Sherman Bodner acknowledged plans are underway to create a common copy-editing desk for the three papers, which are about 50 miles apart in Central New York. They are the Press & Sun-Bulletin at Binghamton, The Ithaca Journal, and the Star-Gazette at Elmira. Yet, under that plan, Bodner said, the papers will retain their separate names and content, reflecting the distinct personalities of their communities.
Bodner and I spoke this morning after I contacted him with my concerns about the memo's authenticity. Reader Anonymous@11:14 p.m. posted it here last night, as the Binghamton staff struggled to cover a shooting in the city earlier in the day that claimed 14 lives.Today, Bodner said he read the memo early this morning, after editors put the Sun-Bulletin shooting edition to bed. The memo was based on a note he wrote several weeks ago, Bodner says, about changes in non-daily titles published by the Central New York Group, which he leads from Binghamton.
The memo had surfaced amid a new round of newspaper layoffs that began this past week. Plus, a merger of the three papers would fit with Corporate's new push for newspapers to establish regional design centers. These hubs would handle page production for several publications. Corporate wants them online as early as possible in the year's second half.
The memo had surfaced amid a new round of newspaper layoffs that began this past week. Plus, a merger of the three papers would fit with Corporate's new push for newspapers to establish regional design centers. These hubs would handle page production for several publications. Corporate wants them online as early as possible in the year's second half.
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.
When I saw the original post, i thought it very curious timing because of what was going on in Binghamton, and the sensitivities in corporate corridors about anything involving Elmira.
ReplyDeleteThe perpetrator of this hoax would be a lowlife under the best of circumstances. But in this case -- when the paper's staff is trying to cover a community tragedy -- it is far worse, because it only adds to employee and reader anxiety.
ReplyDeleteBodner should be much more concerned about whether the Binghamton home page will load properly so people can read the massacre coverage. I know there is ultra high demand, but I have had my computer freeze three times in the last hour trying to get into the site. Still not successful and I won't try again. A travesty. Can't this company do anything right? It makes me sick.
ReplyDeleteJim -- If the hoax perpetrator is a lowlife, you're a very guilty accomplice. If you had any common sense, you'd have spotted this as a hoax a mile away. (Memo like that being released in the middle of a national story? Get real!) My Gannett newspaper has never made an error this big in the 19 years I've worked there. Shame shame shame on you for being a rumor-monger instead of the journalist you once were. I don't know whether to be angry or sad for you. I encourage EVERYONE to bombard Jim with hoaxes to expose him for the fraud he really is.
ReplyDelete10:38 -- I too tried to load this page and it seized my browser. I had to force quit and restart it. Very sad.
ReplyDeleteJim, while more elaborate, this fake memo is no different from much of the stuff posted on this site by people like "My Boss" and others. Fabricated bullshit about mass layoffs, pay cuts, closing of significant numbers of papers -- they're all designed to do the same thing as this hoax memo. The intent is to make other people more miserable than the author. And you're absolutely complicit in it. You created the conditions that allowed for the fake memo, and you even promoted it with no idea of it's authenticity. The grains of salt warning are worthless, especially when you then go on to say it looks "alarmingly genuine."
ReplyDelete10:38, I agree that the publisher's focus should be on the Web site quality. It would be nice if he could focus on that, rather than on squelching bullshit perpetrated by Jim and his readers.
I would think that there is a chance that Bodner is just covering up - it would be his job to deny this even if it were true.
ReplyDeleteJim: This memo seemed genuine, and I'm still not convinced it's a hoax.
ReplyDeleteBut if it is fake, who's to say that someone like 11:00 AM didn't do it just to try to trap you? That'd be my guess.
Jim: Please listen. You call the disinformation spreader a lowlife. Ok. Now you understand how many people in the company feel about your blog. Whether intentionally - which many think - or not, you regularly spread wrong information. Now you are pissed about somebody doing it to you. Welcome to the club.
ReplyDeleteWhy wouldn't such a damaging memo be addressed by our corporate flack? Whoever that might be at the moment, I guess....
ReplyDeleteJim: Please listen. You call the disinformation spreader a lowlife. Ok. Now you understand how many people in the company feel about your blog. Whether intentionally - which many think - or not, you regularly spread wrong information. Now you are pissed about somebody doing it to you. Welcome to the club.
ReplyDelete4/04/2009 11:35 AM
________________
Right on, brother!
And once again thos eimortal words are being used: "...another round of layoffs." It is a constant activity and there are no more "rounds", just more every week where business requires. It's what the economy has come to.
Those trying to tarnish the credibility of this blog must know how ludicrous they sound. The alternative is too frightening to think about.
ReplyDelete11 am: Management's goons are not welcome here.
ReplyDeleteIt's not just the economy. This company's properties are being strip mined for short-term gain. Keep up the consolidations, and "regionalization," etc., and a number of the properties will be killed off. We're watching the beginning of what amounts to cannibalism.
ReplyDelete11:00 AM, 11:35 AM and 12:13 PM just need to STFU.
ReplyDeleteJim is doing the crowdsourcing and Internet journalism that Gannett is always preaching but does not practice. Unfortunately, because things move 1000x faster on the web, sometimes info turn out to be wrong. Suck it up.
I'm still not 100% convinced this memo is fake, though........
Hey Jim,
ReplyDeleteEasy on 11:00 AM. If my guess is right, from writing style and phrasing used, this is a person that care's deeply about the two CNY papers this person has worked at in the last 19 yrs. This person is just having/has had, a hard time seeing/believing what current CNY management is capible of. The heart is in the right place of this person if it is who I guess it is. Sorry for mis-spelled words, I'm not a journalist.
Jim: You say "management's goons" aren't welcome here. But apparently totally fabricated
ReplyDeleteand "alarmingly genuine" false rumors are welcome.
What a joke you are becoming. You could use your sources to filter out which tips are true and which are not, and then jus print the true ones. You know ... the way journalists do.
But apparently you are too lazy or too much of a troublemaker to want to filter out the lies.
I am NOT a management goon. I am just someone who has had more good experiences than bad ones with Gannett over the years. Maybe that's because I worked hard.
I challenge you to raise your standards. I double dog dare you to do so.
P.S. My verfication word: infact. Couldn't make that up if you gave me all day!
missing post, going to try again.
ReplyDeleteJeezz a lot of upper management/corp types on here today
Can NOT confirm memo but...
ReplyDeleteAny of the Elmira, Ithaca, Binghamton readers(or other readers of this) that think this is not coming, you're dreaming. ALL of this has been in the works for over 5 years. Look at date/time stamp of memo. On a Friday? 6:07 PM. This is perfect timing for Bodner and crew especially with the tragedy going on. It's their MO. When the bulk of employees that are left at the three sites get in Monday morning, no doubt this memo will be waiting in the inbox. (Unless IT spends all weekend deleting them.)
Has any one reported how many people have been layed off at Elmira & Ithaca since the first of the year? And if not layed off, elected to leave because to take the job offered in Binghamton would involve a 100+ mile drive daily? A close guess would be 8-10, with more to come this month. So much for furloughs saving jobs.
10:16 said "the sensitivites in corporate corridors about anything involving Elmira"???? Who are you kidding? There is no corporate sensitivity toward Elmira. No one at corp cares about Elmira. They proved that when they forced Trammer out and kept Bodner. Bodner, oh yea, the one that gets lost in the woods with snowshoes on. Care about Elmira? Look at the "working title" Press-Journal. Don't see Elmira, Star, or Gazette in there any place. There were no Kool-Aid drinkers in Elmira so they forced top management out. Hense the "Press-Journal".
It's been whispered for months that eventually the only difference you will be able to see in the papers is the mast head. They are half way there already. It's been whispered for months the Saturday paper will go away. That would leave Ithaca with a 5 day a week paper as they don't pub on Sunday now. Saturday classifieds 6 pages, 1 full page promo, 1 full page dealership ad, & 3/4 page dealership ad. That don't pay for a 8 page section.
11:00 AM said "MY Gannett paper has never made an error this big in the 19 years I've worked there", wonder who that is? There aren't many 19 year people left in CNY. To 11:00: a guess is 'your' Gannett paper is not really yours. Your's was the one 50 miles west of Binghamton. And you are right, THAT paper never made an error that big. Leadership shows.
That "fake" memo has Bodner & Co. written all over it. Or who ever faked it did one hell of a job and Gannett should hire them. And 11:09 sounds like a dept head out of Binghamton. Just trying to CYA.
For those that believe Bodner's smoke blowing about this "fake" memo being based on the memo about non-daily pubs going away, how could it be "based" on it when the "fake" memo references the earlier memo? He's blowing smoke because of the ham-fisted timing with the tragedy. Typical quasi back peddling that has been coming out of Binghamton for years now.
From so called fake memo: "more details will be coming in the next weeks as to exact timing". So does all this re-alignment have anything to do with the whispers about the 44 inch web? (not web as in online, web as in size of paper)
I will admit that this might be a hoax. And if so, as stated by others, shame on that person. But Jim's reflection of "alarmingly genuine" is on the mark for anyone that has seen/read a Bodner memo.
Guess on Monday we will find out, even if IT is able to get them all deleted. Who ever was fast enough to post it here, should have printed a hard copy. Lets hope they did if it's not a fake.
1:29 PM wrote: "You could use your sources to filter out which tips are true and which are not, and then jus print the true ones."
ReplyDeleteJim has addressed this before. He has no know-all "sources" that want to confirm or deny stuff like this.
If the company were a bit more open about anything, there would be no confusions like this ....... and thus no reason to have this blog at all.
All reporters make mistakes. The important thing is to admit them and make quick correction. Jim did this just fine.
For the record, Binghamton Web site is finally accessible in early afternoon.
ReplyDeleteBut why, on a day-to-day basis, are Gannett's cookie-cutter carousel templates so unsightly and slow? They mimic what it must have been like to slog through the La Brea Tar Pits.
It's amazing to watch folks defend an obviously bogus memo. According to the original post, it was sent to everyone at the three papers. Yet only one person received it?
ReplyDeleteAnd please, don't defend this as an example of "crowd-sourcing." This was someone with time on his/her hands posting a bogus memo, knowing that it would play to the biases of the blogger and be promoted. And you still have people here insisting that the memo is real or that what it proclaimed is actually happening. Amazing.
Jim, you mention a "perpetrator of this hoax," as if it was one person. You were involved in this also by promoting it without checking it out, despite all kinds of obvious warning signs that it was a fake.
I'm sure with all three sites selling their buildings that some kind of merger will be happening.
ReplyDeleteAs for the tragedy, all of the national news sites were basically cutting and pasting what Pressconnects was posting. This is a good example, if newspapers go away, where will CNN, Fox, MSNBC get their news if they can't copy it from the real journalists out there doing the actual work?
So what were all the "warning signs"? It seemed plausible to me.
ReplyDeleteThe Zenger Miller zealots do have spare time after all.
ReplyDeleteThe difficulty in seperating "real" Gannett memos from those that are bogus is made more difficult when the real ones from real people APPEAR to come from insane, blithering idiots.
ReplyDeleteSo don't criticize Jim here:
That memo could easily have been for real.
It is that crazy and self-defeating for this company.
Why on earth would anyone consider THAT to be fake if you know anything about Gannett?????
Realize this folks. Rumor mongering occurs because GCI isn't open with its employees.
ReplyDeleteTake a moment and think for yourselves. A week after furloughs are announced in a memo stating that they were to minimize layoffs, the company fires some 200 people.
If corporate wants to prevent rumors, it should straight out say, "These furloughs will allow staff cuts to remain at a 10 percent level, rather than the 15 percent they were budgeted for before furloughs."
Why not write a letter to Dumbo and Dickey accusing them of lying to staff. Certainly their memos were meant to minimize anxiety when they knew full well they'd be canning several hundred people in a week.
If corporate communicated with employees in a professional manner this blog would disappear because it would be unecessary.
Don't hold your breath.
My GCI paper posts press releases verbatim as news updates.
ReplyDeleteThis is the kind of journalism GCI encourages. So it's nice to see that those are the standards being applied by those who cover the company.
Why is Jim criticized for publishing a fake memo when Binghamton, using the same technology and verification standards, allowed PAGES AND PAGES of racist story chat comments about the shooting to go unedited on Friday while the story was developing.
ReplyDeleteAt least Jim called Bodner. Binghamton just allowed racists to tee off -- probably thinking it would help increase web traffic on one of the biggest days in its Web site history.
@11:00 a.m.
ReplyDeleteYou raise concerns that perhaps you are the memo's sender. lol
Further, I think your call to bombard Jim with hoaxes aims to make him LOOK like a fraud. So far, most of what he's unearthed has been true. See: media attention to the blog.
And "round" is a series of events, NOT constant activity. You can't hold people to account for definitions you invent.
I'm completely flabbergasted that people on this forum are criticizing Jim H for posting the anonymous memo from Sherm Bodner, which turned out to be a hoax. Why would you denigrate the one person who is working to get us timely information about the dirty lies and secrecy of GCI?
ReplyDeleteYes, sometimes the information on Jim's blog won't be accurate the first go-around. But how many times has Jim and/or the anonymous source on whom he has relied been dead-on correct? Many who work at or used to work at Gannett rely on Gannett blog to hear news about their own company, since they certainly aren't hearing it from the people in charge.
Isn't it funny how it took the publication of a fake memo for Bodner to say that the copy desk merger in Binghamton, Ithaca Elmira (BIE) was taking place? That shoe dropped in February, and those good people still don't know what their last day is going to be. Many of them had the option to apply for new jobs at a centralized Binghamton news desk, but barely anyone took up the offer, leaving the BIE sinkhole with a completely new problem. Rumors are flying not only in the newsrooms, but around the communities they cover. Yet a comprehensive story outlining the real changes coming down the pike at the CNY newspapers has not been published.
Lastly, I point out the bitter irony of people complaining about an anonymous memo, when that type of sourcing is the way journalism today is heading. Regarding the terrible tragedy at the Binghamton immigration center, anonymous idiots were coming out of the woodwork to make known their racist views and to spread false rumors on the Press and Sun's "In Your Voice" feature, and on their anonymous Live Blog.
7:21 AM wrote: "Why is Jim criticized for publishing a fake memo when Binghamton, using the same technology and verification standards, allowed PAGES AND PAGES of racist story chat comments about the shooting to go unedited on Friday while the story was developing."
ReplyDeleteCould it be that folks were BUSY covering the developing story of FOURTEEN people dead?
I wasn't fond of those comments either, but honestly there were more important concerns at the time.
(No, I don't work there .... just using common sense.)
To 1:04:
ReplyDeleteTo follow your logic on this:
I own a restaurant and bar. My restaurant gets busy on Friday night so I don't check IDs at my bar. A bunch of 18-year-old kids come in and get really drunk.
I'm sure the state liquor authority will accept my excuse when one of those kids gets killed in a car accident on the way home.
Keep drinking the Kool-Aid. Your job will be next.
Bottom line: If you "publish it" you are responsible for it. Jim's got some blood on his hands for the fake memo, but it's no different than what $2-per-share GCI does everyday.
No wonder advertisers don't want to go anywhere near story chat. Think of the amount of traffic reading it on Friday. If done right, it's a bonanza of eyeballs for the newspaper and advertisers. Done wrong, it's just junk.
Hey 2:23 PM -
ReplyDeleteYour analogy is so over the top that it's useless. Story comments killed NO ONE, unlike the hypothetical drunk kids you suggest.
You want to make another argument, go for it. I'm still waiting.
The last line of that memo is vintage Bodner. He closes all his memos with the lets keep this within the company line.
ReplyDeleteThe Star-Gazette has been gutted and pillaged to prop up Binghamton. The first Gannett newspaper is a shell of its former self, a glorified newsletter, while all its best writers, copy editors, designers and editors have either been scared off, laid off or consolidated into Binghamton. A once outstanding institution, a key part of the Elmira-Corning community, is all but gone.
ReplyDeleteThe memo might be a hoax, but it accurately describes the situation in Elmira. The first Gannett newspaper is a wreck, and the few good people who still (for now) have jobs in its newsroom have no resources to make it any better.
Sure reads like Bodner-speak to me.
ReplyDeleteThese rumors have been flying around the three papers for years.