Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Tuesday | Feb. 17 | Your News & Comments
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86 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."
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first got cha uh huh uh!
ReplyDelete"NEW JERSEY PAPERS ROCK"
ReplyDeleteI am putting this question here,because I want to know from the press.I feel that based on how pissed-off all you guys are at your company Gannett,you might let go with some info.In several comments here on this blog,I've seen somebody reference UFO's.Tacking into consideration that this person might just be smoking away his or her furlong,it got me thinking.I don't know if all this stuff coming out on U Tube lately is true,but to get right down to it,those people seem to me to be quite credible,and hi (no pun intended)ranking people.It also accrued to me that if Gannett is as crazy as all you contend,at doing the kind of stuff that all you say,do they say no to your stories if any of you should try to cover or wright one.This is no joke,I would really like to know.So please don't answer with any rude comments.I would expect to here from some real professional reporters and journalists,thank you for your time.
ReplyDeleteSo please don't answer with any rude comments.
ReplyDeleteWe live in the age of snarky, my friend.
To answer your question on UFOs, find the poem "Waiting for the Barbarians" - also explains why so many people place so much stock in booting out Dubow. Not that our next CEO will be from Mars, but that more people would like to hope for the impossible than to deal with the literal.
(ok, for the lazy Googler: http://tinyurl.com/aj8y5y)
Stock futures are waaay down.
ReplyDeleteIf they don't pick up after WalMart's Q4 comes out, expect a sub-$4 price shortly after 9:30am.
Where have you gone, Warren Buffet?
Gannettoids turn their lowly eyes to you,
Who-ho-hoo...
Chances are that the blurb in regards to UFOs is meant more as a slam to the APP, otherwise known as the "Mother Ship" because it is the so-called headquarters for the beleaguered NJ Group. It would seem that a lot of unpopular decisions are made by some of those in charge there at that location.
ReplyDelete2/17/2009 1:26 AM
ReplyDeleteMan, I want some of the stuff you're smoking......beam me up Scotty......have a Twinkie and sit down....LOL
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteSpellcheck run amok.
ReplyDeleteYes, I would write a UFO story. I would report whatever you say about them and review your "proof." However, I will also interview and quote people who might suggest that you are delusional and that UFOs are a hoax.
Jersey papers SSSSUUUUCCCCKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeletePlease, higher being, let this thread be New Jersey free ...
ReplyDeleteAnon @ 1:23am -- what's the latest out of NJ? I've been out of the loop lately.
ReplyDeleteLarry St.Cyr to the rescue!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteGCI stock falls below $4 per share this morning as stock market plunges.
ReplyDelete$3.92 and falling for GCI !
ReplyDeleteIf the stock goes below $3, look for the vultures to start circling.
Wow.
I own 3,000 shares of what is about to be a 3 dollar stock.
ReplyDeleteOh, dear Lord, we are below $4 a share!!!
ReplyDeleteStock opens low and drops below $4 a share early.
ReplyDeleteHow LOW can it go today? Any pedictions?
Does Obama have John Podesta for a reason? is he going to help with the (BIG TRANSITION)can't you so called journalists be open mined for a change? Like Reagan said wouldn't it be something if we did find out that we are not alone.And wouldn't now be the prime time to bring out all the tech stuff,and create new jobs? and end the reliance on fossil fuels? and what if Gannett broke the story before the TV and Internet,could it bring news papers back in a Hugh way?
ReplyDeleteAgain, MY PREDICTION:
ReplyDeleteGCI will be kicked off the NYSE before the end of the year, due to falling below $1 for more than 30 days.
It's going to happen to McClatchy Thursday:
http://biz.yahoo.com/e/090206/mni8-k.html
Their only hope to stay on is a lame-o reverse split.
Speaking of, I'm hearing there will be BIG cuts at Tribune and McClatchy papers in about two weeks.
4/1/09 Coming fast alot of big changes will take place. Some new
ReplyDeleteand some old good people coming back to new jersey papers.
To 10:32 ARE YOU STONED OR WHAT!
ReplyDelete10:39 Who is comming back?
ReplyDeleteRe: 10:39 am--Changes for Gannett on April Fools day?
ReplyDeleteHow appropo.
"Could it bring news papers back in a Hugh way?"
ReplyDeleteWho the hell is Hugh?
10:44 a.m.
ReplyDeleteHugh Downs?
I think some of these posters work on my site's Web site!
In fairness, Gannett stock dives when most others dive, too. Today's frightened Wall Street probably has more to do with reports out of Japan than with a lack of faith in Gannett or newspapers themselves.
ReplyDeleteAs for the UFO question, I don't pretend to know what the real questions are, but:
1) At the Asbury Park Press, yes, if I wrote the story you seem to be talking about, it might go MIA. The APP's top editors do think their job is to manipulate the news to make people think what the top editors want them to think. They protect and promote favored businesses and politicians all the time.
2) The "seen in several comments here" remark may refer to something posted yesterday about allegedly big news being covered up. I doubt it referred to UFOs and, being anonymous comment, would assume could be fiction.
3) I do seem to recall a mass UFO sighting in South Jersey some years back. And Orwell's "War of the Worlds" originated here. Seriously, UFOs, maybe so, but I don't think anyone would assume anything supernatural, given the fact we have McGuire AFB and high-tech Lakehurst and Earle Navy and Fort Monmouth Army sites here. UFO doesn't mean sci-fi, just that no one documented to the FAA that the object was going to be in the sky. And we don't do no stinkin' folos at the APP. That's for losers ... er, shares in the $3 range, you say? ...
Wow .... under $4 a share???? How sad.
ReplyDeleteAnd I am looking in the web library, and there is a Gannett Monday paper in Ohio with 8 pages and THREE paid ads. Three. Over 8 pages!
Lots of profit there! No wonder stock is through the floor! When, oh when, will Gannett ever dump those worthless papers.
Oh wait... that's why....
Vote RVD for CEO!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteThey report about UFO sightings just like they report on the Bildebergs, the New World Order, world banking taking over our country and the rest who threaten them. Those who joke as one did are either afraid to know the truth or too arrogant to let anything else other than their own cloud of life surround them.
ReplyDeleteAfter all, do you still believe newspapers still run themselves? They answer to higher ups just like NASCAR and all sports now answer to the sponsor and/or TV.
Newspapers helped make or country....the lack thereof will be the death of us.
re 1:26 and 10:54 and others: No one shies away from reporting UFO sightings in Phoenix. And not just because online they're traffic drivers. AzRep resurrects Phoenix Lights stories often; and even when perps of a hoax UFO-lights sighting a year or so ago admitted what they did, a Republic reporter did his best to discredit the admission and keep hope alive that the sighting was real.
ReplyDeleteUFO's?
ReplyDeleteActually - word is they all read Jim's blog and have a bet going amongst each other as to what could fall the fastest! An asteroid to earth or the gannett stock! One group thought they won last week when a fireball was spotted falling in the sky over Texas, only it turned out to be a sonic boom, so.... um... the bet is still on... I guess!
Michael Phelps won't face charges stemming from that "bong photo". The news broke around 6 PM ET yesterday but the Courier News -- yes, it's in New Jersey -- missed the story. The C-N did have room for a canned Mike Lopresti piece on the sports front.
ReplyDeleteIt just keeps getting better and better ...
To 10:54 I hear that in NJ by McGuire and FT DIX, Lakehurst that in the early 60's that there was a forced landing of a UFO and that one of 3 aliens ran from the craft along a fence line,and was shot by an MP.It ran a little bit further and fell dead.As far as the other 2 who knows.I also heard that the reason for all this was the mists lost power.Look it up I think that this story was touched on by the APP.Gannett and our Gov.Both have secrets and you can't spell Gannett without ET.
ReplyDeletePete Zanmiller for CEO!
ReplyDeleteGannett Employees Turn To Unofficial Blog For Clarity
ReplyDeletehttp://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200902171130DOWJONESDJONLINE000518_FORTUNE5.htm
Better yet: Leonard Abess, Jr. for Gannett CEO:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.miamiherald.com/795/story/906783.html
11:44 PM -- Down here in the south we were just told to cut expenses for periods 2 & 3. This was after a good period 1.
ReplyDeleteThis is not good.
"Phoenix Lights" Boy how this story won't go away. I recall seeing a TV show a while back debunking these "lights" as nothing more than decending flares from an area south-west of Phoenix. The producers of this show superimposed a daylight view of a mountain range (in the line of sight) onto the film footage of these lights and as these flares floated downward they winked out exactly along the contour of this range. But the "Phoenix Lights" are oddly still unexplained?
ReplyDeleteOne way employees (and former employees) could to take positive action is to contact members of their communities to see if there is interest in purchasing their newspaper from Gannett. Gannett will need to raise capital to meet their debt obligations and may be willing to sell individual properties. Local ownership would mean a huge difference to operation and could lead to a reasonable return for the new owners.
ReplyDelete"decending flares" Right. And there were/are 10 times more evidence that says they weren't and can't be flares. this story shouldn't go away. It should be investigated fully as the media used to be able to do. Aaaannnnddd...the lights weren't just over Phoenix, and not just that one night. They still happen today although not to that magnitude.
ReplyDeleteBut then again, the media bosses say ignore it or debunk it, that's what happens. Never mind real investigative reporting or the truth.
Ask Miles O'Brien what a true, in depth investigative report about UFO'd will do to your career. He actually did an honest, unbiased series on CNN. Now he's gone. There are no coincidences.
ReplyDeleteJust imagine what a real, honest, unbiased report would do to newspaper sales? Make Uncle Sam fess up maybe?
Hello.
ReplyDeleteI am looking for former newspaper employees who have been writing for citizen journalism Web sites. I would like to interview them about their experiences. Please e-mail sgurinsky2003@yahoo.com. Thank you.
I was talking about the UFO lights around the NJ Turnpike around 2001, not the 1978 McGuire AFB story. I don't see any evidence of that being true, nor of any of the other little reptile-skinned men stories being true.
ReplyDeleteJust because you have someone saying they saw this thing doesn't make it so. I have observed that it's pretty easy to make people believe they saw something other than what was actually there.
Maybe there hasn't been much journalism done on UFOs because there's not much empirical evidence to report.
If the little green men stories were true, what's the hypothesis for the reason governments, through changing leaderships, consistently worldwide "hide" the information from the public? I can't think of any reason.
"what's the hypothesis for the reason governments, through changing leaderships, consistently worldwide "hide" the information from the public? I can't think of any reason."
ReplyDeleteFirst thrown out is "we're not ready" Bunk. Changing leaderships...yes, but not changing military top brass. They don't change unless they retire mostly. Other reasons...keep the knowledge to themselves. Knowledge is power so they don't want to share. Would you?
No evidence? There's plenty of evidence. Just have to want to look and be open minded enough to see, or at least give it the possibility. Your mind is obviously made up. That's OK. That's your right. There's evidence spread out over all countries, through centuries. To say there's no evidence is ludicrous at best.
A debate on alien space visitors on Gannett Blog. Now I have seen it all.
ReplyDelete2:30 p.m., my thoughts exactly. ... we're in worse shape than I ever imagined.
ReplyDeleteFor those in need of affordable quality insurance you should check out www.freelancersunion.org. It's free to join the organization and they charge for just administering the plans. If you don't live in NYC check out their UHC "golden rule" coverage. It allows you to quote from seven different plans. I found that I can get better, cheaper health insurance than what mediabistro is quoting me.
ReplyDeleteIt relates to whether or not the media, Gannett included as they are the largest conglomerate, have or will cover the biggest untold story ever written.
ReplyDeleteIt's a good change from the usual whining and schoolyard name calling that usually resides here.
Hay 2:30 isn't a newspaper blog like this one,the best place to start? I asked this question about UFO's first thing this morning,just to see if there are REAL INVESTAGATIVE REPORTERS LEFT,unbiased and open minded.I myself believe that Oboma,and John P are going to make even bigger history in just a few months.And if you want to know the truth,the idea of you thinking UFO's on a Gannett blog.Ya that is why news papers are dieing,no thinking outside the box,it's only wright what you are told AND YOU DO! "SO GOODBY NEWSPAPERS,HELO INTERNET"
ReplyDeleteOK, I have to repost what I wrote yesterday evening.
ReplyDeleteThe Tennessean's Web site has an online photo essay called "Nashville with a mustache," featuring doctored photos of local celebrities with faux mustaches.This was the prominent feature on the Web site until early this afternoon.
www.tennessean.com
This is insane, right? Reality check, anyone?
3:03, The fine journalists still remaining at the Gannett paper I left would cover the story, if it happens. But it's not a real story.
ReplyDeleteHere's a real story: Many of my friends and former co-workers are unemployed, and the industry we devoted our lives to is gasping its last breath. Real people who are really hurting.
I'm not going to get around to worrying about UFO coverage for a while yet. Sorry.
Perhaps someone could create a photo gallery called Gannett devils with faux horns on the heads of celebrity-sized has-been newspaper executives! Now there's a gallery I'd look at.
ReplyDeleteUFO = Unstoppable Falling Object
ReplyDeleteGannett stock is a UFO. :(
I am an ex Gannetteer,I have bin out of work and sick for almost two years now,and I lost everything!and this is fact!and just so no one asked again I am on a borrowed PC with high speed Internet.I bought up the UFO thing because I used to work for Gannett,and I used to read it everyday.Now there's a couple times a week when I can get on this PC.Thing is the news that I can get on the net is nowhere in the paper,and I just thought I would see what the paper journalists had to say.Only because things are so bad right and the Gannett stock is so bad and I don't think this stimulus thing is going to work.But if just some of the things that I have bin seeing on the net are true,I see more help coming from the government finally coming clean and letting out the high tech stuff,and giving it to GM and the like to kick this country in the ass!So if you want to make fun of my beliefs,then go right ahead (because that is what free speech is supposed to be all about,or at least that is what I was always told.And if my UFO rant is commercial well its all I got left to laugh at.
ReplyDeleteSorry I meant (comical)
ReplyDeleteIsn't time to reorganize the newspaper division again Dickey?
ReplyDeleteSeriously, UFOs? Can you post that shit somewhere else?
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, I know a lot of people who have canceled their subscriptions to the APP due to a steady decrease of copy and the rise in price.
It's time for one of my occasional reminders!
ReplyDeleteTreat comments with caution; they have not necessarily been verified as true. Please, IGNORE abusive posters; deny them the attention they crave. Finally, by posting a comment, you agree to relinquish any claims against any persons associated with Gannett Blog.
You may now return to your local Information Center.
Gannett is negotiating with the National Association of Chiefs of Police about a new, mutually beneficial program. PD flacks would do writeups of all crime news and accident reports and Gannett papers would run them with minor editing. The move is part of an outsourcing program with a "Made in America" component that keeps the work from going to India, which bid on the project. If this pilot project succeeds, Gannett will seek similar arrangements with state and local government officials.
ReplyDeleteJim, I am sorry if I used this site to ask a question,or make a comment about UFO's I will go somewhere else.But the last thing that I want to say is that "I believe more in UFO's and what I think is going to be in the news in the next few months,then I believe that Gannett ever cared about what they do to there working staff.So again SORRY to Jim.Now 4:12 you can go back to your same old same old bitching.
ReplyDelete4:35 PM
ReplyDeleteThat's a joke, right?
Looks like the "Star Ledger" ME cut a deal to set up a news agency before he left. Wonder what he'll pay the reporters. Comes on the heels of union concesssions. Hmmmmm.. sounds fishy to me.
ReplyDeleteThoughts?
off subject here--
ReplyDeleteSince I have some time on my hands--can anyone recommend an inspirational book. (self-help, improvement, how to get a job)
also, Jim, I like today's mug.
6:21 PM, a few motivations elements:
ReplyDelete1) Go see Slumdog Millionaire
2) Get some Wayne Dyer from the library...audio books are best...especially "Real Magic."
3) Best Job search book IMO is "What Color is Your Parachute" by Dick Bolles....it deals extensively with how to market yourself.
http://www.jobhuntersbible.com/
4) Hit the gym every day for 30-40 minutes of cardio.
7:17
ReplyDeleteTHANK YOU.
I will go to the library tomorrow. (for #2 and #3)
Yes, I should do #4, I know, I know, especially since I have the time.
#1 I'll have to wait for it on DVD.
Again, I appreciate the suggestions.
Ah, so it's the aliens who will save newspapers.
ReplyDeleteUFOs to the rescue!
Tonight is the second round of the Section 1 High School basketball tournament. The Westchester site is suppose to be broadcasting a big rivalry game on Mogulus but there is nothing but static noise on the screen for 30 minutes. Maybe their newly appointed wonder boy of Mogulus is in over his head already.
ReplyDeleteRemember about a month ago when corporate went to Westchester to do a big video presentation on how The Journal News and lohud was leading the company in online video. If this is their model site we are all doomed.
nice story on the blog...balanced.
ReplyDelete6:21 PM – All kidding aside about the title, but I really enjoyed the No Asshole Rule…it really put into perspective what’s been wrong with Gannett for sometime.
ReplyDeleteMogulus in Westchester hardly ever runs smoothly.
ReplyDeleteHello.
ReplyDeleteI AM an alien, and I worked for Gannett for several years. I was sent directly from the Mother Ship. I'd be willing to do an interview. Meet me behind the big tree, at the corner of 1st and Washington. Mleep Mleep Mleep.
na nuu na nuu live long and get out of Gannett and prosper now beem me up Scotty
ReplyDelete12:11 PM
ReplyDeleteI agree...
6:21 PM
ReplyDeleteI can second the Wayne Dyer recommendation. My pick would be "Manifest Your Destiny.''
I also highly recommend Shakti Gawain's "Creative Visualization'' and Thomas Moore's "A Life at Work.''
This piece jus ran in the Washington Post. For those who don't know Carl Icahn, he's a longtime corporate raider and activist who tries to "unlock" the value of depressed companies. He's reflecting here on financial co. directors, but it's applicable to all corporate boards who do little but tow the corporate line and ignore who they're really working for: shareholders.
ReplyDeleteBy Carl C. Icahn
Monday, February 16, 2009; Page A15
The entirely preventable financial catastrophe we have watched unfold over the past 18 months has many culprits: reckless executives who gambled with their company's futures, feckless regulators and somnambulant boards of directors.
This Story
Corporate Boards That Do Their Job
Our Lost Decade?
But while executives and regulators have justifiably taken heat for this multifaceted debacle, board members have largely been let off the hook. Why?
It is a board's responsibility to oversee management and to ensure a company's long-term survival. Its job, in short, is to represent the owners -- the shareholders.
With the tumbling and collapse of dozens of major financial and other institutions, can we draw any conclusion other than that those directors utterly failed in this regard?
Yet, increasingly, we are hearing apologists rise to the defense of boards, evidence that the process of obfuscation of the boards' guilt has begun. This is dangerous.
Evidence of this trend includes a recent Business Week article, "How Much Blame Do Boards Deserve?" by Jack Welch, the former chairman and CEO of General Electric, and his wife. Now, I have a great deal of respect for Jack Welch. But this defense of boards was wrong.
Non-executive directors at our battered and bankrupt financial institutions could not have been expected to understand the risks of complex, highly leveraged derivatives that brought about our financial crisis, the Welches wrote. That is nonsense. A board member should be able to understand when a company is leveraged up to 40 times the value of its assets, as some were. In my view, many were just not doing their jobs.
Jack Welch believes that some boards' members should have pressed managements more on their risk strategies. Chances are that some directors did take this approach. But did they demand any change of course? Or did they just accept the management line that certain risks are necessary to generate returns?
I think we have a right to expect more from directors. The system of checks and balances between boards and executive teams has, in too many cases, disintegrated. In this global meltdown we are seeing that many board members were demonstrably unqualified, abjectly remiss or simply too cozy with management.
Clearly, we must strengthen boards at public companies. Some measures must include splitting the role of chairman and chief executive; eliminating "staggered" boards, which allow for only a minority of members to be elected in any one year; and giving shareholders the right to propose board members and resolutions on company proxy statements.
Non-executive board members are fiduciaries to shareholders who choose and oversee managements, and the chairman is the main shareholder representative. How can the chairman oversee the CEO if the job is one and the same, as it is at a majority of Fortune 500 companies? Splitting these roles would eliminate this inherent conflict.
Similarly, how can shareholders exercise greater power if managements are allowed to thwart them from being nominated to company boards? In many states, provisions such as staggered boards, which are meant to prevent a full board takeover in any one year, and "poison pills," which effectively block takeovers by new managements, are perfectly legal.
The dictum of the new White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," applies to our financial and economic situation. Inept -- and often very well-paid -- managements and boards got us into this mess. Let's respond by making lasting changes to make them more accountable to stakeholders, which includes everyone in this country.
Corporate law is largely the province of states, which to varying degrees protect flawed governance models. What is needed is a superceding federal law that gives shareholders the right to vote by simple majority to move their company's legal incorporation to states that uphold greater shareholder rights.
North Dakota, for example, is recognized as having the most shareholder-friendly corporate laws in the nation, thanks to recent legislative action. By incorporating in the state and adopting its provisions, a public company would in one easy step improve rights for its shareholders and eliminate the often too-cozy relations between managements and boards.
I want to be clear: Jack Welch did a masterful job as the chairman and chief executive of GE for two decades, until 2001. But with GE Capital soaking up $139 billion in government loan guarantees, it's fair to ask whether the board demanded answers from its current CEO and chairman, Jeffrey Immelt, about the risks embedded in that critical division. Alarm bells should have gone off in the boardroom long before this blue-chip company sought taxpayer help.
Our disastrous market meltdown makes clear that it is high time for shareholders to demand and receive more accountability from the boards and managements of their companies. I have created the United Shareholders of America campaign to focus on just these issues. Only by concerted action can we make changes to how our companies are managed.
The writer is a New York financier and chairman of Icahn Enterprises, a publicly traded diversified holding company. He blogs at www.icahnreport.com.
If you could buy one Gannett newspaper, which one would you go after?
ReplyDeleteGreen Bay WI....
ReplyDeleteThey have a great profit ratio...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-tasini/ceos-boosting-their-pensi_b_160812.htm
ReplyDeleteInteresting pension information here.
The Arizona Republic. It has always been a cash cow.
ReplyDeleteI have to say almost every comment on this post was a total waste of time and not informative at all — except the Wayne Dyer comment and the one about health insurance. Can we please stick to the subject of Gannett. We need to stay informed and not go off the subject.We are in tough times and have to support each other and keep everyone informed. Leave the off subject comments to other blogs.
ReplyDeleteSo, we have Green Bay and Arizona as good newspapers to buy and break off. Any others? How about Salem? Or profit margin for Springfield? What if we grouped the most profitable on a spreadsheet and just closed/firesale the others. What would our profit margin be? Other newspapers to buy?
ReplyDeletehttp://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200902171130DOWJONESDJONLINE000518_FORTUNE5.htm
ReplyDeleteIf the state of New Jersey is doing a mandatory 2 day fulough for it's state workers and saving 35 million.
ReplyDeleteNow with all Gannett workers taking a week off with out pay,you now can get a good idea of how much they are saving? I bet it's alot more then the 35mil the state is saving
Won't some of the furlough savings be offset by the increase in unemployment tax rates next year? I think the rates are set by claims history.
ReplyDelete10:09 p.m. Oshkosh, WI, newspaper! Not too shabby.
ReplyDelete