Kate Marymont met with tie-wearing editors of N.J. papers today, then with copy editors, designers and paginators at the Asbury Park Press. Although still corporately fuzzy on many of the details, she cleared up some things about the new "hubs" -- now called design centers or design studios -- they haven't made up their minds about the name.
The hub itself would be divided into groups, corresponding to a newspaper or group of newspapers or a group of tasks. Each group would have a head person, followed in descending order by designers and paginators.
Except for high-end glossy magazines -- she said there were about 10 nationwide in Gannett -- niche publications such as associated weeklies and special sections would be handled by the hubs in the same way as the dailies. (Only 78 papers are included in the hubs -- Detroit, USA Today and Guam are excluded).
Employees will have to apply for jobs in the hubs. Depending on how it is handled locally, copy editors may face the same issue. Regarding the hubs, Marymount was asked whether Gannett employees would be given precedence in the hiring procedures. Her answer: "Not necessarily."
She said that the hubs would be part of Gannett, but not part of their host newspapers.
She said that it was expected that equipment would begin installation at Asbury by the beginning of 2011, with rollout of hub operations in the spring, starting with Asbury, East Brunswick, Somerville and Parsippany.
She was a bit more hazy on when the recruitment (her word), interviewing and hiring of the hub leaders would take place, although she said she was currently involved in writing job descriptions.
That's all I remember. Sorry if my memory isn't as complete as it should be or if I have misunderstood anything Marymount said. Feel free, colleagues, to pitch in and have at it.
What can you add to this excellent report? 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.
[Image: yesterday's Asbury Park Press, Newseum]
Why they would not give existing Gannett employees some measure of preference is bewildering. At every turn, this company is sending a big "fuck you" to the people who are getting it through these difficult times.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone think these hubs are going to need as many copy editors as the home papers? I don't think so. The obvious aim is to reduce expenses and people = expenses.
ReplyDeleteCan't blame a company looking to save money, but I hope the employees don't simply ignore this or hope for the best instead of actively looking for jobs elsewhere and/or preparing for new careers.
The writing's on the wall and it's not favorable to the rank and filer.
This all begins to make sense when you look at what Gannett paid for CCI. The hubs will completely replace staff at the individual newspapers. That's where the cost savings were found to justify buying one system for the company. The McDonaldization of Gannett papers is visible on the horizon.
ReplyDelete7:59 -- They might not give preference to existing employees because it would be much cheaper to hire a page designer out of college than to move a veteran designer with 15 years experience across the country and pay the higher wages that he/she would demand.
ReplyDeleteIt should be clear to everyone by now that Gannett has no loyalty to its employees. All the crap that comes out in corporate memos -- "we appreciate all you've done to build the company" -- is just that: crap.
Gannett appreciates one thing. A low operating cost that allows greater short-term profits. I'm sure they will hire a handful of experienced people to manage the hubs. Then, they will feel like they can fill out the ranks with largely inexperienced people who are just happy to have a job at any wage.
The quality of the product will go down. The local newspapers will suffer. It will be a constant source of frustration to the people who have to work with the design centers. But it will save the company money in the short term, meaning Gannett can continue to rape the communities that it owns paper in ... until the public tires of it and stops buying those papers altogether.
What's amazing is that even as the local staffs shrink, the upper echelon of newsroom management remains immune to reductions of its own.
ReplyDeleteBuyouts. Consolidations. Terminations. The top managers keep their jobs and enjoy pay raises to supervise fewer people.
At least this is the way in Westchester. How is it at other sites?
Beyond the axiom of taking care of "their own," I don't get it. It certainly can't be caused by an increased work load. A lot of these people had little to do before and they have less to do now.
So folks, be proactive. Find your escape route and don't look back. And positively don't just come to work everyday hoping for the best!
It ain't gonna happen.
Now that I can finally read this blog without feeling that my life was passing before my eyes -- I am recently out of Gannett -- this still sickens me. "Not necessarily" only serves as yet another example of Gannett simply not caring about its employees.
ReplyDeleteRE: Production Hubs
ReplyDeleteWill the Courier Post be "Printed" in Asbury?
"creative director"
ReplyDeleteTHIS IS A JOKE.
COPY AND PHOTOS WILL FLOW INTO TEMPLATES. ETC, ETC
How many gannett papers will win any SND or other design awards?
It will be just like the web pages.
Good luck to all those who have to put up with this crap.
If Gannett hires talent in this move, it'll survive. If its only goal is cost savings, it'll spiral. You cannot keep media organizations alive on widget-making jobs. Passion and love of journalism needs food. That food is reward of recognition and celebration of the work. That food is the difference you can make on a well-supported project to uncover a wrong.
ReplyDeleteGannett doesn't win the big awards at its smaller papers because it doesn't feed the passion there.
Also, it rewards the bigger papers and the usual suspects without fail.
Top, good folks have left the company. That simply is a bad outcome of their approach that has to change.
Think of all the leaders who called it quits. They didn't leave just because they had to make cuts. It was how their opinions and input were treated.
As a more than 35-year employee -- and now retiree of this so-called communications company, it is obviously being run by bean counters who care much less about quality journalism and more about the bottom line. Years ago, we always feared this would happen. As soon as a non-news type took over the company (McCorkindale), it was all over for the newsrooms. All I have to do is pick up my morning metro and begin counting the mistakes to estimate how many copy editors were working the desk. And now, no designers! What a system!
ReplyDeleteAm I only one thinking that everything will eventually become highly templated. Most newspaper design is templated in some version or another. Perhaps, the designer isn't pulling just one full-page element from the library, but it doesn't make financial sense to have someone sit there and rebuild the "same-old" stuff nightly. If there are 100 page templates (I really can't imagine how one could design that many different templates without making pages look goofy) who will notice? This is going to save soooooooo much time on duplicate work and TONS of cashola.
ReplyDeleteIt's going to allow content people to "tag" content like they already do and editors to pick holes for stories. Then a designer can come in and look over things to make sure everything is OK and hit the send button.
I just want to know how much money these hubs are going to save.
And I wonder what the next hub will be after the production hubs. Once this initiative is implemented, perhaps they will create hubs to park all of the useless executive editors and managing editors. Is the newsroom of the future going to include only a manager editor and an assigning editor?
At the rate the Courier Post is going, it is more likely to be printed at the Kinko's on Rte 70 in Cherry Hill than at Asbury Park.
ReplyDeleteSeriously and more likely, Wilmington, or Philly, if they can get their act together under new ownership. Both alternatives use same union pressmen, which would be an obstacle to overcome, albeit not that difficult if they say f-you to the unions, too.
Ah yes, what do all of those "executive" editors do all day long? From what I've seen, not a heck of lot!
ReplyDeleteI'm sure everything will be templated, which will mean that the stories will also have to be reworked (to fit the size of the templates). When you take away the ability to adapt the design on the fly, you really limit the newsgathering operation.
ReplyDeleteInstead of having so many stories in a day, newsrooms will have a set number of holes to fill.
A set number of holes to fill, you say 11:35 a.m.? If that's the case, Westchester is poised to be the success story of the year.
ReplyDeleteNobody cares about the content anymore. It's all about filling a paper that the higher ups have given up on.
Where will the "five newspaper page design and production hubs" be located? Is Asbury one of them? And will Asbury handle only the NJ papers? Seems to me that if there will be only five hubs nationwide that each hub will handle quite a bit of work for many papers. More please.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, 6:22 a.m., Asbury is one of the five hubs. Here's a spreadsheet showing the five hubs, and their assigned papers.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Jim, for the info; I must have missed this. I'd still like to know exactly how this is going to fly. Do all these other papers send their information/specifications to a hub and the hub handles it from there? Is this only for the newsroom? The advertising is still done at the hubs in the Midwest, right? Each hub will paginate all those papers as well? Geez!
ReplyDeleteGod forbid we have a power outage!
ReplyDelete