Sunday, April 25, 2010
Week of April 19-25 | Your News & Comments
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60 comments:
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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How are you feeling today?
ReplyDeleteOther than Goldman Sux recently giving their staff $5 billion in bonuses, in the wake of fraud charges, I'm doing gr8t!
ReplyDeleteI live my life pissed off.
ReplyDelete"Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteI live my life pissed off."
A good foundation and motivation for the lost art of investigative reporting.
10:55am you rock! A healthy sense of skepticism is a journalist best friend. Hell, its everyone's friend. Trust but verify.
ReplyDeleteThe Palladium-Item building is for sale in Richmond, Indiana for $850,000. I wonder how long before Gannett donates them to the Foundation?
ReplyDeleteReal Estate Link
10/19 10:55
ReplyDeleteI agree. Too bad I'm a systems technician.
Feeling like shit. The future of Gannett and the only one with any vision is leaving the company and all we hear from Craig Dubow is that Starbucks will now start selling our newspapers!
ReplyDeleteOn the brighter side, I submitted my resume to GSI commerce as soon as I heard that Chris was going there and I have an interview lined up next week.
They called me back 3 hours after receiving my resume.
Congrats 10:34. Wish I was so lucky.
ReplyDeleteCan all the pro-Sardakis poster(s) list his accomplishments at Gannett? Bullet points are fine.
ReplyDelete2:54: The Saradakis folks cannot list his accomplishments because the Digital folks still don't get the most fundamental concept: You gotta make money!
ReplyDelete1) Hiring center for AOL castoffs.
ReplyDelete2) Lotsa new Keven P products.
3) Sold three ads.
Correction: Bob Dickey's lame "digital natives" sales team sold three ads!!
ReplyDeleteWhat a joke!!! Good job Dickey!
Speaking of lame USCP initiatives, can anyone explain what the he'll Brad Robertson is doing in Arizona? I heard he is building a call center sales team for small business! I hear that is another Dickey Disaster.
ReplyDeleteWow. Jim is about to hit the 2-million mark. Congratulations.
ReplyDeleteWe'll celebrate with carrot cake in the breakroom. But bring quarters for the soda machine, because it's BYOB!
ReplyDeleteA union rep handed us fliers at the Tennessean today.
ReplyDeleteIMHO, anyone in the biz today who doesn't check out unions is not paying attention. The problems are way too big too tackle alone. I'm generally anti- organized anything, but I can tell you without a doubt that if I worked for Gannett today, I'd definitely want a union behind me on things like ovetime compensation, pay, ethics and workplace bullying.
ReplyDeleteWho is leading the Lafayette La. newsroom?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/apr/21/emily-bell-to-leave-guardian
ReplyDeleteWonder if anyone from Gannett was in the running for this job? Doubt it.
To 2:35 p.m.:
ReplyDeleteThe newsroom is being headed by new executive editor Brian Tolley, who began Monday. He is a Gannett outsider and was most recently editor of the paper in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
Jim: How come the Asbury Park Press/Devils insanity is not on the main page or am I missing something?
ReplyDeletewhat's with all the site visits from corporate - bringing the full set (all dept heads) - anyone know what is going on?
ReplyDelete10:35 pm: I'm guessing that it's been awhile since they did an all-hands road show. Now's a better time because there's no big, bad news going on, like layoffs, so these visits ought to be less stressful for everyone.
ReplyDelete9:13 pm: This blog's home page only displays the 10 most recent posts; after that, they roll onto older pages. Just click on the "older posts" link at the bottom of the home page, or hit the Asbury Park link in the blue sidebar, to the right.
ReplyDelete10:35 - We hear they're visiting poor performing sites. . . . . Has anyone heard of any workplace lawsuits?
ReplyDeleteRE: Lafayette
ReplyDeleteTolley seems solid.
So, nobody inside Gannett wanted to go or was attractive enough? Another opportunity for someone to move up, someone doing the rough work in the last two years, wasn't tapped? In the whole of Gannett after a tough run of cutbacks, they went outside?
Understandable. New blood can be good.
Why did Fayetteville let Tolley go a while back. It is a bigger paper, right?
Re: 8:14 a.m.:
ReplyDeleteThere were two internal candidates and they were both rejected. One may have been pretty decent. One would have been a disaster. The word on the street is that nobody else in Gannett wanted the position. The job is probably too daunting for those in the know. The staff shortage there is ridiculous. I have heard that it is the smallest newsroom in all of Gannett. And the publisher has a reputation of being, let's just say, hard to work for. Even though she is very nice to most of the staff.
The circ for Fayetteville is around 60K, daily, and I believe close to 80K on Sundays. Don't know much about his departure. He said he was laid off, but I think the position was filled with someone else. Maybe it was some kind of restructuring?
Re: Lafayette
ReplyDeleteThanks for insight.
Hearing about onsites in some Southern states to fix adv issues. Anyone know about that stuff? Are we likely to see some publisher moves?
Here in Reno, the Sundasy paper is getting a big push.
ReplyDeleteAlas, someone forgot to tell the copy desk.
The lead story was about as internal dispute within MADD over financing.
The headline:
Money causes MAAD riff.
Riff? Rift? I should stop being so picky.
Are most Gannett papers dropping local feature pages in favor of ContentOne-produced pages? Or is NJ the testing ground for this?
ReplyDeleteOh 4:45, I feel your pain. Especially when you go back and notice that you typed "Sundasy" instead of "Sunday".
ReplyDeleteSeriously, though, those kind of glaring mistakes are common in my corner of Gannettland.
@ 10:56 p.m. - You typed: Seriously, though, those kind of glaring mistakes are common in my corner of Gannettland.
ReplyDeleteShould be "that kind" or "those kinds" . . .
10:24 What kind of ContentOne-produced feature pages are you talking about. We haven't seen anything like that where I am.
ReplyDeleteWas that MAAD or MADD? Are you MAD?
ReplyDeleteWhat is it about carrot cakes and newsrooms? It'll be too soon if I ever see another one.
ReplyDeleteI think that dessert is preferred because Gannett owns the Centers of Excellence Carrot Cake Factory.
ReplyDelete8:08 a.m.: Was just a rumor. Hopefully, it's bad information.
ReplyDeleteThe (Wilmington, Del.) News Journal just invented a new line of work: notary republic!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.delawareonline.com/article/20100423/OPINION11/4230346
Problem with USA Today is.. It was web-friendly before the web publishing was hip. It doesn't, can't differentiate itself fast enough from its primary audience that was brought up on web-style presentation in print -- now gone to the web.
ReplyDeleteOther newspapers and local newspapers built on depth, analysis and unique content offerings can retain overlap readership numbers the way USAT can't. USAT hasn't built the core journalistic side of the newsroom up enough to compete. Lost talent is NOT the issue. Who are they recruiting now. They might look to some of the hard-chargers who left the company on their own when the cutting hit. Go get your guns back.
USAT has to shake things up dramatically with exclusives, harder business stories and some star-power commentary. They have to re-invest, re-invigorate and rebuild. They've become too institutionalized to change fast enough.
They need to blow some socks off and deliver real journalistic gems that aren't the "timely think pieces" on the usual themes.
It's breakout time.
Amen, 7:43 pm! It's a crowded field, and bells and whistles alone aren't enough to stand out. What matters is exclusive, hard news with big, broad impact.
ReplyDeleteBut it's not just USA Today. The same holds for the community newspapers and TV stations. I ask over and over: Would you pay to read your website? If not, then you're in trouble, because the ad-supported model is going away.
Well put, 7:43. USA Today was web-friendly before web publishing was hip. It was a printed web site; USAT introduced color fronts and splashy weather pages, mimicked by the industry; underneath the graphicy bread the newspaper needs some journalistic barbecue beef with extra hot sauce. Break-out news on Netenyahu, Wall Street, patriot militias (American terrorists) and China's leadership and it's real threat, a Cyber-Militia. while not offending Walmart and Mr. Advertiser. Bring back the hard-charging Innovation of Al Neuharth and rethink the present ad-model.
ReplyDeleteWilling to do that work.. ..the work of putting USAT back in the catbird seat. But...
ReplyDeleteLeft the company partly because reinvestment in newsrooms didn't seem likely anytime soon. Was troubled by lack of concern regarding good journalists caught in the economic waves. No strategy to retain or review top folks indicated lost sense of priority and lost long term thinking.
Believe strongly in early lessons of business model: Good headlines, broad coverage and great stories sell newspapers and gain eyeballs for websites. Get the eyeballs with coverage you can't get anywhere else and keep the powerful on their toes.
Advertisers will go to the places where their stories can be told for the best value -- and where people seem to be looking the most. Give them substance, not gimmicks. Advertisers like to be in their favorite periodicals. Be their favorite by reporting on them. Business news cutbacks are not advised and were poor.
Hire best people you can. Give them direction and support them. Put some latitude in budgets to hire high performing individuals.
Some of what Gannett has been through may have been an unfortunate necessity badly executed. Folks doing the tough work in the middle will have been through tough days for naught if emphasis on reinforcing local news gathering and adding sophistication back to print isn't quickly addressed.
Distraction of the day? Inserting social media into everything is a functionality issue not a journalism issue. Don't distract newsrooms too much fragmenting their roles. They need social media for their jobs but not promotional responsibilities. Reporters should be focused on reporting and uncovering.
Last strategy suggestion, it is time for news websites and print counterparts to move in different directions and not duplicate. Do not push everything from print to online and everything online doesn't need to find a home in print.
Signed,
7:43
Sly digital dog Chris Saridakis has sent an e-mail blast that left me LOL over how he punctuated his last-day-is-April-30 reminder:
ReplyDelete;), indeed!
When will you share? ;}
ReplyDeleteQUOTELast strategy suggestion, it is time for news websites and print counterparts to move in different directions and not duplicate. Do not push everything from print to online and everything online doesn't need to find a home in print.UNQUOTE
ReplyDeleteThis goes against everything that has been happening at USA Today over the last five years but yes, this needs to happen. Right now we have two stepchilds, with no platform ascendant, and the quality of each diminished because neither can be what it could be.
1:25 -- You are dead on. An important factor here is that very few journalists realize that writing for the Web and writing for print are different. Yes, you can simply repurpose one for the other, but this doesn't do anything to maximize SEO, etc. And most of the people within Gannett that do understand this are too busy to worry about it.
ReplyDeleteI simply don't have time to write two versions of every story. One of the reasons we're lagging in digital is that we mostly just throw printed content on the Web without any understanding of how they differ. And, of course, both sides suffer. The print products have less depth because we're so focused on getting things online and the online products suffer because they were written for a print audience.
The trouble is you could have this conversation with most of Gannett's upper managers and they wouldn't even know what you were talking about.
1:25 and 3:05
ReplyDeleteThink we can get someone's attention on this and help USAT make a course change to lead again?
Worked for Hunke once, briefly. He seems like the kind of guy who might be open to a whole new strategy, unafraid to swim upstream.
Signed,
7:43
USA Today marketing head Susan Lavington will announce tomorrow USA Today takes another tumble with 13% decline in circulation. She announced to staff last week. She is changing her uneffective and unnoticed advertising campaign called "what America wants" produced by the wife of the former advertising vice president Bret Wilson since it is foolish to recite that any more (almost as foolish as her also uneffectives and unnoticed advertising campaign "we're all in this together," which cost more than one million to produce by Arnold Marketing). She is pulling all advertising promoting the newspaper campaign and only advertising online and USAToday.com
ReplyDeleteTo 1:25 and 3:05 -- David Hunke is merely the messenger doing exactly what Gracia Martore and Craig Dubow tell him to do. Just keep watching how high he jumps when he is ordered to do so by the Gannett tower. Trust us over in the USA TODAY side: he has no strategy.
ReplyDelete"Apr 25, 2010 ... "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 ..."
ReplyDeleteWhat is this all about?
If 6:25 pm is correct about USA Today's further circulation slide, that's pretty bad news. That would be in connection with the six-month ABC report, ended March 30, right? And wouldn't this knock USAT down to No. 3 in circulation, after the WSJ and a new No. 2, NYT?
ReplyDeleteBut how come I can't find any news about that ABC report being published soon?
Now, I've found it. From the ABC's website: April 26 is scheduled release date for March 2010 FAS-FAX and Audience-FAX.
ReplyDeleteThat is stunning news 6:25. A 13 percent slide in USAT circulation indicates that circulation declines are accelerating, since the 2009 figure was a 10 percent drop. I predict one hell of a shakeup in USAT is coming as a result of this.
ReplyDelete7:23 pm: Actually, USA Today's circulation fell much more -- 17%, to an average 1.9 million, during the six months ended Sept. 30 from the same period a year before. That's according to a USAT story published Oct. 26.
ReplyDeleteI was comparing this April with April 2009.
ReplyDeleteWill there be ABC numbers for the NJ papers? If so, I think the C-N will fall below 30,000 daily circ., which should be the death knell for the C-N continuing as a separate paper. Hello, New Jersey Today.
ReplyDeleteI think we're all expecting the papers to become USA Today (pick a city) Edition. Probably have a local front wrapped around USAT.
ReplyDeleteThis bears repeating: 6:25's comment still hasn't been confirmed. As with all anonymous comments, there's no guarantee it's true. The ABC report is to be released at 9 am ET tomorrow, so we'll know then.
ReplyDeleteAnon@837: The C-N is already below 20K Monday-Saturday and below 25K Sunday. See the ABC report from 9/30/2009.
ReplyDelete