Sunday, July 18, 2010
Week July 12-18 | Your News & Comments: Part 2
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68 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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For Part 1 of this comment thread, please go here.
ReplyDeleteJust want to say that the reporting and shared information in the Gannett Blog during this Hub transformation has been exemplary and just what the company needs in such a large-scale move.
ReplyDeleteWhether you agree with the Hub strategy or not, here at least we get the scope of the plan and a reasonable dialogue.
If it wasn't for the Blog, all individual units would know is what local managers told them. And as we've seen here, local managers either don't know very much, are too appalled to give their true feelings, or are just confused.
This is a big, big deal, and in this case at least, corporate (yes, corporate), should be thankful the Blog is here to get everyone on the same page, whether they agree with the change or not.
Because the Blog is doing more to let the company know what's happening than all the 5:15 meetings could ever hope to accomplish.
Well done, Jim. In this case, a very public service.
Wow! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI loved reading this blog before Jim made the mistake freezing it to pursue his travel blog. During that time, I tried the Gannettiod, but it was just a messy format that segregated the dialog too much between a bunch of different message threads. I emailed the guy that ran Gannettiod several times and pleaded that he just scrap that format and just use the simple blogspot format that jim uses here. However, that guy said that his format was great and used his page hits as his proof. At that time there was big news in Gannettland that artificially inflated those numbers. I think time has proven that I was correct and this is a better format. I just wish Jim had not taken that time off. It hurt the blog. He should have expanded into NY Times and News corp at that time. It would have made a lot more sense then pulling the 180 and doing a travel blog. Oh, well, I am glad he and this blog are back. Thanks.
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ReplyDeleteMessage boards serve a different purpose than blogs. Gannettoid is not messy or difficult, it's just different. Time hasn't proven anything.
ReplyDeleteAgreed, 8:30. And remember: Online, you get what you pay for, and few of us are paid even minimum wage.
ReplyDeleteI'm reposting an edited version of the following comment by Anonymous@2:30 a.m., to eliminate material that identified individual editors.
ReplyDeleteI understand the need to continue to reduce staff with these hubs. But it seems to me that Gannett could probably make some cost-saving cuts if it took a look at the staffing in its newsrooms. Take the manager-bloated Lansing State Journal newsroom, for example. There are approximately 20 people in supervisor/manager roles to supervise another 25 people. People with those manager titles usually make more money than people without those titles. [XXXXX] This property ain't exactly the New York Times! Wouldn't it be cheaper to pay a paginator (even 2 would cost less)to handle most of the Sunday Living Editor's duties?
Upper management (Publisher Brian Priester's bosses) should do an audit of reporter bylines that appeared in print in the last three to six months. There are a couple of favorites who for quite awhile have been permitted to slide under the radar and get paid full-time for less-than part-time performance.
If you really want to lower the debt, you could start there and then question why such a small circulation paper needs an EE, ME and AME.
Whoa! Are you sure Lansing doesn't need a Deputy Managing Editor or another Assistant Managing Editor!
I liked Gannetoid. I'm a graphic designer and during Jim's absence Gannetoid was my only source of info for the ad consolidation. No mention of it was made at my site until we designers ourselves brought up the issue. And still, management continues to be coy about exactly how the conversion will happen. With Gannettoid's message board format, we had a specific thread where we could air our gripes and concerns and kind of commiserate with each other. If it were still being updated today, I would visit it as well as I still have many questions that management cannot, or will not answer.
ReplyDeleteI am happy to see GannettBlog return, but it's geared more towards newsroom/editorial issues, but that is to be expected given Jim's background. I think both sites serve a purpose and I wish there were a dozen more just like them. The more sites covering the behind-the-scenes shenanigans at Gannett, the better.
11:09 is correct. I've tried to write about other topics outside the newsroom, and have managed that in the broader areas of corporate finance, executive pay and Gannett's charitable endeavors.
ReplyDeleteBut I haven't written nearly enough about other parts of the newspaper side: production, advertising sales, marketing and circulation. Plus, of course, the Newsquest division in the U.K.
And I've written relatively little about the TV division, which is another big part of Gannett -- and one of its single most-important sources of profits. Finally, there are the digital businesses: PointRoll, CareerBuilder and others.
I remain very, very interested in all these non-newspaper editorial subjects. As always, though, I depend on my readers to educate me with tips and links to relevant material.
If this is about saving money, what I do not understand is why these hubs are being located in some of the the most expensive cost of living areas. Why are they not being put in areas where labor costs are less?
ReplyDeleteLooks to me like certain individuals are getting the pork barrel spending.
And Asbury Park, they have an ancient SII system....why pick that site for a hub?
Asbury Park, as with all the Gannett papers, is getting a new computer system: CCI NewsGate.
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ReplyDeleteI am sure one big reason Indianapolis was not made the hub for that area instead of Louisville is that the Indy Info Center is a union shop and Louisville is not. Cost of living is low in Indy, but we've been told Gannett thinks our salaries are too high for the Interstate Group, one reason corporate bullied Guild employees here into a 10% cut and 2-year wage freeze last year.
ReplyDeleteStill no news, no meeting, no email from our Publisher to the entire staff. I think maybe a meeting with the IC editors. But nothing with newsroom designers to my knowledge. And nothing to other designers in the building. And nothing directly from corporate. I about said 'Unbelievable!' But sadly, it is not.
ReplyDeleteGannettoid filled the void when Jim left. It appears it's creator has given up now that Jim is back. It's ashame. It is good to have competition and I think Gannettoid should continue to monitor the site. It's good to see different perspectives and Gannettoid offers that.
ReplyDeleteGannettoid quit because his traffic slowed to a stop. Also, I never meant that it was too complicated to figure out, only that with the comments split out across multiple threads its hard to get the full story that a simple one list comment section such as this one gives. You tend to get the same topic in different areas. Also, when you comment on you you can assume a certain degree of subject matter knowledge because you know that the reader has just read the same posts that you have. On there you may have to repeat crap you read on another thread to provide context. Having a forum broken out was stupid for this type of blog. Often people think more features is always better. However, usually its not. Read the book, "Necessary but not sufficient" by Goldratt. Its a great book. Anyway, Sometimes I have to connect the dots for the slow readers.
ReplyDeleteWeb traffic slowing to a stop = time proved me right.
maybe we are better off without gannett? i am tired of wondering if i will have a job tomorrow or looking into my co-workers eyes after they were just told they won't have jobs by the end of january, i have this thing called a HEART
ReplyDeleteAgain, 11:18, a message board is not the same as a blog. Different format, different purpose. The comment strings on this blog often span several topics, which actually makes it even harder to find information than if it was in a distinctly titled thread. If there were multiple threads on the same topic then that's on the administrator to merge them. The same reasons you list as negatives of the message board are issues you deal with on a blog as well.
ReplyDeleteTime still didn't prove you correct. Gannettoid is still there and you can still use it. That's how message boards work as opposed to a blog - users drive conversation on message boards whereas blog owners drive topics on their sites. If you remember the goal of the site was slightly different. I don't think it was ever intended to be an investigative journalism-type site like Jim has. My guess is the owner was not a Gannett reporter.
It does appear that Gannettoid's "news" slowed, but if I recall wasn't the owner a victim of the big layoff wave last year? Not knowing anything about him or her I'd wager a guess that they got a new job and didn't have the time or as much incentive to keep it going.
Jim, on the other hand, is able to keep his content fresh, which keeps people coming back. It doesn't mean this is a better format. It's certainly more personal, but one is not necessarily better than the other.
So I really don't think time has proven you right or wrong. I do think it has proven what most web-savvy people already know - that stale websites do not attract users, especially in a social media setting.
7:49, thanks for that pointless overview of a blog and forum. However, this is not a typical blog as you defined. The top story on this blog is always comments. Nothing from Jim. You should know this because that's where we are posting. DUH! And on this blog, this is where the most value. You can forget about news content on both Gannett blog and Gannettiod. Where the rubber meets the pavement is leaked information from posts right in this thread. Then one only has to read all the messages here (and i mean right here in this post at the top of the page) and you get the complete discussion of what is going on in Gannettland. So, once again, on Gannettoid, you don't have that one place in the forum to get the full discussion. Its scattered all over in several different threads. You can read all the threads but that's not like here where you know exactly what each reader is reading because there is only one main thread. Think about TV back in the 70's. When you went to work the next day you knew exactly what the rest of the people watched because there was really only one or two options. That would spur discussion. Now think tv today. Often it could be that no two same people watched the same thing. No discussion. I am not trying to change this to a talk about TV. I am only trying to show the major problem with Gannettiod. It splinters the story. For no reason also, because its much easier just to use blogspot then do all that work he did. And again. Look at the messages on that site. No one is using it. So, I know we all want to be nice and not hurt anyone's feelings but its obvious that I am right or people would be using his forum instead of gannettblog. Its very simple to judge my thesis on actually facts not just how you "feel".
ReplyDelete8:48, I'm sorry that you are having a hard time understanding my point. You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but you really aren't understanding at all what I am trying to convey to you.
ReplyDeleteI'm very happy that Jim restarted the blog, both for your sake and for the sake of others - it is obviously where you are more comfortable. So good for you. And, as I already stated, the reason this site drives more traffic is because Jim keeps the content fresh and chooses to spend time investigating and reporting. There are definitely multiple threads here just as at Gannettoid - we are only commenting on one of them.
But Gannettoid is different - not better or worse. This is not said to spare anyone's feelings. This is fact.
So, in your opinion a blog is easier to navigate. And that's fine for you.
I think you two agree more than you disagree. Gannett Blog and Gannettoid are different in how they function, and so serve different audience needs. And that is a very good thing, isn't it -- to have as many choices as possible?
ReplyDeleteSuggested new feature for GannettBlog: Crowd sourcing predictions about Gannett.
ReplyDeletePerhaps its time to shake-up Gannett's outdated, top down style of management by allowing employees and others to predict what they think will result from Gannett's many initiatives and changing direction (pay walls, putting all content on-line for free, expanding centralization, leadership, etc.) using predictive market tools.
Sites like intrade.com and others have done it reliably for years and this may go a long way to validate what many continue to quietly discuss amongst themselves that Gannett's top leaders seem to have no interest in hearing.
Jim, I feel like we need some of your reporting to explain the expanded presence of the Detroit Media Partnership (the agency which runs the News & Free Press business operations) Since Paul Anger announced his "heftier" free press, on Mondays and Saturdays the Media Partnership has been running what Jon Wolfman called "advertorial" material - Working on Mondays and Celebrations on Saturdays. Now on those days 1-2 pages in both papers are identical, in addition to the Bonus Puzzles now in both papers which are identical all 6 days a week. With these actions, one has to wonder if combining operations moreso is down the pipeline. Either way these "advertorial" materials are a disgrace (though it is nice to see Wedding announcements in the paper again I suppose)
ReplyDeleteWho is producing that advertorial copy? Is it an outside agency? Or the newsrooms?
ReplyDeleteI just sent you $127 to your address thanks for your wonderful blog!
ReplyDeleteHuge news everywhere in Gannett Land and we're debating blog vs. message board?
ReplyDeleteSheesh!
Someone mentioned in the Des Moines Board meeting comment section that a major resignation is going to be announced at the meeting. Has anyone else heard this?
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ReplyDeleteEasier to navigate? Not my point at all! My point? There is really only one main thread here( the one in which we are posting) so every reader is getting the same info from crowd sourcing. On gannettoid it was very fragmented. Jims stories verse gannettoid's stories is very immaterial. Disagree if you must but do so from a position of knowledge.
ReplyDeleteI don't know who's making the advertorial. Names are not attached to the articles.
ReplyDeleteCan I disagree from a position of not giving a shit?
ReplyDeleteAnyone notice the two pages of editorial in today's USAT about the TV show Mad Men? How about the AMC full page ad in the same section. Coincidence?
ReplyDelete7:32: Hmmmmm.
ReplyDeleteAt least 3 Gannett dailies are now behind a paywall. Gannett is mimicking what News Corp. did in England. Newser asks "What's Really Going On Behind Murdoch's Paywall?"
ReplyDelete8:48 and 9:23: Please, get a room. Then, if that works out, go ahead and get married. Then, you can go ahead and argue about inconsequential things all you like, like any other married couple!
ReplyDeleteThe Clarion-Ledger ... "Real Mississippi" ... missed a story with statewide implications.
ReplyDeleteMississippi Public Broadcasting has dropped NPR show "Fresh Air" after some bluenose complained about the content. I called up ClarionLedger.com to see if it had the story. Because of Gannett's clunky Web template the homepage didn't load properly and the search box didn't come up, so I ran a separate Google search. Results came back from liberal and highbrow sites but not from the Clarion-Ledger. Called up ClarionLedger.com again, this time the search box came up, did a search for Fresh Air and also for "Fresh Air" ... nothing about what MPB did.
Mississippi is a haven for bluenoses and Gannett is gentle on pro-censorship groups. Maybe that confluence explains why the Clarion-Ledger missed a big story involving the state's public radio/TV network, whose flagship stations are located in Jackson.
Yepper; I've been following that story on Romenesko.
ReplyDeleteJust askin'
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's buried in here, but I didn't see any discussion of how today's announcement affected Yahoo. So I looked it up:
One of the fairly rare gainers, however modest (.4 percent), in a really bad stock day. If linking up with Gannett is such bad news, why wouldn't Yahoo's price be negatively affected?
Fresh Air's one of the best things about NPR. Whoever caved is an idiot.
ReplyDeleteMad Men has a season premiere coming up. It's one of the most successful shows on cable.
ReplyDeletePerhaps you anonymous idiots should do a little research before you come in here with conspiracy theories.
Jim is too weak of a moderator to pick up on that problem. A good moderator or someone with a little common sense would have flagged that comment and rebutted it. Jim just nods.
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ReplyDelete12:58 am: "Hmmmmm" = that sounds suspicious; it's not a form of agreement. It's entirely possible that one followed the other.
ReplyDeleteOf course one followed the other. The Mad Men comment was not just weak moderation on Jim's part, it was bad, bad, bad reporter behavior. Be skeptical of motive, be suspicious of intent, but jeez -- please check before you open your mouth.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad this blog is here, because without it we'd be totally in the dark. But that was a rare misstep. Otherwise, keep up the good work.
Come on.
ReplyDeleteIs there no HARD news out there?????
2ndQ results,stock dives,hubs,consloidation
layoffs, Closures????
Got to be more than message boards,blogs,
Yahoo and NPR.
Where are our hard news reporters out there???
Any way to get a credible report on how the pay wall experiments are going? With 19% of the rev coming from online. Are they moving into a realm that will squeeze the package from both ends.
ReplyDeleteThanks for keeping the blog cleaner... much more fun to read when comments are constructive.
ReplyDeleteThe past few days have revealed the importance of this blog to us in the field. Without it, we have no idea what's going on.
I suspect that you'll have the news about the re-invention of USAT before the information is broadly released to the minions.
15 million for an editorial front end is not enough. Something else is going on. Who were the players involved in picking CCI? Anyone have more info on this? Perhaps Gannett offered to build part of the install?
ReplyDelete"It's entirely possible that one followed the other."
ReplyDeleteOr not. I like how you keep defending this one, though.
Let's go very slowly: Mad Men has a season premiere coming up. Wouldn't it be possible that the paper would cover that AND AMC would place the ad, without there being a conspiracy theory? Maybe both of those things happened independently.
You make yourself look foolish when you fail to see the obvious here.
1:02 pm: As a reminder, the $15 million showed up in a regulatory filing. When I asked readers what they knew, several said it was for a new front-end system. But, as you point out, that doesn't mean there weren't other expenses associated with this project.
ReplyDelete2:29 pm: You're correct, in that I should have noted the editorial matter and the ad could very well have run independently of each other.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'll take it a step further. The more serious issue would be whether the editorial content was in any way dictated by AMC -- i.e., if they were promised it would say only favorable things about the show.
But I disagree on this point: There's nothing obvious here, and there's plenty of reason to be skeptical about what's going on at all newspapers -- not just USA Today.
Newspapers and TV stations are under more pressure than ever to bend long-standing rules established to ensure newsrooms don't favor advertisers.
Indeed, we're now considering ads that we never published in the past because, among several considerations, we worried about eroding our editorial integrity.
Don't take my word for it, though. Read what Gordon Jones told Mediaweek about USAT's decision to publish the Jeep advertising supplement.
Jim, this REALLY suxks:
ReplyDelete""And I'll take it a step further. The more serious issue would be whether the editorial content was in any way dictated by AMC -- i.e., if they were promised it would say only favorable things about the show.""
Things are very bad at USA Today, but you worked there. Do you think in ANY way that the newspaper would promise "favorable" coverage to AMC, or anybody???
It really demeans you as noth a journalist and a moderator here to even suggest that the hard-working journalists at USA Today would be part of something like that.
Really disgusted. Were you so isolated out in the Bay that you don't even know how your own newspaper worked? Screw you. Seriously!
I'm being a terrible communicator today. I didn't mean for that to be directed at USA Today. I wish I had written:
ReplyDeleteAT ANY NEWSPAPER OR TV STATION, the more serious issue would be whether the editorial content was in any way dictated by AMC -- i.e., if they were promised it would say only favorable things about the show.
Really, 6:15? Then explain the dispicible coverage in USA Today of Dispicable Me as a "whip-smart family movie."
ReplyDeleteHow insulting that you would even think that AMC would be able to dictate anything. Seriously. The season premiere is news. Hence the story and sidebars, which were pretty interesting, which you'd know, had you read them. And if you read the Life section with any regularity, you'd know that it's famous for blowing out the run-up to just about anything with interviews with the stars -- and then totally panning the movie.
ReplyDeleteJim, your "Hmmmm" is well-founded. If you remember, when HBO was premiering Joe Buck's talk show, it bought an ad in USAT. There was a quid pro quo -- a butt-kissing story about the show in Sports. I know, because I was there. The story turned out to be a double embarrassment when Howard Stern henchman Artie Lange made a fool of Buck and himself on the first show. Of course, "Mad Men" is one of the Life section's pet shows, so it could be coincidental, but it's definitely hmmmm-worthy.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was working at USA TODAY less than five years ago, there actually was a bit of wink-wink going on...
ReplyDeleteI knew a guy in advertising in New York, and if we were working on some big news package, I would call him and let him know what was going on, and when we expected to run the package, without any promises. He'd make some calls to this rep or that rep, or to a particular office, and start to get the ball rolling...
I think that this helped him sell some entertainment spots... and I thought that it was good for the overall newspaper as well.
At least at USA TODAY, I never knew that there would be a conflict there.
There is no doubt in my mind that someone told ad sales about the timing of the Mad Men piece... just the way things have always worked at USA TODAY. If you're looking for it, you can find it nearly every day.
Remember, we're different here.
Sounds like the paper's new slogan. If you're looking for it, you can find it nearly every day.
ReplyDeleteOr maybe the timing of the Mad Men piece coincides with the season premiere of Mad Men.
ReplyDeleteSome people here need to get over themselves. You're not going to find Watergate here. Give it up and stop making yourselves look dumb.
Does Gannett still hold an interest in topix? I'm asking because I've noticed a change in the comments section on topix, and wondered if perhaps pluck is reviewing those, too.
ReplyDeleteI had a horrendous experience with a topix commentor a few years back when that person posted some nasty comments using my name. Fortunately, topix deleted the comments pretty quickly.
Not long ago, I flagged a comment for TOS violations and found out that I could get a priority review, but at a cost. Huh? Pay to have something removed.
Well, did some digging around and found out that some attorney general---believe it was---in some state was apparently challenging the fee for reporting abusive comments.
Well, that fee thing (think it was $30.00) didn't show up yesterday were I flagged what I believed was a racially charged comment.
How exactly are Gannett and topx related, anyone know?
Jim, did you write favorably about advertisers when you were a business writer for USA TODAY? Were you asked to?
ReplyDeleteI didn't think so.
Timing is one thing. I don't think that's a big secret. But to idly wonder if an advertiser "dictated editorial content" is to impugn a raft of honorable journalists. That's irresponsible and gossipy. There's enough going on without you making stuff up and cloaking it as journalistic inquiry.
Any real news about Gannett and weeklies etc ?????
ReplyDeleteNot only ads and editorial are cousins in USAT, bur in another skinny publication, MacWorld as well.
ReplyDelete1:07 ordered some of us to stop looking dumb. We'll be glad to, as soon as 1:07 stops being naive.
ReplyDeleteI have never seen the tv show Fresh Air, but my favorites, Burn Notice and Covert Affairs, are still on. So I don't have a problem with it going.
ReplyDeleteIf memory serves, I think there is a document within USA TODAY that is e-mailed around the company to let everyone know what packages are coming up. You could easily assume that those that sell ads would be watching this closely in order to "time" ad buys to match up with editorial content.
ReplyDeleteNot sure that there is a story here... but quite certain that the Mad Men edit matched up with the AMC ad on purpose.
I am quite certain that the season premiere of Mad Men was coming up, and that would explain the separate developments of the ad and the coverage.
ReplyDeleteUsing the foolish logic here, no positive movie review could ever run if an ad is placed for that movie. I'm sure Disney mandates things like positive reviews, but outside of that, I know this whole thing is the fantasy of people who have way too much time to dream up these scenarios.
7:19 -- You shoul lay off 6:15 a little. "Despicable Me" wasn't exactly universally panned. Even some of the people who didn't like it had some nice things to say about it. The fact that the USAT critic happened to warm to the film isn't a crime. Haven't you ever liked a movie that someone else didn't like.
ReplyDeleteThe broader problem is that USAT's review carries far more weight than it should because many critics across the country have been let go. Criticism and column writing is one area where papers can still shine and build audience, yet these were one of the first areas to go.