I understand it's Jim's blog and he can focus on topics like this if he so chooses. But in all this time the blog has existed, I don't think enough attention was placed on the everyday, real world problems of employees of Gannett. What Al Neuharth makes in retirement or how Craig Dubow's back might impact the company probably has meaning and some sort of indirect impact on us all. I guess we should be more outraged.
Huge workloads, territorial misbehaviorBut I can't help feeling that lots of little stories were missed here. Combined, all the many smaller issues are what really makes or breaks a workplace. Employee spirits and productivity are often broken by bosses who hit the bottle a bit too much or by managers sleeping with the help. I know of one Gannett editor who was emotionally/clinically disturbed to the point where he should have been removed from his job years ago, before he inflicted so much damage on so many careers of people who worked for him. He went undetected because higher-ups refused to open their eyes to realities, a common problem at Gannett properties of all sizes:
- Staffers who have to pull double duty because of a coworker's incompetence.
- The general lack of accountability for some while others are held to impossibly high standards.
- The huge workloads and all the rework that is necessary because of territorial misbehavior.
- The inability of mid-level editors to truly lead without being either mean or over-the-top friendly (in sort of a fake way).
- The lack of respect that comes in all forms.
Wouldn't this be a great time to connect the dots between top dogs like Ken Paulson leaving USA Today for greener pastures and the pending layoffs? What was all that nonsense from him about not bailing out on USAT? I guess Kinsey Wilson and Craig Moon didn't bail either? C'mon. They knew what was coming. They didn't want any part of eliminating more jobs and ruining lives of people who worked for them. Maybe Jim should pester them for an interview now (or after July 8).
Editorial is surrendering
There is so much stamped deeply into the Gannett culture that it's become a mish-mash of misdirected fools in corner offices, on front lines of various desks and at the head of committees that accomplish nothing. One department goes in one direction. Another goes in a completely opposite one.
A really fearful trend is the blending of editorial with marketing/advertising. What the public has to be educated on now is that journalists are performing business functions for their papers. This is a particular ethical problem with the online versions of those papers. Even at the large papers, editors who should be thinking like journalists are instead acting like pitchmen. They are draining resources away from editorial content in a quest to prop up the marketing machines associated with these web sites. In essence, editorial is surrendering its independence -- a vary dangerous thing in a free society. I would have liked to have seen more written about this because even the biggest Gannett papers are doing it now. It's still subtle in some places, but it's happening.
To read the full comment, please go here.
Earlier: Fear factor -- Probing Gannett's mean-boss legacy
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Kudos to the person who wrote this. Thank you, thank you, and thank you 100 times more.
ReplyDeleteI think you'd have a hard time finding a Gannett employee who hasn't encountered these problems and more.
The most frustrating thing we're running into at my site right now is sitting on news so we can ration it out and fill every issue for the week. The reporters are finding the news and writing them immediately, and editors are holding onto them for days just to make sure we have enough to get us through the weekend.
It's infuriating. Meanwhile, our competition gets the story and publishes it for the next day, and the reporters are the ones who look like idiots.
This isn't journalism, folks. Let's stop pretending it is.
That entire thread sounds like Westchester
ReplyDeleteA Great read.
ReplyDeleteThis should be printed and hung by every water cooler and coffeepot across Gannettland.
I'll bet most papers can see part of themselves in this.
Print it, and hang it at eye level, like a mirror.
From what I've seen and experienced, this sounds like every site within Gannett. Great comments.
ReplyDeleteFantastic comments. And accurate. There is something about Gannett .... every newsroom I've ever worked in was the like the Land of Misfit Toys.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this piece. This needs to be distributed to all with all of it so true on so many levels. Most alarming is advertising and marketing dictating to the newsrooms what they should be doing, most notably at USA Today. It is sad watching this news resource turn into a series of advertiorials directed by marketing and pr hacks.
ReplyDeleteThat is just a brief on what goes on in Westchester. The bullshit is much thicker at that site, like the AME who takes over other departments to try to save his own job.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's just Gannett. I've known other newsrooms that were just as dysfunctional. Chalk it up to the facts that (1) many editors/reporters aren't good people managers and (2) the editorial side is considered by the higher-ups to be a necessary evil, just people who fill in the spaces between the ads.
ReplyDeleteThis portion of the excellent post is especially true, and getting worse:
ReplyDelete"A really fearful trend is the blending of editorial with marketing/advertising. What the public has to be educated on now is that journalists are performing business functions for their papers. This is a particular ethical problem with the online versions of those papers. Even at the large papers, editors who should be thinking like journalists are instead acting like pitchmen. They are draining resources away from editorial content in a quest to prop up the marketing machines associated with these web sites. In essence, editorial is surrendering its independence -- a vary dangerous thing in a free society. I would have liked to have seen more written about this because even the biggest Gannett papers are doing it now. It's still subtle in some places, but it's happening."