Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Tip | Editors reported in 'secret budget meetings'

Anonymous@10:34 p.m. yesterday says: "Top editors got called to DC for secret budget meetings, apparently forecast is worse than believed. Possibly another 2-3% cuts needed."

Is this because of the reportedly dismal Period 6 results? Our very authoritative source My Boss said: "Period 6 was a disaster."

Is URGENTLY need more confirmation on this -- or it gets pulled. Please post your replies ASAP 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.

23 comments:

  1. At our small site, we've lost 2,000subscribers in the past few months and ad revenue is down 40 percent. And the Web isn't our future; at least once a day they have a headline spelled wrong, and once a week it's the name of our city that's wrong.
    I've already started packing, just in case.

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  2. kind of stay out of the loop in my department but heard rumor of a company plan to conver from print to all-web production. does it have an official name?

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  3. That might be true at some of the bigger, money-losing properties. But I'd be shocked if they went that route at others. Although the newsprint/press/production savings would be good.

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  4. Wouldn't the loss in print ad revenue trump whatever is saved in print costs??

    No one is making money on the web yet -- I fail to see how web only makes sense.

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  5. Unbelievable. Somebody posts something and now you want anlysis.

    Truth is, there are no editors converging on D.C.

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  6. 11:31 am - You must be in Chillicothe, or one of the small Indiana dailies.....

    Notoriously bad products.

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  7. Jim, our top editors, if you want to call them that, as still onsite.

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  8. That could mean I've got a bum tip -- or that some editors haven't left yet.

    It's possible/likely this meeting won't take place until after July 15, when Corporate holds its teleconference with Wall Street analysts. I would like they would want editors to stay onsite through the end of next week.

    At some papers, every manager will need to be involved in notification meetings.

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  9. Tipster says their TV station G.M. Has been called to a hurry-up meeting in DC. Anyone else know anything?

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  10. Why would they call TV GMs to DC? They already did Broadcast.

    I feel relatively certain that whatever is going to happen on the newspaper end will happen, and be made public, prior to July 15th. In my view, there is no way Gannett management wants to go into that conference call with no 3Q furloughs and no other 3-4Q opex savings already publicly locked in.

    If you've been reading or listening to the last couple financial conference calls, it's been a big issue. Trying to skate by with "we'll announce something in the near future" won't go over well.

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  11. xxxThey already did Broadcastxxx

    no, you are sadly mistaken. They have not yet done broadcasting. The 6 percent salary reduction was just the opening shot.

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  12. I am hearing a 23 percent drop in revenue for broadcasting in Q2. Wait and see 7/15 to see if this rumor is correct.

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  13. The #2 guy in the newsroom at KARE 11 was let go last week. There has been a rolling reduction of broadcasting right along. KARE's headcount is down 20%

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  14. Top 2 eds. at my place were also sent to DC today. That's no bum tip, Jim.

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  15. One would think that if they are rushing off to DC to talk about (or take direction about) upcoming cuts due to dropping revenues, the local publishers would be a part of this, not just editors. And maybe they would summon the advertising directors as well. I can tell you that the middle management types in our advertising and retail ad department are very nervous because they've heard nothing from on high like they did the last times. Anyone else with thoughts along these lines?

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  16. What constitutes a "secret meeting?" If editors received an email asking them to come to a meeting in D.C., would that constitute a secret meeting because the rest of the staff did not receive an email announcing the meeting? Just trying to understand the difference between a meeting and a secret one as "secret" makes it sound lots spookier.

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  17. At smaller papers most ME's also serve as the GM's possibly explaining their attendance. Or ofcourse the absence of the Publishers could be foreshadowing their impending layoffs, which would in turn boost the attending editors into the top GM position that would be created from their elimination.

    See CNY model, it is already done there and will spread elsewhere.

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  18. "At our small site, we've lost 2,000subscribers in the past few months and ad revenue is down 40 percent. And the Web isn't our future; at least once a day they have a headline spelled wrong, and once a week it's the name of our city that's wrong.
    I've already started packing, just in case."

    Jim is wrong every day.

    Every day, some illiterate moron here misspells a second-grade level word.

    Jim allows actionably libelous posts on almost a daily basis.

    Your site is still outperforming this one by a large margin.

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  19. My standards for comments exceed many, if not most, Gannett newspaper StoryChat, etc., comment forums.

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  20. Those sites have real news, though. You run with rumors as fact.

    Your credibility is far lower than theirs. Plus, you are a proven nutcase who flipped out at the Gannett meeting.

    And your performance reviews would reveal you to be a career-long, below-average journalist who hurt the environment of the workplace.

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  21. 7:25 pm is posting false information in an attempt to get me to moderate comments in advance. That would require that I stay up all night, or prevent you from posting.

    I'd rather let him/her trash me, than deny you that opportunity. It's B.S.

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  22. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  23. Whatever. Without this site, I wouldn't have known about all the crap that Gannett has tried to censor from their employees. Everything bad that has happened to my paper and my coworkers has been predicted/reported by this site first. So, thank you, Gannett Blog, for your help. And Gannett...shame on you. Shame.

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Jim says: "Proceed with caution; this is a free-for-all comment zone. I try to correct or clarify incorrect information. But I can't catch everything. Please keep your posts focused on Gannett and media-related subjects. Note that I occasionally review comments in advance, to reject inappropriate ones. And I ignore hostile posters, and recommend you do, too."

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