Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Week May 17-23 | Your News & Comments: Part 1
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42 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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From Gannett Blog's archives:
ReplyDeleteMay 17, 2009. Imagine you're asked, "What do you do for work?" Forget the Mojo Model, ca. 2005. A year from now, a 21st century digital journalist might reply, "I'm one of the iPhone's fastest-growing news apps!"
The ardor over the Internet and new technology is fast evaporating because it is not producting anywhere near the revenues needed to cover its costs. In a few months, it will be back to basics and concentrating on the print product.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Anonymous and want to add that to me there's nothing like reading a newspaper, turning the page, smelling the print. Yep, that's what I said.
ReplyDeleteYep, I couldn't agree more.
ReplyDeleteRegarding 7:08 and 8:25....All that's well and fine except for one thing: there's an entire generation (or two) that couldn't care less about turning pages, feeling the paper and smelling the ink.
ReplyDeleteMy children and their friends - mid to late 20s - have NEVER read a print newspaper. They go online for their information, including my eldest who reads the WSJ every day.
Print is gasping its last breath. It's simply and inefficient, wasteful way to distribute news.
Whatever happened with the vote against the directors and the shares at the annual meeting?
ReplyDeleteDid you see that Rupert Murdoch is making a big purchase of presses, perhaps preparing to print on his own rather than use local plants, including those owned by Gannett?
ReplyDeletehttp://newsosaur.blogspot.com/
To add to 7:08 & 9:02'a posts: there's nothing to READ in a newspaper anymore. The Gannett company took the lead to start this years ago; very few papers print something worthwhile to read each day. Newspapers are now comparable to local news broadcasts:
ReplyDelete"You heard it here FIRST!" without the hairdo and condescending delivery.
To paraphrase a recent campaign: "An economy of information, a wealth of useless, irrelevant piecharts and bargraphs."
Yes, there are still some people out there who like to read the paper. Gannett papers, specifically The Cincinnati Enquirer, make it very difficult to do so. They offer a vacation stop option so you don't have papers piling up in your driveway, then they deliver the paper anyway. Then when you complain and ask for a large credit (especially since they make the same mistake over and over and over again and never fix it despite many promises to do so), they refuse and instead choose to lose a subscriber.
ReplyDeleteFor the life of me I cannot understand why any business would choose to eliminate a customer due to their own negligence rather than try to fix the situation and keep that customer. Especially when you are struggling to make money and attract new customers.
Then again, this is Gannett we're talking about.
As a follow-up to a post I made a few weeks back regarding our great healthcare plan, my current total for an ER visit a while back visit has topped $1100. Out of pocket. 1 visit. And as far as I can tell, a bill or two is still out there. And....I STILL haven't reached the deductible yet, which means the only benefit I received from this insurance plan so far has been $45 paid to a primary care physician and the "network discount" pricing (vs the full retail pricing these providers have tried to charge).
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone still care to defend Gannett still over their healthcare plan? Am I being unreasonable to say that I'm getting dangerously close to a FULL PAYCHECK gone?
Put it in these terms: all of you have to take a 2 week furlough next week. Thats the effect of 1 ER visit. Does Gannett seriously expect us to survive on this kind of health plan?
And before anyone chimes in and says "Pay em $20/week", some of these providers want payment in full -- they don't mess around.
Print is dead.
12:58 pm: I'm flabbergasted by what you're being charged. I'm receiving the same health benefits I got as an employee, although I now pay 100% of the premiums.
ReplyDeleteBut I, too, had a recent ER visit, and the total charge was $650, of which I paid just $150. I was there for 8 hours, received an IV, plus X-Rays. This was at a San Francisco HMO.
Can you say which city or state you're in?
Yea Jim, doesn't matter which city or state. It is the new healthcare provider Gannett has. $250 charge at the emergency room, payable IMMEDIATELY, plus then your deductible, which is $1,450 per single person, I may be wrong, it is probably higher, I really can't remember, mine is even higher since I'm on family, close to 3 grand, BEFORE THEY WILL START PAYING A DIME! And who in Gannett gets paid that much ON ONE PAYCHECK?? We are talking about a whole month's worth of pay there! PLUS THE PREMIUMS TAKEN OUT. But wait, how much does Dickey, Dubow, Martore pay at the ER? Why, nothing of course. And she just got a 250K a year raise. Priceless.
ReplyDeleteNo, it would make me more identifiable and as disgusted as I am with this plan, unfortunately, this job is all I have for now.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is Jim that you may have the same benefits from when you left (04?). However, Gannett's plan has nosedived since then. I'd go as far as say its a significant drop from last year. At least last year we had a flat copay for ER visits ($150 I believe). This year, it was supposed to be $150 + 20% of all "doctors fees" (after you met your deductible that is).
Translation: you pay a $150 bed fee, then the rest at 100% until you reach the $1250 deductible. So bloodwork, CAT scans, MRI, ER doctors, whatever else you need would be billed seperately. And if you haven't already spent $1250, well, you're paying it at 100%.
What is confusing though is that the $150 bed fee doesn't seem to even apply: I was charged far more than that by the hospital, but per the health care company, the claim is "complete" -- I owe $750. I can't figure that one out.
1:40 -- did you take the lower premium plan? The numbers I'm using are from the "best" plan.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Death-of-the-Honolulu-Advertiser-Haiku-Contest/112862332086150?ref=ts
ReplyDelete1:47: No, I did not take the lower premium. We only had a choice of 2. I took the best one. The other one was basically only for castastrophic illness. Our plan is not a 150 deductible, it is $250. It totally sucks. The only reason you need it is in case you have a major hospital stay. You will still be screwed, only not as much.
ReplyDeleteI doubt anyone from Corporate HR will read your dilemna and empathize with you, 1:47pm. You can be sure what's happening to you is happening to other employees now and later.
ReplyDeleteThis company abuses their employees, period. Just obliterate their natural resources, for profit.
How the people in Corporate and HR can sleep at night... shame.
Jim, did you get electroshock therapy during that ER visit? Or did your lithium dosage just need to be balanced out again?
ReplyDeleteThis thread has lots of people living in the fantasy world. Just keep dreaming that the Internet is going to die, and everything will revert to print again. Even if that happened tomorrow, the people here could never take advantage of it. You are the "wealth of useless, irrelevant piecharts and bargraphs" the earlier poster referred to.
Yo, 8:39pm - what's up with the snark?
ReplyDeleteDon't feed the trolls.
ReplyDelete@ 9:01 p.m. - That's very sad. Those kids are probably the ones who text while driving cuz they might miss what their friends are saying or doing. Admirable to read the WSJ - I do, too - however I like going to the store, saying hi to the proprietor, getting coffee and meeting a neighbor WHILE buying a newspaper. No one gets a medal for reading the paper online.
ReplyDeleteCorrection - I was speaking to 9:01 a.m. not p.m. re reading newspapers online. My error.
ReplyDelete@6:20am - which executive are you? Print media is done.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is not having a clue how to do online advertising and being late to every single internet trend.
The real question is which former Gannett drone is he. The execs are pushing the Internet stuff.
ReplyDelete4:08pm - I think I know which former Gannett drone 6:20am is. Here's a clue: he lives on Pumpkin Island.
ReplyDelete5:15 pm.: I just snorted milk through my nose.
ReplyDeleteYer killin me, Jim!
ReplyDeleteGannett should brace for additional Digital departures. The team is already starting to see the pains of a leaderless organization.
ReplyDeleteJack Williams has been getting grilled on his plan for migration to the Yahoo Apt platform. Bob Dickey is now NOT supporting this initiative even though he was pushing for it from the onset.
Furthermore, the paid content strategy is in disarray as the iPad downloads for the "FREE" USA Today app are declining. It appears that everyone is now worried that a subscription version for the iPad will not work.
I recently had an ER visit also. The $150 charge is just the facility copayment. You still have to pay for the doctors and services out of the $1,250 deductible. I got a bill for almost $400 although the doctor essentially said there was nothing he could do for my particular situation. Paid $400 for a Benedryl and a Tylenol. Or rather I've refused to pay so far.
ReplyDeleteTo 5/17/2010 8:39 PM
ReplyDeleteAre you really that daft? No one thinks the internet is going to die. Gannett just doesn't have a grasp on how to monetize it, and therefore it is the albatross around the neck of the company.
Jim, the lackeys hired or being charged to start shit here aren't worth a moments worry. If ignorance is bliss, their stupidity should be painful.
My Boss: I'm very interested in that USAT iPad app development.
ReplyDelete2:19 -- You're probably right that print media will end someday, but it's not done now. If you work for a Gannett paper, the only reason you still have a job is the print product. At my site, the last report indicated that the print products brought in more than 85% of the companies total revenue.
ReplyDeleteThat means digital is bringing in less than 15% of the total revenue, yet the Web sites and other digital products rely heavily on content that would not be around if if you suddenly elimintated everyone producing copy for the paper.
Bottom line: Newspaper Web sites are not supporting themselves. So, unless papers find out a way to make money on digital, the Web sites will die when the papers do.
As for 20 years olds not reading the paper, I have a question. Do you think those 20 year olds might start reading a paper if they had no place else to go for the information. Right now, it's easy to get free news on the Web. If all the papers die, that won't be the case.
Plus, people who are 20 and younger are bad examples. People have always argued that a 20 year old who doesn't read the paper will never read it. The fact is people's lives change and news becomes far more important after you own a house and have a long-term investment in a community. Most 20 year olds don't own property, and many know they'll be living somewhere entirely different in a handful of years.
I'm not saying digital won't take over someday. I'm saying that, as of now, there is no model that can make enough money to support a substantial digital newsgathering organization. So, one of three things can happen. The organization can die. Someone can come up with a model that works. Or the organization can invest in its print products and run off of that revenue as long as possible.
8:19, there were three people in a row commenting in the context of print becoming king again. If they were being sarcastic, there was no indication.
ReplyDeleteSurely you are not so dumb that you missed that. Right?
I think the future of USAT is digital, but the future for most of our community newspapers is print. These are small local markets that I doubt will ever produce enough revenue from the Web to finance their Web operations. Plus they tend to be monopolies on local news, so why give away your product when you can get money for it by taking it offline. That's my two cents, anyway.
ReplyDeleteUSAT, on the other hand, is clearly destined to be Web-oriented. It gets the national ads and national attention and has established itself as a national brand.
So it is not one-size-fits-all, as I see it. Through the cuts, consolidations and reductions, corporate is sending a message that the future is digital, and community newspapers won't make it. I think that is a big mistake. There is still a lot of money to be made in print on the local level.
The only reason why I think print will still exist is...
ReplyDelete1. Everyone uses a newspaper to pick their dog shit up in the park.
2. It makes great box stuffing when I ship things I sell on eBay.
3. Newspapers make great paper towels when you want to clean your windows. (Windex and newspapers).
People do not develop a newspaper buying/reading habit in their 30s. They develop it when they're kids. They start with the comics, etc., and move on to news.
ReplyDeleteAs to there not being news without newspapers, that's not necessarily so. Consider other possibilities. People might someday subscribe to AP, for example, much like businesses and others subscribe now to Bloomberg...And there are a multitude of local news dotcoms popping up that certainly fill a niche, particularly in areas where Gannett and other big chains have pulled back.
One issue is that newspapers, particularly local ones, had for decades enjoyed what were essentially monopolies. That's no longer true.
12:13 moves into the lead for the most ignorant and useless post of the day.
ReplyDelete"One issue is that newspapers, particularly local ones, had for decades enjoyed what were essentially monopolies. That's no longer true."
Really? How are you not part of some think tank with new thoughts like that one?
Re: 12:19 p.m....That doesn't seem at all like a new thought. Local news dotcoms and citizen- journalist sites are increasing at a time when newspapers are cutting back.
ReplyDeleteThere was also a time when the only way to have any idea what was going on at Town Hall was to read the paper, but that's not true anymore.
Besides alternative local news sites, municipalities post their agendas and their meeting minutes.
People can read through an entire meeting of the city council or the school board if they want to.
And you can't forget the local TV news. A lot of areas didn't have local TV news until cable came around. Now that they do, some people probably figure that's all the local news they need.
Newspapers are not longer the only source, local or otherwise.
If you are just now picking up on the fact that newspapers are no longer monopolies, then you are clueless.
ReplyDelete12:15 -- I agree that there could continue to be national news without newspapers. Newspapers certainly aren't monopolies anymore, but in the market I live in, a mid-sized metro area, nobody covers the news the way the paper does. And that's still true after the massive cutbacks that have made the paper a shell of what it used to be.
ReplyDeleteThe TV stations, radio stations and Web sites competing with the paper, don't have anything beyond the most basic crime story, sports scores, etc. It may well be that people don't care about the deeper stuff. If so, that's sad. But I do fear that everything aside from the biggest stories will disappear if newspapers go away.
12:15 -- How do you know people can't develop a newspaper reading habit in their 30s? I understand that conventional wisdom is that people have to start young, but I got more involved in newspaper content as I got older and I felt that the paper had something of value to me. Recently, I've cut back my reading because my paper cut too much of what I liked to read. I may be unusual, but my reading habits are dictated solely through a perception of value. I wasn't in the habit of reading the paper as a kid, and I'm no longer in the habit of reading the paper, as I get most of what I want by scanning online headlines. But what if the online component was gone?
ReplyDeleteSupposing you wanted to do a study on this, there would be no way because free news on the Internet skews everything. I think you might be able to cultivate new 30- to 35-year-old newspaper readers if they didn't have a fresher, free alternative (that the papers are providing) at their fingertips.
For Part 2 of this string, go here.
ReplyDelete>Besides alternative local news sites, municipalities post their agendas and their meeting minutes.
ReplyDeletePeople can read through an entire meeting of the city council or the school board if they want to.<
To 1:02 p.m. 05/19 - Muncipalities do post agendas and meeting minutes, but the minutes aren't posted until they're approved, and that's usually several weeks later. I may work for a weekly, but my story still beats the minutes by about two weeks. School districts do post agendas, but they rarely post minutes.
Not to mention there's this little item called providing context to a decision, and then there's this innovation called a "quote", where people can actually read what their elected officials said! Sarcastic? Yes, but I'm trying to make a point - people like me still make a difference, and I know I do because I hear it from readers.