Friday, March 13, 2009

FAQs About Me: Why all the 'homo' comments?

Part of an occasional series about yours truly.

Q. What the heck happened yesterday to turn the 24/7 comments so crude and lewd?
A. Perhaps you mean readers like Anonymous@9:55 p.m., who said I'm a prime candidate for psychiatric care: "Someone will get rich from untangling that mess of passive-aggressive, self-loathing, homosexual anger within his soulless, brainless body."

Yikes! Will COBRA cover that?!

Yes, dear questioner, you guessed correctly: Readers are anticipating the imminent disclosure of CEO Craig Dubow's annual compensation for 2008. Consider this context, however: There are lots of comments on Gannett Blog -- 200-plus some recent days. But even that higher total is equivalent to barely 4% of the 5,400-plus daily visits we're now averaging.

Got a question? Leave it in the comments section, below. You can also e-mail FAQs About Me via gannettblog[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the green sidebar, upper right.

27 comments:

  1. Jim,

    For everyone who bashes you, there are 10 of us behind you. I look forward to the comment about "quit whining and go back to work."

    Well, I'm on furlough today, the furlough I heard about first on this blog. I will continue to read this blog and send you money via pay pal for your good work. You are doing us a tremendous service. Thank you.

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  2. You're doing a great job staying focused on what's important, Jim.

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  3. Jim, I think all those comments have to be coming from the same person. I just smile and think of all the time they are wasting "annoying" us. I LOVE to ignore stupidity and know how much that annoys them.
    Thank you again for having this blog. Even tho I don't know you, I doubt that you are basing your financial future on this blog. It cracks me up when posters say you are going down....losing credibility...it's a BLOG folks!

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  4. Yeah Jim,

    You've proven your credibility by nailing the major stories so far.

    Layoffs, furloughs, the scholarship fund. Questions about all those things made it into the web cast. You've got them nailed to the wall right now. It's time to finish them off.

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  5. It's not a question of Jim's credibility.

    And I detest those who bash Jim's sexual orientation and the Jew-bashers (I am not Jewish) and the other trolls, fearmongers and hatemongers.

    They are dragging what could be a meaningful source of information into the sewer.

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  6. It's so obvious there are maybe two or three people out there trying to discredit you and your good work, with nonetheless, homophobic comments. I mean, really? Homophobic comments? Come on, people grow up. They've got nothing, except to say over and over that they're disgusted and leaving this blog. Really, it just shows the mentality of the ones at the helm of this sinking ship. Ignorant.

    Anyway, keep the news coming, Jim, because we need it. The company wants to operate in the dark, but your blog is the light. Information wins. Thanks!

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  8. Who the hell cares. I doubt I ever will meet Jim in person. This is a medium that deals with ideas, not personalities. Some people would like to drag us into the swamps for whatever reasons they might believe they have. I'm not playing their game. I am here to learn about GCI. Everything else is ephemeral.

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  9. Jim Rocks, regardless what he does when not blogging.

    BTW People, ITS A BLOG

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  10. JIM:
    Doubt if anyone with a brain would object if you were to just automatically zap all lewd and uncalled for posts as they come in, whether they refer to you or others, including Gannett big-shots.
    Although it may not bother you personally about the remarks made regarding your sexual preference, but it does bother me, and I presume others, to think that there are people out there with such a warped mindset.
    Meanwhile, keep up the good work.

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  11. 3:06 pm: Thanks! You've just done the best job yet of explaining why I leave those comments up: What better way for my merry band of critics (critic?) to hang themselves!

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  12. I'd have to say that Gannett Digital must have a goal of slamming this post. Probably because it has succeeded in social networking that Jim Lenahan and Michael Maness can only wish to accomplish.

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  13. Amen 3:22,
    And they gotta be a bit humbled to think that even though Jim's only made $2,543 this quarter on subscriptions, it's $2,543 more than the entire Gannett fleet has ever made, and all he had to do was ask!

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  14. What really rankles these idiots is this.

    If Craig Dubow walked into any Gannett newsroom today, he'd be booed. At best, ignored completely.

    If Jim Hopkins walked into any Gannett newsroom today, he'd be freaking cheered and people would ask for his autograph.

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  15. These people trashing Jim obviously are current employees, who are angry and frustrated as they cling to their jobs worrying how much longer they'll be employed.

    Prepare yourselves, guys, because no one is safe on GCI's payroll, and the days of hoping that things will get better there are over.

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  16. Sometimes this blog makes me sad.

    Unlike others I like my job and the people I work with/for. I was upset when I heard about the furlough. But in reality it was what I needed. I had a full seven days of no contact. No 3am phone calls and no crisis's to resolve during dinner.

    I spent the whole week home with my kids (who were on spring break). It was wonderful to know that when we were out having fun there was no chance of anything work related that would distract my attention on them.

    Sure I hated losing the money, but I think I got something back that was much more valuable than anything that money could have ever brought me.

    I sure hope Gannett succeeds not just for my job, but for yours as well.

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  17. Hey Jim,
    the hell with what people think about you. You only live once so enjoy it!!

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  19. ...and 6:11, being an *sshole probably won't help you much either. But we knew that already, too.

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  20. 3:56, I think you (and a lot of the people who bash this blog) are missing a very important point:

    I think there are a lot of us who really, truly deep in our hearts do not want to see Gannett collapse. I personally do not want to see it, because I bleed ink and I will do the day I die, regardless of where I ply my trade.

    What you see here is frustration with a corporate structure that is dragging an industry that many of us live, eat and breathe into irrelevance through mismanagement. Bullying managers, mandates that make no sense and a lack of understanding of the core of what made newspapers succeed in the first place -- providing news -- is killing something that many of us love dearly. I don't want to see newspapers or the news industry die. But we watch Corporate trying to stop veins from spurting by putting tiny Band-Aids on them, while at the same time slicing an artery open wide in an attempt to bleed out the illness like some sort of Medieval physician.

    I don't want to see Gannett fail. My family's finances depend on it. But I have pissed on the fire as much as I can. I am out of piss, I have no water to drink, and the fire rages out of control.

    And all the while, Dubow and Martore fiddle like Nero.

    It's crushing to watch. So I come here for solace, to know I'm not alone in how I'm feeling.

    (Jim, $20 for this quarter coming your way momentarily.)

    word verification: downym. A synonym of a negative word?

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  22. I wonder what makes those of you hating the haters any better than the "haters". Granted, the personal attacks on Jim are out of line.

    You're slamming them for disagreeing with the passive-aggressive agenda driven content on this blog.

    Good day - from an ex-employee that sold his stock a long time ago.

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  24. The unsophisticated term that headlines this blog thread is deplorable. But, given the nature of the Web and the success of this site, it was probably inevitable. They're out there, as anyone who tries to make sense of comments left by readers at many other Web sites knows all too well. People like that have made the Yahoo! company stock message boards all but unreadable. Jim, I suspect, is way too big a guy to take it personally. But surely there are names one never gets used to. Some words always sting. They bring us all down by association, even when they're not directed at us.

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  25. "You've got them nailed to the wall right now. It's time to finish them off."

    The only things Jim has nailed to the wall are pictures of Elton John and George Michael.

    The only thing he'll be finishing off is a banana with topping.

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  27. 7:09 p.m. clearly has latent issues.

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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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