Employees have also been invited to Binghamton from the nearby Ithaca Journal and the Elmira Star-Gazette, according to my reader, who's close to one of those two papers.
More intriguing is speculation that the board of directors may take the unusual step of holding its next quarterly meeting away from headquarters at McLean, Va. -- at The Des Moines Register. Wherever it occurs, that meeting, which would consider the next earnings report plus a regular dividend payment, would likely be held on Tuesday, July 27, and Wednesday, July 28.
Anyone else having the pleasure, ahem, of an upcoming visit from the Corporate bigwigs? 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.
Hey, maybe this won't be so bad. Gracia might learn what the company does!
ReplyDeleteThey're coming to New York and not coming to Westchester? Do they already know everything they need to know about Westchester and the managers?
ReplyDeleteDo they see the Binghamton, Ithaca, Rochester areas as more desirable markets?
Westchester was always a regular stop for the corporate tour. Why not now?
How come they don't have a meeting in Bucyrus?
ReplyDeleteWhen they are in Rochester, I hope they look at the roots of this company, and Frank Gannett. The old man held some views that need to be reinforced today, especially autonomy for the newspapers he bought. Content One and other initiatives show this company is taking an irksome turn towards central planning that is destroying local papers. Local papers know what is best for their communities, and they differ measurably from each other. Frank Gannett was happy just cashing the dividend checks the local papers sent him. Today's GCI leaders need to look back at that concept and realize it was the wisest approach to handling the community paper division.
ReplyDeleteLarry, Curley & Moe -- back from the dead. Can't wait!
ReplyDeletewhy are they coming
ReplyDeleteits suspicious right?
any thoughts any info any ideas?
binghamton is one of the last papers to potentially consolidate production either by november or end of the year.
but i believe rochester already was consolidated in february of this year...so there really is no tie in for the production consolidation part, like if rochester was the last to go with binghamton it might make more sense
sooooo maybe it has something to do with these two papers they are both very successful even in the these terrible economic times
could they MERGE them? maybe there looking for HUB three?
whatever it is it just isnt a friendly meeting people like this dont just appear for laughs and to shoot the shit, somethings up!
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ReplyDeleteI don't know why they haven't merged them before, 10:26. There are good economic reasons for doing this because the larger the circulation, the more national advertising comes in. The downside is that regional papers don't really work, as I would think Corporate learned with Florida Today, now a shadow of what they once hoped in Cocoa Beach.
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ReplyDeleteCan any shareholder or employee attend a board meeting? My partner and I are getting married in Des Moines July 27. Maybe we'll drop by. Or maybe we'll just go to the zoo.
ReplyDeleteIn theory, any shareholder, employee or other interested person could attend, but only by the board's invitation.
ReplyDeleteA related story:
When I was a USA Today employee, I once asked then-P.R. chief Tara Connell for permission to join Dubow, Martore and other executives in a meeting room where they were answering questions by telephone from Wall Street investors. I only wanted to be an observer, because I thought it would be an interesting inside view of the company.
Connell told me, I believe, that she had never received such a request. I was turned down.
Plan on the zoo. Quarterly meetings of the board are closed to the public and shareholders. Business law says they can open them if they wish, but most corporations generally keep them closed. Only annual meetings are opened to shareholders.
ReplyDeleteJim, did you really think that request would be approved? Seriously?
ReplyDeleteThe mind boggles at your lack of acumen.
Many of my best stories began when I asked questions that were unlikey to produce a useful response. (An example: What did you do with that $40,000 in Gannett Foundation charity money, Dubow?)
ReplyDeleteYou weren't asking a question, though. You were fishing for an invitation to a private discussion.
ReplyDelete8:34 a.m. has good points about early Gannett. As long as a paper made a profit, corporate left it pretty much alone. Help can be good when there's a problem to solve or an opportunity to become better, but too much "help" can harm a paper that's already doing well. That's often the case now
ReplyDeleteFor a related discussion about early Gannett and today's growing Corporate control over local operations, see my March 25 post: 'Freedom begins at home' vs. 'content as product'
ReplyDeleteJim, "best stories", ha ha. Wonder what those were. Anyone actually hear about JH before this blog? I think not.
ReplyDeleteBring back the Sun Bulletin and Evening Press
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ReplyDeleteIt's really not rocket science. If the newspapers are making money, leave them alone to make money. I wish we had an update of that list of newspapers and their profits that Jim posted about a year ago. It showed what I believe were very handsome profit margins. But corporate greed is demanding even more, meddling in what are supposed to be local decisions and slowly squeezing life out of the papers. It looks like they are preparing to do the same thing with USA Today, whose real profit/loss statement we have never seen.
ReplyDeleteFollowing is an edited version of a comment posted by Anonymous@7:40 a.m.; I've removed unsubstantiated remarks, including about CEO Craig Dubow's medical treatment:
ReplyDeleteDubow and Martore visited with us a pointroll and it was about as exciting as reading the legal notices in the newspaper.
Mr. Dubow was very scripted and could [XXXXX] on his own. I am not sure if he relates to what we do here. He is so [XXXXX] you almost feel sorry for the guy (not!).
Mrs Martore's speech was written by our [XXXXX], so we were all comfortable with the buzzwords and the typical phrases that come out of our marketing department. She too cannot relate to us.
They still are not any closer to a replacement for Saridakis and it is obvious we are leaderless. [XXXXX] is a good guy, but we can tell he is checked out and counting the days before he leaves.
I believe their visit to Pointroll made it worse for Gannett. We are not even relevant to that company, except that we are "the most profitable business in all of Gannett" Martore happily stated.
Serious hub/consolidation discussions will take place while Dubow and co. will be in Des Moines. With lease on downtown building coming close to end of lease, decisions will be made to focus more consolidation in real estate friendly Des Moines vs. Indy.
ReplyDeleteLease on downtown Des Moines or downtown Indy?
ReplyDeleteBig G should consolidate in real-estate- and labor-cost-friendly Wisconsin.
ReplyDeleteHell, sometimes we've been accused of just being friendly in general.
Indy owns their space. With all the layoffs over the years, there is a lot of space for NSSC and GPC
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ReplyDeleteLeasing space is how the company is going to be run in the future. I'm surprised we haven't already had a fire sale on real estate - not that we'd get anything for it, but that never stopped anybody.
ReplyDeleteIf you have no presses, no circulation, no finance, no prepress, no IT, no toners, no classified, no obit - just makes more sense to take your fifteen drunk salespeople, your six blogging editors, and your one photo/vid/mojo journalist and make them work out of a shipping container under an overpass.
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ReplyDeleteIt was like the glory days all over again! The corporate jet swooped into Greater Binghamton Airport, a towncar brought the execs to our new, shrunken office, and no one except the O.C. had anything to do with them. In fact, no one except the O.C. even saw them. We of course were screamed at to clean up our areas (like they'd ever visit an actual newsroom, er, local information center) as if we had royalty coming to visit. The company's irrelevance and much-diminished self was obvious to anyone outside the O.C./corporate bubble. So demoralizing to have the top dogs in town and not even get a pep talk full of fun new buzzwords.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the OC?
ReplyDeleteOperating Committees (OC) run newspapers, and comprise department heads: publisher, advertising director, executive editor, etc.
ReplyDeleteFollowing is an edited version of a comment posted by Anonymous@1:21 a.m.:
ReplyDeleteI'd love the circus clowns to stop by Wilmington. I'd jump at the chance to tell those incompetent fucks just what I think of them. I almost got another job lined up, and I'm out of that shithole. No more kissing [XXXXX] asses. Yeah, they would be morons and jerks on their own. But I blame Dubow, Matore and Dickey for allowing them to rise to such a level of incompetence.
6/28/2010 11:49 AM - LMAO! Thank you!
ReplyDeleteMerge Rochester and Binghamton? They're almost 200 miles apart. How would that work exactly? That's like merging the NY Times and the Baltimore Sun.
ReplyDeleteAny merger would be Binghamton and Ithaca. Drivewise, they're about 40 minutes apart. But I can't see that happening. Each are distinct communities.
ReplyDeletemerge all three! Bing, Elm, Ithaca !!! they carry the same news.what are they now, 20 pages ?
ReplyDeleteBinghamton cant even keep the Commercial print . No one is going to enter into contract with the garbage being produced . if they do, it doesnt take long to get out !!!!!!!