First, Tara Connell the ContentOne vice president is quoted in the statement, announcing that Gannett Digital's Jennifer Carroll and her team are moving to the nascent news and web pagination initiative. Then, Connell the public relations vice president is listed at the bottom as contact person for any newspaper beat reporters seeking more information about the newly repurposed but shrunken Gannett News Service.Corporate branded ContentOne with a Dilbertesque name already in danger of losing all credibility. My question: Who wrote this statement? Surely, not Connell, too?!
Brief iPhone post; will update later. Comment, below, please!
Tara Connell is a buffoon. I thought the same thing Jim. She writes her own press release. She includes her own quote AND she is named as the PR contact.
ReplyDeleteI am surprised this press release did not have Craig Dubow or Chris Saridakis quoted in it.
I think it is also weird that Jennifer Carroll would report into Tara Connell. That seems backward.
Now I really wonder what Kate Marymount thinks of all of this!!!
We would all get fired if we quoted ourselves in news stories, but that's another part of the rules that don't apply to corporate. I also found this release really strange, because it seems to imply that Tara is getting edged out of the ContentOne operation (whatever that is) and that Carroll is taking over. Yet they will operate with two of them for a while. My bet is that Carroll wins. Carroll doesn't take fools lightly, and is all business.
ReplyDeleteI agree with 4:18p. I wonder if Connell is being set up by Dubow and he secretly wants Carroll running Content One. I am not sure Carroll has the qualifications for this new project, but at least she has more relevant experience than Tara Connell who's claim to fame was working at USA Today decades ago!
ReplyDeleteJennifer is great and I hope she crushes Tara in her new role. I am not sure Jennifer would take this new job if she didn't think she would be in charge of it.
ReplyDeleteCarroll has imagination and enthusiasm, both of which Tara lacks. That is why my bet is on Carroll. I also thought her a leading candidate for Moon's job, but obviously this means she is now out of that running.
ReplyDeleteWhat does Kate M. think of all of this?!?!?
ReplyDeleteConnell is a loser.
Jennifer..You go girl!!!
I am usually pro, rather than anti, management. But the questions about this are astounding. Who is running this initiative? Who is the PRESIDENT of ContentOne? What does is mean for all of the properties in the field? What does this say about digital? What does this say about whether USAToday stays in its silo or is forced to play with the rest of the operation? What is the role of Dickey, who controls the majority of the info gathering in the company? Or Chris S.? Amazing that the corporation would allow all these questions, and many more, to go unanswered. It appears someone is making stuff up, day by day, without any apparent plan.
ReplyDeleteCarroll is one of the more human people at corporate. She knows what it is like to work at a community newspaper because she has done that. She also is exceptionally smart, but does not condescend. That's rare there. This newest assignment will be a test. There will be huge problems with the roll-out, not the least of which will be dealing with newsrooms that are completely against changing the way things have been done for decades. Right or wrong, the new way forward will be tough sledding.
ReplyDeleteAnybody ever heard the phrase regarding a monkey doing something to a football. It makes for an exhausting but humorous exercise.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, with everything going on, one would think this is when management might step up and show leadership. There are thousands of employees hoping management has a plan and direction and thousands of ex-employees recognizing the poor economic conditions but seeing this absolute pathetic excuse of execution as part of the reason for the overall problems.
Someone throw them a football.
If Content One basically provides the important national news for all the little local papers to use, why don't they just call it USA TODAY which in theory carries all the important national news. Then they could eliminate all the local Publishers, have 4 editors handle all the local papers, report to Tara Connell's admin and produce a few local pages daily and stuff it into the USA TODAY.
ReplyDeleteI still find it amazing that Kate Marymont, the supposed vice president/news, has nothing to say about and apparently plays no role in ContentOne, which would seem to be a news product.
ReplyDeleteDoes it really matter, Jennifer or Tara? Both are rank amateurs in the digital space - and I mean the real digital space, not how GCI newspaper division defines it.
ReplyDeleteTara did a great job at Westchester
ReplyDeleteDoes ContentOne have a budget? Do they have revenue targets? Or are they just a support arm to other divisions?
ReplyDelete7:18
ReplyDeleteI can't tell if you are serious or not, but I've had some of the same thoughts.
Saridakis has experience as a manager in companies that deliver or produce ads, but not in any company that actually produces original content that an audience wants. What this latest move means is that Gannett's two digital divisions are not focused on or motivated by creating content, building audiences or journalism. In digital ventures, we have a glorified "digital operating agency" not too unlike a JOA. In the new digital, we have production and sales. That's it.
ReplyDelete"I too thought it was strange as she was quoted and the person to contact," said armandor@baxterbulletin.com
ReplyDeleteNow am I going to get fired?
7:18 Exactly. I have had the same thought. So what is ContentOne that USA Today is not? I think the original idea was that ContentOne would write ad-friendly copy for the newspapers -- top 10 jewelry bling teenagers today like, hot furniture colors in 2009, trendy kitchenware, etc. But I don't think the advertisers went for it. A dirty little secret is that what is trendy in L.A. isn't in Binghamton, and there are climatic differences that inhibit national gardening sections, etc. I heard ContentOne was to be prepared pages local papers could just drop in their papers, but there is no uniformity of presses across Gannett (in spite of what we think), and local papers still would have to spend time ripping up the pages to insert local ads or house ads, according to local sales. So I don't know quite what ContentOne is, and believe that Carroll is being put in here to save the project by making it all largely digital and Web oriented. Just shows you what happens when you screw around with things that have operated for years.
ReplyDelete6:09 The time I've been with the company (<5 yrs) I have yet to see anything come down from corporate that hasn't had huge problems with the roll-out. We rock along doing great then all of a sudden something new comes down from corporate and our numbers plunge because it's a knee-jerk reaction program or a pet project of somebodys and the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. I wish I had a dollar for every time we call corporate and nobody knows whats going on let alone has workable solutions to the problems they create.
ReplyDelete10:11,
ReplyDeleteMy 7:18 post was being very serious although in a fun, this is all too odd to take seriously way. Gannett is very close to having two "National" products and will have some explaining to do if Content One collects timely national news that doesn't make the "National" paper. Plus, I've heard as much as 60% of USA TODAY's circ was in front of hotel occupied rooms. Hotel occupancy is down in business hotels anywhere from 20-45%. Just wait until advertisers question that.
RE: 7:18 & 10:11 PM
ReplyDeleteI think you hit the nail right on the head. USA Today - Regional Edition. Eliminate damn near everyone but a reporter or two and some local ad reps. Run it out of a small office.
Print it at regional hubs, upload local stories and photos electronically, upsell local ads, supported globally by national ads...
The technology's already in place. Just gotta figure out how to use it correctly.
4/01/2009 11:57 PM
ReplyDeleteYou said a mouthfull.
In the 9 years I was with the company I can't tell you how many times I had to debug corporate's technical rollouts, fix them, and send the corrected product back to 'em. Now here's the kicker... instead of putting the fixes in the product (thus announcing to everyone that they fugged up), they'd just say "thanks!" and turn around and pass along the same broken code letting everyone down the chain figure it out for themselves.
Amazing, and what a complete waste of money, time and resources.