Sunday, January 24, 2010

Week Jan. 18-24 | Your News & Comments

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39 comments:

  1. The wife is back in Reno. Has her own office in the advertising department. Wonder what her job title is. Any word?

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  2. Jim- Again, are you looking into the e-mail deleting scandal and abuse of power at Westchester? Check all the posts on it at Gannettoid for background if you need to.

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  3. 12:21 p.m.: It would help my effort if someone could produce a copy of the original e-mail.

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  4. 12:21,

    Can you give us the scoop on what is happening with the emails in Westchester? I might have missed it when it was first posted. MF up to his old tricks??

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  5. Anonymous said...
    If newsprint goes up $80 per ton this year, look for more cuts to the news hole and more cuts to classified, and more cuts, and so on, and so on, and so on...

    1/17/2010 11:46 PM

    You idiot - Gannett budgeted for newsprint to be well over $100 a ton. Anything less is a bonus and you don't know what you're talking about.

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  6. Jim and 12:21 If you read the postings on Gannettoid's Forum listed under Layoff News and then The Journal News/Westchester, you get the whole scoop in detail including who did what. Clearly Jim, unless the person who wrote it or Dubow himself wants to send you a copy of the e-mail, it's safe to assume you ain't gettin' it. What is the bigger story that needs investigating is how a senior manager tried to get it deleted to protect one of his coveted hires, after "restructuring" many talented people he didn't like last August.

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

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  8. JIm- delete that repeat= thought it didn't go through the first time

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  9. Did anyone listen to the Dickey/Pence web cast last week? Some very interesting stuff. A MUST listen to. Lots of stuff going on.

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  10. To 1/18/2010 11:21 PM :

    Yep, so much going on that Jim listened in and hasn't reported anything. Looks like Gannattoid has all the scoop, not gannettblog. I've moved on.

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  11. I think he meant an increase of $80 per ton, not that the price was over $100 per ton. The question remains... if materials costs rise, does Gannett start cutting usage like it did in 2008?

    All signs point to "yes."

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  12. 6:16 a.m. is incorrect. I did not listen to this call, nor did I attempt to.

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  13. To Anonymous 1/18 at 11:21pm:

    Then why are you here posting your negativity? Move on and stay away already!

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  14. 6:16: Jim and I aren't employees so couldn't listen to the audiocast. I've heard a little on the call, but am still hoping to collect more from people who did listen in to report anything, but no scoop.

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  15. Pence/Dickey call is available here:

    http://www.gannett.com/news/pressrelease/2010/pr011510.htm

    and I'm no longer there; just Googled it and found a link that led me to www.gannett.com.

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  16. Thanks, 5:05 p.m. However, that is not the call we're talking about here. That's a press release announcing the upcoming earnings conference call, next month.

    We've been talking about a conference call between newspaper division President Bob Dickey and employees, moderated last Tuesday by chief publicist Robin Pence.

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  17. My error, sorry. I have two friends at TJN however neither has said anything when I asked. Oooh now I'm an outsider, and the dividing lines are clearly visible. All I know is furloughs are back in place for the first quarter.

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  18. I was wondering if anyone had a number of circulation employees let go compared to the other departments.The staffs seem so small to take care of customers and carriers.

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  19. Time Inc. is acquiring StyleFeeder, an online service that offers personalized shopping recommendations, as the Time Warner Inc. magazine group tries to ease a sharp decline in advertising revenue with the largely untapped revenue stream of e-commerce, The Wall Street Journal reported.

    Publications are scrambling for new ways to make money online and in print, prompting some companies to consider charging readers for access to Web sites and to raise subscription prices while others are pushing into selling products, whether it's The Wall Street Journal, owned by News Corp., and Gannett Co.'s USA Today selling wine or fashion or beauty magazines moving from writing about trends in handbags and lipsticks to selling the products themselves, the Journal reported.

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  20. Anonymous@2:25 p.m. left a version of the following comment. I'm publishing an edited version, to remove information that could identify an individual. (Using initials can ID someone.) Here it is:

    [Someone] . . . on the Gannettoid blog trying to say E-MAILGATE in Westchester was a rumor and didn't really happen. Nice try but it did happen. What happened was sad, pathetic and disgraceful, but those same words can describe what The Journal News has become. Thank corporate for keeping [XXX] up there in an unnecessary made up position for over 10 years. 75,000 circulation, and dropping fast, in a tri-county suburb of NYC is truly pathetic.

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  21. Another really sad case is that of the Courier Post in Cherry Hill, NJ, a bedroom community of Philadelphia in populous Southern New Jersey. Daily circ is now down to about 51,000 and falling fast. Would I pay to read our website? No way. It's pitiful.

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  22. 1:18 @ 10:27 AM: That the wife is back in Reno is indicative of what Jim has made clear with his Freedom Forum posts. Gannett is no longer about operating a financially sound business. It is a large Good Ol' Boy network designed to funnel money only to members of "the club," even if that means cutting dedicated and talented workers to achieve that goal.

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  23. I'm a newsroom employee and too freakin' BUSY to listen to corporate's audiocast. What does it matter anyway? I've been prepared for layoff for more than a year now and still expecting it's just around the corner. Oh, and corporate's expectations and desires for my department are just RIDICULOUS, especially since we've been shred to bits. I'm just trying to get through my day.

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  24. @12:21 - Geez, what is the obsession with the email? An employee replied to an email from Craig Dubow in error; unfortunately the email was not one that he actually wanted sent to Craig. Realizing his error, he first fessed up to his boss and then the two of them contacted IT in the hopes that the email could be recalled. Of course, by the time IT was contacted too much time had lapsed and the email couldn't be recalled. That's it. That's the big scandal. Not sure where other posters go that there was "email tampering" going on. Too much time on their hands I guess.

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  25. @12:26 a.m. - What's the obsession? You try sending an email then using your "pull" to get it deleted. I certainly don't want anyone tampering with my email. Do you?

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  26. You have a really nice innocent version of what happened., it reads like one of those one sentence web stories on Lo.Hud.com. Trying to get into the email system to delete an email is a form of tampering. But in your world it is not because you are special.

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  27. Jim,
    Can you post again the amounts of the bonuses that the higher ups get? If they ELIMINATED their bonuses, they are paid extremely well, maybe they wouldn't have to outsource everything. They have gutted every newspaper, yet they send people on stupid meetings that are meaningless, useless, just a waste of time and money. WHO IS THE ONE COMING UP WITH THESE ASININE IDEAS? The COE was already a dismal failure. WHY would they even consider outsourcing it overseas? Do they really want Gannett to crash and burn? You have to wonder if that is their plan, to squeeze every last dime they can out of it before it implodes.

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  28. Looks like a longtime opinion columnist in Wilmington majorly screwed up a scoop in an interview with Biden ...

    http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/31918.html

    As of a minute ago, the Wilmington web site didn't have any correction, clarification or other note appended. But it's being made fun of across the blogosphere.

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  29. I just checked, and The News Journal has now published a correction.

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  30. For some reason, however, the incorrect headline is still standing. I assume that will be fixed shortly, too.

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  31. @ Anonymous at 10:42 a.m. - I beg to differ with you. I was at TJN, and I wish someone there had the ba**s to contact authorities since this IS tampering. Too bad no one there did. Are YOU still there?

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  32. @10:42 am - so someone trying to send an email that *they* sent is tampering? If you errantly sent an email and then decided that you really didn't want it distribute and so recalled it, that's tampering? Trying to send an email that *you* sent?

    Priceless. Perhaps LN got rid of Elvis and Bigfoot too.

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  33. Trying to unsend an email is like trying to unring a bell. It ain't gonna happen.

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  34. Hey, Jim. 6:31pm here. Not sure what happened to my post - perhaps I had a small stroke while tying it ;-) - but something happened and it doesn't make sense the way it's written.

    What I was trying to say is how is it tampering if the sender tries to stop an email that he/she sent? Believe me, I have no love for any of the parties involved, but really, don't we all have more to do? I would certainly rather see Jim investigate a crime or misdeed with merit. Chasing this kind of insignificant crap just looks plain childish.

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  35. Fowarding an internal company e-mail to a party outside the company which included insulting the original sender who just happens to be the CEO of the company then having your boss try to get it unsent because it will make the sender and the boss look like they aren't the "Team Players" the boss would like to think they are oversteps your little summary of events. The sender of the e-mail violated several company policies and then the boss tried to get it hushed up and overstepped his bounds by trying to FORCE another company employee to get it erased under threat, violates several more. This IS a big deal- something that JIM should be asking questions about- not hiding behind a lack of a printed version of the e-mail which both parties involved really want to disappear. Looks like with nobody investigating- they get their way again. Shameful.

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  36. @10:46 p.m. - What do you want to do, subpoena the server? There is lots of supposition over at Gannettoid about who did what; here Jim doesn't allow initials or names, and I wonder who is protecting whom?

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  37. I know Jim is trying to put a new spin on things but unfortunately
    the Gannett employees who really need the inside information
    aren't getting it here or from Gannettoid. Nothing of any importance
    to Gannett employees has been posted on either site for weeks.
    No one is talking and it isn't helping any of us. I truly feel there
    is no need to visit either site anymore. There has been no true reporting
    since Jim gave up this blog. You have to risk something to get something.
    What are you afraid of Jim? What are you letting them get their way?

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  38. 11:06 p.m.: Gannett is a big company, but it doesn't make big news week after week. That was true even last year, when the newspaper industry was in great distress, with some companies teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Now, in possibly better times, I wouldn't expect to get "inside information" when there isn't any of consequence to publish.

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  39. I have two friends at TJN, no one is talking, wouldn't even say where the office is relocating. When I was still working there I provided information to those who had been laid off during the year. Too bad those still working at Gannett are either afraid or . . . afraid. Of what?

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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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