The newspaper began publishing the page April 5, according to the union. "The Guild MUST step in and defend our jobs — otherwise 'free' and preproduced copy makes its way into the paper, not unlike the 'News From You' stuff that runs in our zones sections,'' the chapter says. "We hope everyone will read a Gannett Blog piece on the arrangement between Gannett’s six N.J. newspapers and an employee of the New Jersey Devils who is providing coverage of the team for the newspapers."In recent months, Gannett began publishing national and world news pages built by USA Today at many of its 82 U.S. community newspapers, in lieu of pages that had been produced by local staffs. More recently, the company added the baseball news pages. The move, apparently part of the ContentOne news gathering and distribution system, is the latest in GCI's efforts to reduce labor costs amid falling advertising revenue.
Earlier: Union slams story change for ad section use
[Image: today's paper, Newseum]
This is NOT a ContentOne thing. Strictly between USAT and USCP.
ReplyDeleteDo the USA Today nation/world pages, and the baseball page, include any AP copy? Could Gannett renegotiate its AP contract, cutting off all AP service to the community papers, if those papers only used these USAT pages?
ReplyDelete5:05 pm: It's certainly in the spirit of ContentOne, no?
ReplyDeleteDear Union:
ReplyDeleteGood luck trying to tell me what I can and can't put in my paper.
Gracia
A few things need to be clarified. Many Gannett newspapers ran the ContentOne produced Nation/World page for the past few years, so I don't understand all the teeth gnashing over USAToday now producing the page. Been there done that; it's not new news. And yes, AP content ran on both the ContentOne page and now the USAToday page.
ReplyDeleteWhy would they renegotiate the AP contract? Even the smaller newspapers still run AP content throughout the paper.
Why would they renegotiate the AP contract?
ReplyDeleteBecause they would save money. They don't have to renegotiate because the AP contract comes up for renewal each year or so. All that they have to do is say they no longer need AP national sports for this paper, and that's it. Also, take a second look because I do not believe ContentOne uses AP.
They could just sign up for the AP briefs wire and get the news without the stories.
ReplyDeleteThe Union is right, and this is just a step towards having other papers in the area cover out-of-town games as part of exchange programs. Goes back to the days in the 19th century when papers never sent reporters anywhere.
ReplyDeleteGannett papers have been using pre-designed AP or USA Today pages for years - why the fuss now? I paginated the sports section for Gannett for a few years and always thought it was a giant waste of time to add standings, schedule, recaps and oh the box scores to the baseball page - and having to redo it 3x a night for late games, when every other newspaper in the company runs the same page..always should have been a large graphic.
ReplyDelete