S.O.S.: This is your News Department on Kool-Aid

I've never met Ann Clark, one of two executives Corporate stationed at Arizona's Tucson Citizen last week. But Clark may recall me as the blogger who made light of an especially dreadful News Watch article published under her byline last fall.

A general executive in the News Department, Clark is supposed to help mentor thousands of reporters and editors in the community dailies. Now, however, she's in Tucson with another Corporate executive, apparently charged with one of these missions:

1. Quell a mutiny among 60 employees, all in the Tucson Citizen's newsroom, after Gannett ordered them to put out the newspaper on only a day-to-day schedule, with no guarantee of future employment, pending an unlikely sale to 11th-hour bidders as early as next week. The paper stays alive at least until until then.

2. Provide support to those employees during an incredibly difficult time, as Tara Connell described Corporate's goals for Clark and the second executive from McLean, Va.: Bob Oliver, a vice president for compensation and benefits.

Kool-Aid O.D. evidence
Last fall, I offered Clark's News Watch article as fresh evidence of how little Corporate had changed, more than two years after CEO Craig Dubow started pushing urgent, meaningful "transformation'' to keep Gannett alive. What was my smoking gun? First, some context.

The article was published by the News Department when long-time Gannett executive Phil Currie (left) was still in charge. (Fort Myers News-Press Executive Editor Kate Marymont assumed the position with Currie's retirement late last year.) Currie's job was to help journalists do watchdog journalism -- a newspaper's most fundamental responsibility -- at a time when GCI's finance side was putting the screws to newsroom budgets. I recall him mostly for his many, many editorial quality control and efficiency programs, beginning with 1991's News 2000, and ending with the Local Information Center business model of 2006.

Yet, by last September, Gannett's newsrooms were in disarray. Only a month before, the company had launched one of the largest workforce reductions in its 102-year history. The 600 newspaper employees laid off, combined with the elimination of 400 more jobs, was probably the industry's single-biggest such cut since World War II. (The December cuts were bigger, of course.)

So, looking to Corporate and the News Department for practical advice on rebuilding their increasingly emaciated newsrooms, here's what journalists got in that Sept. 18 News Watch article:

Headline: Find ways to strengthen your diversity efforts on Information Center Web site

Introduction: Four papers get cited for good work -- Cincinnati, Nashville, Phoenix, and St. Cloud, Minn. Then, word-for-word:

These are just a few examples of efforts by Gannett Information Centers to further understand and report on the diversity communities in which they live. These examples are based on information provided in the All-American Review materials and the Diversity Award entry process. We have culled “Best Practices” of journalism and Information Center actions that reflect the principles of All-American. Examples are organized by key areas in our collective outreach efforts: Diversity committees, Community outreach, Diversity examples, Mainstreaming examples, Staff development and Diversity source lists.

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[Today's St. Cloud Times front page, Newseum]