about ContentOne and Gannett in general."
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12 comments:

  1. Anonymous2/05/2009 2:31 PM

    Not surprising since it appears no one knows what ContentOne is or has any faith that this is workable, necessary or relevent.

    Of course, if it is NONE of the above, then Gannett will order its implementation immediately.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous2/05/2009 2:41 PM

    These GNS employees are wise to go; the concept won't survive, and who wants to work under Connell.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous2/05/2009 2:54 PM

    Who is gone?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous2/05/2009 3:41 PM

    As a former GNSer, I find this to be a sad day.

    Some of GNS's best and most experienced reporters were, essentially, forced out. That is, anyone who might have raised questions or concerns about the ContentNone "concept."

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous2/05/2009 4:06 PM

    Can anyone name names?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous2/05/2009 5:00 PM

    Nobody knows what ContentOne is?
    That's nothing new for Gannett.
    Nobody knew what News2000 was, either. We were required to figure it out, set out own parameters and then fulfill it or be dinged big time by corporate.
    Sometimes being "left behind" is a curse.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous2/05/2009 5:06 PM

    What does Martore think about Connell "being pessimistic about ContentOne and GCI in general?" Connell reports to her.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous2/05/2009 6:00 PM

    How can anyone have any opinions or feelings about ContentOne when no one knows what the hell it is??

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous2/05/2009 8:22 PM

    If a gannett paper lost its correspondent during this buyout, who is going to replace him/her ?

    (this is a very important time in congress and it woud be nice to have someone at GNS and/or content one step in to provide some coverage in washington for the papers that lost their correspondent today)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous2/05/2009 9:47 PM

    8:22 - GNS will continue covering Congress for the local papers...

    "The corps of regional reporters in the D.C. bureau will continue."

    - Kate Marymont, Jan. 26

    ReplyDelete
  11. Anonymous2/06/2009 11:40 AM

    Gannett loves to label things. ContentOne is the latest label that has not sufficiently been explained. It's all a bunch of bull. If this company would stop with the crap and just try to do the right thing, use some commonsense and respect the talents of their employees, maybe it would do better during these trying times. Instead, we have a company that spins things worse than politicians, labels new ventures that aren't really that new, recycles old ideas and gets rid of some of the most talented people in the business for reasons that border on criminal.

    Take USA Today, for exampe. This paper's big cheeses decided to get rid of the very folks that did something revolutionary by building a newspaper from the ground up that became the top-seller. That was accomplished because those people had the "right stuff." It's not so much hands-on skills (although that is important), but it's a mentality they had. Ethics and a determination they possessed. But for some damn reason, USAT got rid of many of those people through buyouts and layoffs, and simply annoyed others to death so that they left on their own. Now, USAT wants to do something revolutionary again. Except this time, they are turning things over to unproven managers and people with lots of tech skills but not necessarily the "right stuff." While many of the people who left might not have had HTML expertise, they did know how to make things work. To fix things when broken. To get the job done through hard work, frankness and pride. They didn't rely on popcorn parties and transparent pats on the back. But they are gone. This company is filled now with deceit, lies and a bunch of leaders who actually quote what they learned in management class in governing this place. They have no natural abilities to lead. They are frauds. And frauds need to depend on labels and popcorn parties.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous2/06/2009 12:48 PM

    I wonder if this won't be a vehicle designed to fail from day one, thereby establishing a reason to dismiss its head?

    CON-Tara One?

    ReplyDelete

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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