"USA Today is going to be a survivor."
Jason Tyler, a senior vice president at Ariel Capital Investments, now Gannett's No. 2 stockholder. "The first place companies will start spending again is advertising," Tyler told Bloomberg News, "and the newspaper’s reach will make it very attractive to marketers."
This guy with Ariel is right on. Check in with Brett Wilson SVP Advertising at USAT on this -- advertising is finally making plan so there's some good news on the horizon for a change.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely right. USA TODAY will be a survivor. And not just because advertisers will stick with us, but because those of us on the content side are turning the ship toward smart content that works well in print, web and mobile.
ReplyDeleteUSAT is in bigger trouble than some may have thought- according to a new article in the Chicago Daily Herald (http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=286203), USAT is reporting “A very small impact” regarding the loss of Marriott’s full delivery of the paper. Here’s the great Gannett spin- reporting the loss to be 68,000 copies per day or 3% of their circulation. Marriott announces the cuts are at 2,600 hotels which is 26 papers per property. With the average property being over 100 rooms am I the only one thinking the numbers are wrong by about half and that the loss of circulation might be closer to 6 or 7%? Get another hotel company to follow suite and you could see a drop in circulation exceeding 10% just in hotels and related ad revenue.
ReplyDeleteI hear Gannett is going to surprise Wall Street on Thursday.
ReplyDeleteWhat is "smart content?"
ReplyDeleteDoes 'content' have intelligence?
Spin, spin, spin.
USA TODAY isn't turning the ship anywhere. This is a newspaper in decline, particularly in content and editing. If you compare the journalism going on there now to just a few short years ago, it's not even close.
ReplyDeleteContent online is also a joke and does away with substance in favor of gimmicks. The site looks cleaner and seems to function better than in the past (God, was that horrible site or what a couple years ago), but has nothing of unique or profound value on it. It's mainly fun and games and filled with idiotic AOL-like tricks to get you to keep clicking - or as they so called it, "interact." God, if that is interacting, then I think I might just forget media sites.
What unique reporting there is at USA TODAY.com is filled with typos, content errors or is just superficial at best. It's worse than the paper, although the print version is catching up in the sloppiness race.
The visuals are even more moronic. The web site will run a map locating New York City to accompany a story about something going on there, like that adds understanding to the story. Like people don't know where New York City is. Maybe the people making those decisions don't.
I can't trust this brand anymore. Not for news. Just too much sloppiness that kills anything positive that they might be doing or were beginning to accomplish before this dropoff. I'd like to be a fly on the wall at some of their meetins. Probably too many shallow, tech geeks running the show like elsewhere. And probably too many experienced newspeople thrown overboard in this economy. I have nothing against tech folks, but when they start playing amateur journalist, and real journalists are being let go, it makes me irate. There should be a place for both, but what corporations are apparently doing is favoring the tech people in hopes they will acquire some editing skills along the way. It doesn't work that way! And once the libel suits begin piling up, perhaps these companies will begin to appreciate what experience brings to the table.
Too many mistakes in content on both platforms. It's becoming rather obvious that style has replaced substance -- not that USA TODAY is known for substance -- but this is ridiculous. I feel like I am reading a college paper/web site when I look at USA TODAY. What's the demographic they are going after? The 13- through 19-year-olds with iPhones attached to their heads?
The paper and site have lost ground in the credibility war against the outlets like the NYT, probably because the Times wisely chose to keep real editors in the house while making the transition to digital. You don't see the total loss of journalistic basics falling by wayside at the Times. Headlines still make sense. Objectivity still has its place.
Unfortunately, in this dumbing down society that we live in, USA TODAY probably will endure. It just won't be considered the definitive brand for reliable and probing news. No real watchdog journalism going to happen there in the future. It will be an entertainment brand run by people who grew up in a Facebook world. And CNN and other traditional news media aren't far behind. I can't even watch the Nightly News anymore. The stories are filled with holes and TV producers seem to be favoring slick graphics that say nothing over real reporting and leg work.
Journalism is in dismal shape and USA TODAY is no exception. The public is not being served well. Where are the editors? Where is the reporting that digs beneath the surface? How about news judgment? Why does every headline have to be a trick now to get me to "interact?"
This content at USA TODAY doesn't work well in print or on the web site. It might have an audience, but that audience also is fascinated by Dancing With The Stars. Frankly, USA TODAY peeps, you can have that audience! I am getting my news elsewhere.
10:29: I didn't gleen what you state from the article you quote (USAT is in bigger trouble than some may have thought- according to a new article in the Chicago Daily Herald). Where did the article say that?
ReplyDeleteNo one knows what will happen with customers at Marriott. I bet Marriott will be surprised at how many customers are unhappy. I suspect this will turn out to be a temporary, economy-driven decision that will be reversed down the road when hotel occupancy improves.
PLEASE DONT BUY THE GANNETT STOCK IT WILL GO INTO FREE FALL OVER THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS !!!
ReplyDelete10:42. I concur! All these people are the same with their SPIN. It's like they have to sell themselves on their own crap. They actually have themselves convinced they are smart.
ReplyDelete"Smart content" is really funny, especially when used in the same sentence as USA Today. Has anyone really examined USA Today lately?
I once thought that newspaper was turning the corner and becoming a legitimate source for news. I was actually beginning to enjoy reading it and could respect the effort going into it to get it away from the McPaper tag it had. Something or someone has changed course, and it doesn't appear to me to be very smart at all.
Oh great, Jim - one of us out here finally points out an article from four days ago and you just now get around to posting the story - but you do so with minimal fan fare. It figures. News like this isn't what you want to hear or share.
ReplyDeleteGood news doesn't play on this blog and you only post a story like this when someone else backs you into a corner. Unless, of course, good news to you is different from good news to the rest of us not on a vendetta.
What a crock.
I don't think you are capable of balance in your reporting. This is more like Fox News. You are so one-sided it's painfull.
"Smart content," "branding," "interacting,"... it's all in lieu of real ideas/intiatives and sound journalism. Labels mean nothing. Editing and hard work are everything. USA TODAY has moved so far away from good journalism it may never return. So yes, the spin continues to spin out of control at that once proud newspaper.
ReplyDeleteSpin? You want to talk about spin?
ReplyDeleteWhat the heck does Jim do but spin pretty much everything?
Oops. Gotta' go. The sky is falling.
Hey, 11:30. You can always read the Gannetteer if you want fluffy, cheerleading news about GCI/USAT. Most of us come here to get the other side of the story that we can't get elsewhere. If you want to call that a lack of balance, fine. That's your right. But please, we don't need another platform for happy news here. Every memo or communication that comes from the Crystal Palace is filled with happy news, spinning, deceit, PR. What Jim provides is a venue for all the stuff that the suits don't want you to hear or even think about.
ReplyDeleteJim may slant things at times, but no one spins more than GCI. And if Jim has to lean the other way in order to balance things out a bit, most of us have no problem with that. Gannett created Jim. And in a way created this blog. If Gannett showed more honesty, didn't throw innocent people out onto the streets under the guise of "job eliminations" due to the economy, then this blog wouldn't exist. Gannett created the monster by being like so many other dysfunctional American companies. Now it has to live with it. Welcome to the age of being able to fight back against corporations like Gannett.
ReplyDeletegotta luv the folks coming here looking for pro-gannett comments and then getting upset when Jim doesn't comply!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteRE: 11:41 AM
ReplyDeleteYeah, like Jim's supposed to be the official Gannett cheerleader or something.
11:30 and 11:32 am:
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry Gannett Blog doesn't meet your needs. Please start a Gannett website of your own, following my example. Spend more than a year building a blog from scratch. Get paid little or no money. Then experience what it's like to be bashed by anonymous posters like you.
To 11:26 a.m. who said this: "Smart content" is really funny, especially when used in the same sentence as USA Today. Has anyone really examined USA Today lately?
ReplyDeleteI once thought that newspaper was turning the corner and becoming a legitimate source for news. I was actually beginning to enjoy reading it and could respect the effort going into it to get it away from the McPaper tag it had. Something or someone has changed course, and it doesn't appear to me to be very smart at all.
I totally agree. I used to think USAT was a decent paper, or at least rounding the corner, too. But the last several times I've had a chance to read it, I've actually been embarrassed. Typos galore, sloppy editing, boring stories, none of the graphics they were known for.
And the Web site? I looked at every other news site online during election season in the fall to see what was up each day, but never cared for the USAT site and rarely looked at it. It's like amateur hour.
USA Today rose and fell in a blink of an eye. It is shell of what it previously was not all that long ago. This is not a brand that has the prestige of other brands. It has remnants of a once-trendy appeal, but it's obvious, even to the casual reader, that the solid reporting and flashy graphics no longer exist on most days. In fact, some of the graphics look like they were created by my third-grader. Wonder how long before the writing declines to that level?
ReplyDeleteJim, don't worry about those two posters. The vast majority of us understand and appreciate what you're trying to do here. I don't even think those posters understand the concept of this blog, let alone the work that goes into it. They want this blog to reflect company values much the way the old Soviet Union was supported by a large propaganda machine. I don't come here to read Gannett PR. I come here for different takes on the company and to be informed and, I must confess, slightly entertained by the postings and comments about a company that has betrayed so many of us. Among the speculation, there is also some very good info contained in this blog. I would recommend it for anyone considering working for this company. Could save them a lot of heartache.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry Gannett Blog doesn't meet your needs. Please start a Gannett website of your own, following my example. Spend more than a year building a blog from scratch. Get paid little or no money. Then experience what it's like to be bashed by anonymous posters like you.
ReplyDelete4/14/2009 12:48 PM
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Boo hoo. I guess I'm smart enough not to do that. Makes me wonder why you do it. It has to feed somethigng but it certainly isn't financially fullfilling. Must be cathartic.
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ReplyDeleteThe flagship will survive, but will not be a major media player for much longer. The nation's newspaper is about to become just another fish wrapper with eventually about half the staff it currently supports. And, strangely enough, the demise is self inflicted. Too much faith from above in all the wrong people. What built USA Today is no longer valued.
ReplyDelete2:44...GO AWAY! You are clearly not comfortable here, so why hang around? Your perspective is limited at best. Your mind isn't very open or appreciative. You have nothing to offer other than banter. And you can't seem to take even a mild retort of your opinions without reducing yourself to a junior high school-like comment. Maybe blogs with contrary opinions just aren't for you.
ReplyDeleteI see USA TODAY as a secondary player in the future. Maybe even a bit more irrelevant than that. I don't see it trending in the positive direction it once was. Appears it wants to abandon print and become some sort of Google-like entity with limited original content or journalistic assets. That's fine. Products morph into other things. But let's not pretend USA TODAY is interested in being a hard-hitting news organization anymore. That ship has sailed.
ReplyDeleteWhat I fear is that once the honeymoon is over with the bells and whistles of the web, and people once again begin to thirst for credible news and sports reports on whatever platform, USA TODAY will not be able to crawl back into the journalism business. In fact, many current news organizations, which are getting rid of journalists by the hundreds, are going to be in for a rude awakening once America wakes up and wants its media to do what the media should do in a democracy. Newspapers aren't the only things going extent. Journalism itself, whether it be in print or broadcast, has taken a heavy blow lately.
The country has remained strong because, in part, the media has done its job. In the current environment of most newsrooms, where web engineers and Internet "reporters" are taking the jobs of veteran editors, writers and others, watchdog journalism is dying. So is good, solid, basic reporting, research, writing and design. That is not a good thing for a country that claims to value its freedom. But the big corporations, that own most media, are not so interested in things like that. They are interested in where the money is going. Therefore, they are gambling on shiny web sites and pop-up ads, as they show the door to the people who were once part of a noble profession.
Sorry to sound like an old crank, but this is true, dangerous and not just some romantic notion from a former newspaper guy. Corporations have failed to protect the backbone of newspapers while transitioning into new media. And it's all about money. The only real journalism that will be going on will be at the smaller, family-run operations. Might not be much money or fanfare in the mom and pop newsrooms, but my guess is that those smaller publications will thrive and gain more respect as papers like USA TODAY give up the quest to remain the nation's newspaper.
For young journalists who still understand the value the role of media in a democracy, look to the smaller papers, web sites, news letter, non-profits and magazines to practice your craft. You will have far more job satisfaction than you will working for a corporation like Gannett.
However, if your idea of good journalism is in showing 60 seconds of some crappy but sensationalized video in a two-inch window over the net, then Gannett and USA TODAY might be the place for you.