Sunday, November 21, 2010
Week Nov. 15-21 | Your News & Comments: Part 3
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69 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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My Boss rocks, but I am having a hard time getting my head around a decrease of 5,000 jobs in the next 12 months. That is a huge bloodletting in a company that is increasingly anemic. How??
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteYeah but how many are left?
ReplyDeleteAs of Dec. 31, 2009 -- the most current figure published by Corporate -- 35,000 worldwide. That's before all the cuts this year, of course.
ReplyDeleteGCI will be below $10 by EOY. If it holds, it certainly be below $9 by end of 1stQ.
ReplyDeleteSo, 7:19 p.m., how many GCI shares are you short? Money talks, bullshit walks.
ReplyDeleteDisclosure: Long GCI
"My Boss" is good at tossing darts, some stick while others don't. "MB" has written items that I knew were false but I wouldn't challenge he/she in this forum because some things simply should not be leaked. "MB" is an interloper and not a very good one. Furloughs and layoffs were discussed for weeks so I'm not surprised "MB" stumbled upon one of those discussions. As for Dubow, that's an easy assumption, especially since there's a new CFO freeing Martore up to step into the top post. As for Gavagan and Ehrman, both are near or at retirement age so it wouldn't be shocking to see either take that step. Suggesting that 5,000 employees will be laid-off next year is an unbelievably reckless thing to say. Show us proof MB or go away. You're no deep-throat, you're a poser. You know it and I certainly know it.
ReplyDelete7:29's contempt for the rank and file is breathtaking.
ReplyDeleteSounds to me like an insider trying to promote the Gannett world. He/she will be very surprised when it's his/her butt on the unemployment line. So many think they are untouchables, but they will find that everyone is replaceable.
ReplyDelete"interloper" is a term that both Gracia Martore and Robin Pence use quite often. I wonder of anon 7:29p is either Robin or Gracia.
ReplyDeleteHow many employees are still at Gannett in the US compared to worldwide? And is the impact of staff reduction at sites outside the US the same to Gannett's bottom line as within the US?
ReplyDeleteIn the segregated South, I believe the term was "outside agitators."
ReplyDeleteI'm reposting this, to correct a typo in my original comment:
ReplyDeleteIt can be done. Gannett eliminated 6,500 jobs in 2009 alone, including 4,500 from the U.S. Newspaper division. (I originally wrote 3,500.)
9:04 p.m.: The most current data show Gannett has 30,000 U.S. employees, and about 5,000 in the U.K.
ReplyDeleteI don't know whether cuts in the U.K. have the same impact as in the U.S.
what about furloughs?
ReplyDeleteI still think there's a good chance we'll see furloughs in the first quarter -- although on a site-by-site basis.
ReplyDeleteNo doubt, 7:29 p.m. is correct: Furloughs and layoffs "were discussed for weeks." Dubow's possible retirement is "an easy assumption." And the likely departure of two senior executives "wouldn't be surprising."
ReplyDeleteWhat the poster doesn't say, of course, is that all that would be known to only an elite group of insiders if it weren't for the My Bosses among us.
Now, it's entirely appropriate to urge caution when reading predictions of big job cuts or other major moves within the company. No one should take everything on this blog as the gospel.
But consider this: people like 7:29 p.m. might well have accused My Boss of being reckless in June 2009, when he or she said Corporate was about to lay off 4,500 in the U.S. community newspaper division. My Boss was wrong about the timing. Yet, by the end of the year, that's exactly the number of jobs Corporate said it had eliminated.
If that makes My Boss a poser, then all hail the poser.
would they please take voluntary layoff people- i mean let them raise their hand & do it in a respectful way- these people are too mean to work for
ReplyDeleteMore of the same -- Jim and the Lemming Trolls ID anyone who disagrees as a corporate spy.
ReplyDeleteI second the request for voluntary layoffs. If anyone from corporate reads this, voluntary layoffs should be an option next time around. Obviously, you're not going to get a ton of takers in this economy, but if the offer was open and the people who took it qualified for severance and unemployment the company might be surprised at the number of employees who would go for it.
ReplyDeleteA lot of people in the newspaper game have been working on backup plans but can't simply jump ship without any sort of transitional pay. My guess is that a number of those people would willingly leave and use the severance and unemployment money to help move them to new careers.
If Gannett was smart it would offer this option because it could rid itself of people who no longer believe in the company while making those people happier in the process. Win, win. And, unless I'm wrong, there would be no fear of legal action (at least on a discrimination basis) from people who are volunteers.
The company would also keep more people who really believe in its mission (assuming any of those people still exist). It would also ease some of the tension in the workplace, as it's a lot easier to watch volunteers leave than continually watch people who really want the paycheck get dispatched.
Excellence in reporting once again: the Bridgewater Courer News as reported in MyCentralJersey.com says, "Silvert Alert issued for missing Bridgewater man." Anyone care to advise me on what a SILVERT alert is? Shame!
ReplyDelete3/4 of our department WOULD LOVE VOLUNTARY LAYOFFS. Employees in other departments would welcome being laid off too! We have all grown weary of having the "virtual ax" (losing our jobs) over our heads for the past two years. We no long want to work here...we want the unemployment benefits in order to find new jobs or careers. PLEASE GANNETT ASK FOR VOUNTARY LAYOFFS!!
ReplyDelete12:49, yes, voluntary exits would be a good thing. But you shouldn't be planning any departure with the idea that simply transitional pay will bridge the gap. You should be thinking about transitional work -- and you need to have that set up in advance. I needed nearly a year before landing on my feet. Transitional jobs -- not the stingy GCI severance -- got me through. In fact, I only qualified for a couple weeks of the several months' worth of GCI severance I earned, because of the transitional-work flow. (Remember: GCI doesn't want you to be doing any work while you're collecting the severance you earned. Why GCI should care or be allowed to set up a system that discourages enterprise is beyond me ... God forbid the company should take the position that, if an employee earns severance, than the employee gets all of the severance earned.)
ReplyDeleteBesides, 12:49, if you're applying your talents toward earning income even if it's transitional income, your potential future full-time employer will think better of you.
Most of the older workers seem to all say they are working because they need the medical coverage. If Gannett wants to cut staff and clear out the older employees they should ask for volunteers for the layoffs, but offer some kind of medical coverage
ReplyDeleteGannett's mission? You've got to be kidding!
ReplyDeleteYou will NEVER see voluntary rifs. Almost no corporation would ever do that on a large scale basis. Especially Gannett. How do you think management ditches subordiantes they don't like/want? They wouldn't give up that control.
ReplyDeleteI am so sick about what has happened in Cincy that I want to rolf. Here is a situation where a newspaper gains a monopoly in 2007 with the demise of the Post, and has just pissed it away. The circulation of the Enquirer is now 157,000, down to the level of the killed-off Post in 2000.
ReplyDeleteSo how did they do this? This has nothing to do with the recession, the ad drought or the Internet. Instead it was a direct result of consultants hired by the paper to determine reader interests. It was all very scientific as panels of local citizens were quizzed on their interests and what turned them on and off about newspapers. It was very expensive and trendy.
But what I thought was new was the results of these surveys were then religiously and systematically applied to engineering newspaper coverage, with predictable results being downplaying bad news and playing up features on women's rights, stories family pets with pictures, unfailingly upbeat features, etc., etc. Yes, there were complaints about the lack of any real news in the newspaper, but these were largely ignored.
Readers abandoned the newspaper in droves. You can read the circulation figures yourself and reach your own conclusion as to why.
I have my own opinion, and that is people left the newspaper because it no longer had any news in it. Crime and traffic accidents happened without stories, but were not actually unreported because all the effort to gathered the information was shunted off to databanks linked through the paper's Web sites where readers could find them among such other information as smoking complaints, and neighbors who had dog licenses. It's magic. You can type in your zip code and find everything going on around your house.
Replacing old-fashioned hard news ware innnovations like soft-news quizzes, top 10 in Cincy surveys, and instant reader polls got front-page attention. In other words, news you can use.
But circulation continues to dwindle.
This is a long post to make a very small point, and that is that we need to learn the basic lesson that readers of newspapers want news. They want it hard, and they want a lot of it. They want to be told things of interest, not let to find it out for themselves by fishing through a data bank. Data banks are great, but readers buy newspapers for the stories. They say they don't like all the bad news, but by God they read it. And good news is frankly boring.
I cite the Cincy experiment because I see USA Today now sliding in the same direction. My only message is to kill the consultants, save the money from the reader surveys, and go back to the days when newspapers printed news.
Save Gannett.
ReplyDelete1. Get Ward Bushee to come back as CEO
2. Sell Detroit .. even at a loss.
3. Buy Freedom or NBC
4. Reduce dailies to 6-day week papers, losing Monday or Sat.
5. Sell Arizona for a profit while you can.
6. Consolidate NY papers into two (north and southern tier) Treat it all like NJ, but let NY papers figure out their own consolidation.
7. Eliminate corporate news staff except for one to help set training, recruit and guide editors. Give autonomy back to editors to decide (with their publishers) what to do in each market without corporate mandates.
8. Deliver turnkey mobile/tablet strategy for every market.
9. Accelerate "design hub" move to end the pain.
10. Find a way to add a few reporters in every small and mid-size market.
12:49 AM said "If Gannett was smart..."
ReplyDeleteIf that assumption is the basis for the rest of your statement, we might as well stop reading right there. Gannett is full of smart managers who persist in doing stupid things, because, well, that's the way Gannett does it.
Jim - I have no contempt for the rank and file because I AM the rank and file. I've supported this blog from the beginning so your assumption was disappointing. No harm no foul. I've misread people and circumstances too because we're all flawed.
ReplyDeleteOn topic: Has MB given us "some" accurate information, yes; "all", no. Sometimes I think MB craves adoration and wants us to believe they're really plugged-in. Did MB know about the new CFO, no, and that tells me something about their access. Mine was a statement about not believing everything you read on this blog from MB or anyone else. I sure as hell hope MB is wrong about the 5,000 layoffs in 2011 because we both could end-up in that tally.
12 p.m.: I apologize.
ReplyDeleteJim - "no contempt" here, you're a good man Mr. Hopkins, thank you.
ReplyDeleteKeep doing what you're doing because we wouldn't know half as much about what's happening in this company were it not for this blog.
10:43, I like it -- except that anything "turnkey" is baloney. "Turnkey" web sites is what we got, and who thinks they're doing us any good? Give us design and programming support. We printed newspapers every day for decades; the Internet isn't any harder than that. But we have to do it!
ReplyDeleteMichael Maness is joining Demand Media
ReplyDeleteresponding to the post made at 12:49 on 11/20; who apparently doesn't know what A "Silver Alert" is. It's when a senior citizen has been reported missing.
ReplyDeleteTo 2:01PM, please pay attention. 12:49 was calling your attention to the copy error, as in "Silvert" vs. "Silver" alert. And this is exactly why we need copy editors or quality control will go to hell in a hand basket.
ReplyDeleteHaving been a longtime Cincy employee who was let go I will second everything that 10:35am said. It was laughable to watch management make one wrong move after another. How come the peons recognized it while management went along with each new suggestion that consultants threw out there.
ReplyDeleteWRT "Michael Maness is joining Demand Media," why would he do that? Maness has, probably, the sweetest gig in the company -- not least because he doesn't seem to be held accountable for any real results. (If I'm wrong on that, I welcome a correction based on concrete examples.)
ReplyDeleteAnd what would they do with the rest of that group? Wrap them into Dionise's audience and product development group? Pull them into Content One? Cut them loose and admit that 11g hasn't produced anything that could not have been done by existing staffing?
Sorry, but I don't see it.
Maness is another poster boy of Martore's, probably the only reason he lasted this long.
ReplyDeleteLet's not pick on MM. He Started Bold Italic. His team is working hard
ReplyDeleteOf course, until and unless Maness officially goes to Demand Media, we won't know whether it's true. But if it is true, that would be very interesting.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I think Bold Italic is one of the more unusual things to come out of Gannett in a long time. I just don't know who gets credit for it, however. Wasn't there a consultant involved?
Furloughs and going to a four-day workweek should be done before more layoffs.
ReplyDeleteNo it was all MM and his team. Watch for large metro roll outs soon
ReplyDeleteWhat is this buy Freedom stuff? If you want to promote this purchase, tell me what it does for GCI? Seriously give us an argument for why these purchases would make sense.
ReplyDeleteFrom my point of view, Freedomm has some small, scattered Florida papers that are probably the most attractive properties for the future, and I like Palm Beach TV. Other than, nothing much. Orange County Register has probably seen its best days, and didn't take advantage of the LA Times when it was down and out. Fatal mistake.
http://rturner229.blogspot.com/2010/11/times-are-tough-for-new-gannett-cfo.html
ReplyDelete7:33: Ouch! Take that, new Gannett CFO!
ReplyDeleteYes, Saleh looks like a real winner. Why, oh why, does this company do these things? If you ask them, they get all defensive and huffy and say they have their reasons.
ReplyDeleteSpeculation of Riddle retiring was widely known before it happened. I'm concerned My Boss didn't spill the beans on that one -- it would have been an easy one to gain credibility on.
ReplyDeleteOK. 10:43. Most of that might actually work. What can we do to get corporate to pay attention to ideas from the front lines?
ReplyDelete8:03 p.m.: Why didn't you share that speculation with us?
ReplyDeleteI'll also add this. Periodically, critics try to discredit sources here as a way of undermining the credibility of Gannett Blog. The current mini-campaign against a frequent poster named My Boss is only the latest example.
To repeat something another poster said, My Boss never claimed to be omniscient. I've never claimed to be omniscient. Sometimes we're ahead of the news, and sometimes we aren't.
Indeed, if a complete knowledge of Gannett's inner workings were a prerequisite to continued employment, the entire Gannett Management Committee -- and especially the board of directors -- would have been out on their butts long, long ago.
Throughout the mid-2000s, for example, I knew Gannett's stock was falling, and was likely to continue falling. I sold shares as fast as they were deposited in my 401(k) account after selling the bulk of my holdings at about $90 a share in 2004.
Yet, CEO Dubow and CFO Martore didn't know that. Instead, they borrowed heavily to buy back $1.8 billion of Gannett stock at an average price of $63.95 a share between 2005 and 2008. You read correctly: BILLION dollars.
In terms of credibility, that is something to be concerned about.
Jim, things here are discredited because they are often wrong. And your first response, almost very time, is to claim the people pointing out these things are corporate spies.
ReplyDeleteWant to boost your credibility? 1. Stop screwing up so much. 2. Stop running with rumors. 3. Own your mistakes. Right now, you show no ability to do any of the three.
8:26 -- Thanks for your comments. I understand what you're saying and you're right. I've built a situation where I have part-time work that I could take as soon as Gannett's transitional pay ran out. I wouldn't really want it before, as it would be less than my full salary.
ReplyDeleteAside from that, I have a situation where I could very likely survive for an extended time on unemployment benefits alone ... although I probably wouldn't do that because continuing to work at least part-time would stretch my benefits further. And, as you mention, it looks good to others.
I suspect -- in fact, I know -- there are other Gannett employees in my boat. That's why I wish the company's next big layoff would be preceeded by requests for volunteers. There are a lot of us who could get by just fine without Gannett, but we would need a few months of unemployment and severance to avoid going in debt during the transition.
There are a lot of poseurs in this company who insist they know what is going on inside corporate, when they really don't have a clue. My Boss is exposing how little they really know, and they don't like it because that's an attack on their position. So I really don't think we need to take this sniping seriously. It is coming from the same group of insecure executives who claim to be insiders when they really are not.
ReplyDeleteTo all those who doubt My Boss:
ReplyDeleteHe may not always be right, but at least we know it's him. Who are you? Why don't you have a screen name so we can track what you say?
He at least has some ownership and responibility for what he says.
Getting back to the ranting about Riddle. I don't recall ever seeing a post from him on the issue. He didn't need too. It was the worst kept secret on the East Coast. I've seen many folks from Asbury, Cherry Hill, and Wilmington making comments about it for over two months.
They were anonymous, and they were RIGHT. But they weren't My Boss.
Jim shows not only the ability, but the willingness to own up to and correct errors. I worked for a respectable company once that did that for readers. It wasn't Gannett.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with Gannett corporate thinking and the Asbury Park Press's in particular.
ReplyDeleteToday (Sunday) the Press announces their "Daily Deal" for readers:
http://www.app.com/article/20101120/NEWS/11200315&source=rss
Looks a lot like the "Real Deal" mailings that the Star-Ledger and nj.com have been sending out for more than a year now.
(sarcasm on) Quick response. That's how to compete in today's market. (sarcasm off)
Regarding the advocacy for a 4-day week: Wow! Gannett could turn everyone into a part-time or contract employee!
ReplyDeleteI always figured My Boss was a woman.
ReplyDeleteI am neither a troll nor a corporate type, just someone with common sense.
ReplyDeleteMy Boss is obviouslu someone posing as someone in the know.
There is no way someone at an in-the-know corporate level would post such specific predictions. Too easily traceable.
Similarly, there is no way an underling to My Boss would continue to post the predictions of this higher up without that being traceable as well, by the boss especially.
I have no doubt My Boss is someone who thinks he (or she), is hearing the truth from somebody. But anyone who works in any kind of corporate environment knows that lots of people, even high-ranking people, say and predict lots of things and a lot of it ends up being nothing at all.
Gossip gets nastier and less truthful the higher you go up in an organization. Think about it. And take My Boss predictions with a huge grain of disbelief.
Whoever it is is good at weeding out the wheat from the chaff. Looks to me as if this is quite solid information he/she is passing on, meaning somethings that look squirrely are not being posted. I have thought that the way to identify a person like this is to pass on bad information to only a selected few people, and then seeing if it is posted. I am sure My Boss has considered this, and is taking due cautions. This is all sounding a little like James Jesus Angleton.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteJim How many readers do you average on this website a day. Any idea what the average time is someone stays on the website.
ReplyDeleteMyBoss=Jim Hopkins. Using the anonymous source routine is a way to generate more readership on this blog.
ReplyDeleteHey 6:35.
ReplyDeleteThat's just dumb. Do you work with Journalists? Anyone who does knows they can't help themselves from telling EVERYONE that they new something first. It's an ego thing.
In fact Jim does that quite often. Because he's a journalist....
Now back to the great My Boss mystery. I kind of thought they might be a she as well. I agree with the comments about My Boss not being in the top tier of management. My Boss has nver said they were.
My guess is they are a support person. Maybe admin, but more likely IT, or HR. You'd be surprised how much those guys know.
Replying to some recent comments:
ReplyDelete1. 6:27 p.m.: Average number of visits is all across the map, depending on current news. Average time on site rarely changes: It's about 3:30 minutes.
2. 6:35 p.m.: I've signed every one of my comments. It's unethical to do otherwise.
Jim- I thought you stopped working for Gannett?
ReplyDelete7:17 p.m.: I did. In 2007, I agreed to a voluntary layoff from USA Today in return for better severance benefits.
ReplyDeletein reference to Riddle's departure and Asbury becoming the new East Group HQ's... Back on 11/19 Anonymous said...Your HQ guesses are cold, very cold. This really proves My Boss is not connected. Be prepared to be shocked. 11/19/2010 5:56 AM ....
ReplyDeleteSO if it's not Asbury..is the Shocker Greenville?
The answer is right in front of you. See the Force Luke!
ReplyDelete