"We weighed outside vendors but wanted Gannett designers handling our print journalism."
I wonder how seriously Corporate considered outside vendors, and who they might have been?
Also worth highlighting: "We don’t know how many jobs might be eliminated. We are just beginning this project and a first step is to survey and analyze the work done at each site."
Earlier: SND voices doubts about GCI's hubs
Thanks, Jim. we have more info than we got from company.
ReplyDeleteThis is all hot air. They damn well know how many employees are going to go under this plan, because cutting payroll is part of the plan. The other disclosure she makes that I have not heard before is the admission that uniform design is one of the goals. So much for all the local quirks. It is obviously a one-size-fits-all future. My bet is they will all look like USA Today within a year.
ReplyDeleteWhat a bunch of wasted space. She probably believes what she's actually saying. Egads.
ReplyDeleteKate's got some huge balls to say all that with a straight face, but unfortunately the world of newspaper design has gone from dizzying highs as recently as 2002 or so to a new low, which will always be tomorrow. The talented designers remaining have less and less space to work with, and fewer opportunities to do so. Pity, really. So it's a sound business decision.
ReplyDeleteClever pages are things of the past now anyway.
People like Robb Montgomery helped drive design into the ground, too, but that's another story altogether. But the job reductions got rid of a lot of cocky Martin Gee-type designing dimwits. Ben Stein wasn't exactly wrong you know.
Not exactly wrong.
What has happened to Kate Marymont? Was she abducted by aliens, with her body now inhabited by a clueless creature from another galaxy? Those words attributed to her could not have been spoken by the person who was a kick-ass journalist and went by the name of Kate Marymont in the past.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking generally about memos and other advisories from Corporate -- but not about anything Marymont has written in particular -- bear in mind that the Law Department often weighs in, especially in cases where the text covers the possibility of job losses.
ReplyDeleteCal: Martin Gee is features design supervisor at the Boston Globe.
ReplyDeleteAnd a very good one at that.
ReplyDeleteYour newspaper laid out, courtesy of 2adpro.
ReplyDelete"This notice is to inform you that your page 1A will be 300 minutes late. We regret any inconvenience this may cause."
Local control? Who's she kidding? That left Westchester a long time ago. More watchdog journalism? With fewer reporters? Oh, I get it. Half-baked projects dreamed up to impress corporate, but not so indepth or frequent as to impact the bottom line.
ReplyDeleteIf people thought USA Today was McPaper, they ain't seen nothin yet!
Aren't they a little behind the curve on this redesign thingy? I seem to recall Tribune did a sweeping redesign of all of its properties three or four years ago, aimed at putting zip back in the papers. Didn't work. As the Soviet Union shows, central planning doesn't work.
ReplyDeleteThis is all so sad, but so very Gannett. I felt worse after reading the Q&A. No one at my Wisconsin site will apply for a cookie cutter design job in Des Moines; they have family and friends and roots here, and children in local schools. Plus half of the pagination staff is already scouting about for other jobs. At least they have the luxury of time before the hammer falls.
ReplyDeleteJim: Marymont might have been refering to the Tribune Co.'s Media on Demand [MOD] service, in which editors and designers at the Chicago Tribune produce pages of non-local content -- Nation/World pages; business pages; health pages -- for other newspapers in the Tribune newspaper chain. Tribune is now making an effort to sell this service to other companies. I wouldn't be surprised if Tribune tried to sell Gannett on the MOD service.
ReplyDeleteQuote from a response to Marymont's Q and A with SND
ReplyDelete"... morale at the gannett papers i know of is so low that each one should have its own full-time shrink. and these supposedly revolutionary concepts, as content quality of plummeting, are going to improve that? i don’t think so."
link:
http://www.snd.org/2010/07/a-qa-with-gannetts-kate-marymont/
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ReplyDeleteThe layout of some Gannett papers has been similar for years, and non-GNS properties have looked pretty much the same as well. I'm not a layout/design person, so any info on this is appreciated.
ReplyDeleteA big difference now is going to be shared content, and that makes sense to me. I've always wondered why GNS relied so much on AP, especially when it had reporters working the same stories.
Let's face it, the times are changing and print is fading fast. This and other steps - cutting 100 VPs, consoldiating copy editing and printing and selling real estate - are simply temporary measures until the plug is pulled on print.
9:09 p.m....Back again....I meant GCI, not GNS.
ReplyDelete