In a memo distributed this morning to employees of The Des Moines Register, Publisher Laura Hollingsworth confirmed earlier Gannett Blog reports that Gannett's board of directors will take the unusual step later this month of holding its next quarterly meeting away from Corporate's headquarters at McLean, Va.Chairman and CEO Craig Dubow, plus other top executives, will accompany the board, and will hold a "town hall'' meeting with Register staff as part of the visit, scheduled for July 26-27. What's striking, however, is that Hollingsworth's memo doesn't indicate that any time was set aside for the board itself to meet hourly and other rank and file employees.
A copy of the memo was provided to me by a reader.
Memo text
On Monday, July 26 and Tuesday, July 27, the Gannett board of directors and the Gannett Management Committee will be at The Des Moines Register to hold a board meeting and to visit Des Moines Register Media. It’s an honor that the board selected Des Moines to host this meeting and we will be pleased to share our hard work and transformative efforts first-hand with them.
On Tuesday afternoon, we will host a “Town Hall” meeting for all Register and affiliate employees at The Marriott at 1:00 p.m. At this meeting Craig Dubow, Chairman and CEO of Gannett, Gracia Martore, President, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer, along with Bob Dickey, President, U.S. Community Publishing, will speak about the latest company and industry trends, followed by a question and answer session. I strongly encourage you to attend as this is a great opportunity to hear directly from our company’s leadership. I also encourage you to think about any questions that you would like to ask our top management at this session, and ask them!
What would you tell the directors? 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.
I'd ask the CEO if he's noticed any indirect relationship between the length of his beard and the price of the stock. Call it a "Beard Index".
ReplyDeleteIf the "Town Hall meeting" is anything like those "Audiocasts" it'll be a waste of time. They know how to run out the clock without giving up much information.
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ReplyDeleteOOoooo goody. Time to start making my cardboard signs. At night i might try hooking up with Donna.
ReplyDeletewill mary stier make a cameo appearance?
ReplyDeleteis the town hall in des moines open to those former employees who were let go during the mass lay off spree of the last two years?
ReplyDeletethey deserve the dignity of calling out these empty suits in front of their former peers.
The problem with the call for Town Hall questions from the staff is that if you ask the questions that really need to be asked you just set yourself up for termination. I supposed that is what the suits are banking on because they will just get the easy ones...
ReplyDeleteTown Hall. What a crock of shit. Robin Pence will be writing Gracia and Craig's speeches and filtering out pre-screened questions.
ReplyDeleteThese visits are so phony it is sad. No one really wants to hear from them. They are not celebrities, they are not visionaries. They are powerful people in their own minds.
Would someone please ask Dubow to comment on the status of the transformation he talked about for a few years. Is he happy with the results?
ReplyDeleteit's worked out ok for him...
ReplyDeleteDes Moines, IA. Are we supposed to be impressed? Talk about a safe haven for a board meeting. My guess is the first choice was St. George, UT, but the local airport didn't have enough space for all the private jets. Here's hoping that this is the start of a trend and the next meeting and town hall is held in Cherry Hill, NJ.
ReplyDeleteThere will be a major resignation announced
ReplyDeleteExcept for Shapiro, who comes from public television, not one of the board members has any journalism experience. Throw in broadcast adman Dubow and jellybeaner Martore and there's still no one who ever wrote a story or knows what a deadline is or what a reader is.
ReplyDeleteHave we ever had a board member who was a true journalists for more than 8 years? The AP guy probably was, but he didn't last. I don't own a bunch of stock mostly because I'm not rich. How can we get a respected journalist on the board?
ReplyDeleteHey, anyone recall the days of director Rosalyn Carter? It seemed to me that the company was more interested in getting a sexually/ethnically
ReplyDeletediverse board than anything else.
John Curley was the last CEO with an editorial background. The beginning of the end was the rise of McCorkindale, whom I recall rode off into the sunset with $250 million worth of stock. I bet he bailed out long ago!
I can only find McCorkindale owning about 360,000 shares at retirement, based on a quick search of SEC filings. That doesn't include a slew of unexercised stock options, however.
ReplyDeleteAt the time, those shares were worth about $20 million. That's a lot of money, to be sure, but well under $250 million.
Perhaps someone else has more information, however.