The Cincinnati Enquirer will move to the new design hub at The Indianapolis Star, according to a tipster, who says "mid-level editors" began informing staff last week: "No timetable or specifics were given, just a heads up. Normally, low-rung employees are kept in the dark until the last minute, so this must be happening."In New York, the Poughkeepsie Journal is joining The Journal News at Westchester, according to tipsters, who quote staff and an unidentified editor at the PoJo. "The copy desk and graphics departments are being let go in the last half of the year, possibly in July or December. Ten people in total. Copy desk folk were told they could reapply for their jobs at the Journal News. I assume the graphics people were told the same,'' one tipster says.
"Sorry, sorry state of affairs,'' their note continues. "Community is very upset by the slow painful demise of the PoJo, especially since the only other real local-local source of news -- the weekly Taconic Newspapers group of weeklies -- bit the dust about a month ago, closed by the Journal Register Co."
Dickey's Interstate memoThe PoJo switch would follow Gannett's plans to sell the paper's historic downtown building (left) -- one reflecting the architectural interests of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose nearby Hyde Park estate served as White House annex in 1933-45.
The Interstate hub isn't a surprise; newspaper Division President Bob Dickey outlined the plan when Corporate spoke to Wall Street media analysts at the March 18 conference of the Media and Entertainment Analysts of New York.
Interstate and Poughkeepsie would be at least the third new hub in the works. The Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin, plus The Ithaca Journal and the Star-Gazette in Elmira are building a regional copy desk. So, too, is the Asbury Park Press and three other New Jersey Group papers. Gannett's 10-paper Wisconsin Group has run a regional copy and page-production desk for some time.
Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write gannettblog[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the green rail, upper right.
[Today's front page, Newseum]
copy desk = quality control
ReplyDelete"Is there some principal of nature which states that we never know the quality of what we have until it is gone?" - Herman Melville
I can see the reason for consolidation of the copy desk and graphics department, but why let go the graphics people in Poughkeepsie when they do a superior job with news graphics. Does Westchester even have graphics department or were they let go already?
ReplyDeleteLast week, the Indy Star's newsroom was informed during a newsroom-wide meeting that talks about regional copy and/or design desks are only talks at this point. No firm decisions have been made, the paper's editor said, and he said he still has questions about whether a central copy desk would work or make sense with distances between the Interstate Group's paper being so large. It rings false that individual staffers were notified of an impending change when staff as a whole has been told that's definitely not the case.
ReplyDeleteThere are no guarantees that PoJo staffers will get jobs they apply for in Westchester. The Journal News has had layoffs as well and could choose to hire back people who used to work there.
ReplyDeleteIt's a raw deal for Poughkeepsie.
A slow death by a company that doesn't know what it's doing.
Jim likes the idea of ramming like things together.
ReplyDeleteThe Journal News has a graphics department, but the Web takes up most of their time. Absorbing Poughkeepsie will have to involve hiring Poughkeepsie editors. The Journal News desk is not familiar with the people and places of Dutchess County. Besides, I think the severance and buyout agreements prevent the JN from hiring back editors.
ReplyDeleteHow can the web take up most of graphics department time, aren't all the Gannett web sites formated? There is nothing spectacular going on with these sites.
ReplyDelete"How can the web take up most of graphics department time, aren't all the Gannett web sites formated? There is nothing spectacular going on with these sites."
ReplyDeleteGraphics aren't pre-formatted, idiot!
OK, name caller, what graphics are you talking about, please explain? Are you talking about putting type in a bar and calling that graphic?
ReplyDeleteI am not the name caller, but it sounds like there are some issues with terminology here. Some pages on Gannett's websites have formatted "designs", but the graphics departments, in most papers, do interactive graphics with diagrams, illustrations, data and animations usually in flash. Very similar to what is done for print. These are two completely separate areas. Due to shrinking news hole, a lot of graphics departments are using the web as an outlet.
ReplyDeleteCombined copy desk functions have been standard for years for Gannett papers in Ohio.
ReplyDeleteThe desk in Zanesville builds the Zanesville and Coshocton papers. The desk in Mansfield builds the Mansfield and Bucyrus papers. The desk in Fremont builds Fremont and Port Clinton papers.
There may be further consolidation in the future. But it truly is nothing new for Ohio papers.
No, I'm not talking about static images used as page headers, that were created in photoshop to be used on the template pages. There are 'interactive' graphics, and it is those online graphics that take up the majority of a graphic department's time.
ReplyDeleteSo, the earlier comment about not knowing how online could take up so much of a graphics department's time. Well, the interactive graphics are not pre-formatted, and your local graphics department doesn't design the site.
Signed,
The Name Caller
Name Caller (he likes his new name) I've been on a bunch of Gannett sites and do not see much of what you are talking about, can you give some links that will show examples of this.
ReplyDeleteJust off the top of my head:
ReplyDeletehttp://blogs.usatoday.com/interactivity/?loc=interstitialskip
http://www.indystar.com/interactive
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20090326/MULTIMEDIA/90326014/-1/multimedia
http://www.azcentral.com/flash/foreclosures/113008/fmapv1.html
http://data.desmoinesregister.com/parkersburg/parkersburg.php
Come on Name Caller, show us some links. Corporate may be reading this, the job you save might be your own. And isn't that what its all about, saving your own ass.
ReplyDeleteIt's absurd that the Cincinatti paper, which is one of the 50 largest papers in the nation by print circulation, is farming out its copy editing, design and graphics functions just so Gannett can report double-digit or close-to-double digit profit margins!
ReplyDeleteThanks Name Caller for taking the time to show me the links. What I could gather is that some sites are doing interactive graphics, but most are not.
ReplyDeleteWhat's more absurd about Cincinnati is that they also have 27 community weekly newspapers , CinWeekly, etc...if they can't create a plan to build those, with the Enquirer in Cincinnati, then something must really be wrong in the Queencity.
ReplyDelete