Fort Myers | After Hudler, News-Press angst

The e-mail came in not long ago, a plaintive plea from someone near one of Gannett's financially challenged Florida papers: "If you hear anymore about Fort Myers's pressroom, please let me know.''

Their worries are understandable. Gannett is eyeing at least eight press and production facilities, looking for ways to reduce costs by outsourcing printing to other papers. U.S. newspaper division President Bob Dickey didn't identify likely candidates when he spoke to Wall Streeters last month. But The News-Press at Fort Myers has floated to the speculative surface; two Gannett Blog tipsters say printing could be shifted, possibly to the Naples Daily News, an E.W. Scripps paper 43 miles south on the Gulf Coast.

That the News-Press could be in the crosshairs isn't surprising. Fort Myers became a poster child for the real estate meltdown, especially in Florida -- setting it up as a candidate for especially deep budget cuts amid a lowered profile. Its strategic importance in Gannett was downgraded in November, when the South Group's headquarters got moved to Nashville, after the paper's publisher, Carol Hudler, was named chief executive of The Tennessean. Two months later, as near as I can tell, Corporate still hasn't named a News-Press replacement publisher.

Meanwhile, Gannett moved the Pensacola paper's printing 58 miles away, to Mobile, Ala., last summer; that cut 84 high-paying production jobs. "Pensacola was just an appetizer (some said it wouldn't work),'' Anonymous@10:56 p.m. wrote Jan. 8. "Shooting Ft. Myers will be filet mignon."

To be sure, the News-Press has already taken it on the chin: By my count, the paper has eliminated at least 20% of its jobs in two rounds of layoffs last July and in 2008. I suspect the number is higher; Corporate doesn't disclose paper-by-paper job cuts, so we don't know.

The newspaper's strategic downgrade illustrates another truism in Gannett: Financial considerations nearly always trump editorial success. Recall that the News-Press was a leader in developing the Information Center model prior to its late-2006 companywide rollout. Indeed, then-top editor Kate Marymont rode that success to a promotion as vice president of Corporate's News Department, which oversees editorial for all the U.S.

Got a news tip? Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.

[Image: this morning's News-Press, Newseum]