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[Updated at 3:27 p.m. ET: Whew! Talk about musical executive chairs! Kane is returning to his former job as publisher of the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, N.Y., the paper is now reporting. He remains president of the East Group. He replaces Ali Zoibi, who was named publisher of The Daily Advertiser in Lafayette, La. Zoibi, in turn, replaces Leslie Hurst, named chief executive last week of The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss.]
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| Zoibi |
The Indianapolis Star is updating its story about Karen Crotchfelt's promotion to publisher. The story now says: "She replaces Michael G. Kane, whose new assignment within Gannett is expected to be announced this afternoon."
The Indianapolis Business Journal has now posted a story that includes a short interview with Crotchfelt. The Journal says she is 40 years old.
Notice that the IBJ story on the new SStar publisher is more complete than the story in the Star itself. IBJ regularly outhustles the Star in business and hard news. And IBJ is a small weekly.
ReplyDeleteKane's back as publisher in Rochester
ReplyDeletehttp://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20101222/BUSINESS/101222020/Michael-Kane-returns-to-Rochester-as-publisher-of--Democrat-and-Chronicle-
What was the primary driver of this three-way change in publishers? Was it simply Kane's desire to return home to Rochester to be with his family full-time? Or is Rochester in such bad shape that it needed a new CEO to replace Zoibi?
ReplyDeleteJim- it's pretty obvious. Let the re-org and selloff begin.
ReplyDeleteIt IS obvious, but your conclusions are ridiculous. It is only sensible to have the head of the East Group be in the true East, and the Rochester paper has traditionally been a hub (headquarters not that long ago) for Gannett. The rest of the shuffling is just sensible management changes. Search as you want for a deep, dark meaning, this was how such things were routinely handled until the very recent times during extensive cuts. If anything, this is a sign things are back to normal and picking up steam, naysayers.
ReplyDeleteCan foresee selling any property with a bad trend line where expense controls are limited, maxed or constrained. If a metro can't fix its cash issues, it may have to go. If a group can't fix its line, maybe it needs to be sold while it still has some value left -- and hope. In some states, there actually are newspaper groups that could gather the investment money and make a go of it.
ReplyDeleteCont.. If I had the right investors, I'd buy the smaller TN papers. They only need some TLC and to be rid of corporate interference.
ReplyDeleteUm, maybe Michael Kane just wanted to return to Rochester, where his family still lived? He had been commuting most weekends back from Indy.
ReplyDeleteBig question is will Zoibi take the demotion to Lafayette. And who knows how Crotchfelt will do at Indy, let's hope she's not another Denise Ivey ... but I guess she'll be reporting to Buchanan directly. These new VPs add a layer of management at the top, but probably were necessary considering how large the new East group has become.
Do we read into all these shifts that the papers involved are troubled, or have failed to meet their budget goals? I'm not really sure what has happened here. Strikes me that Cincy's editor would be a more pressing issue than these shifts.
ReplyDeleteWhat I love about the GB is the scurrying when something is really happening and all the wild speculation. With exclamation points! Jim, could your coverage be ANY MORE BREATHLESS!!!!
ReplyDeleteAnyone with a clue understood that when Curtis Riddle retired and Michael Kane was named President of a newly configured East group (not Interstate group), he would be returning to one of three places in the East where he worked before: Wilmington, Westchester or Rochester. Since his family never left Rochester when he went to Indy, and as another poster noted he has been travelling to Rochester nearly every weekend since becoming Publisher in Indy, pretty easy to figure out where he would be going. Add to that the fact that Ali Zoibi was never really successful in Rochester and you have your answer. The big question is whether Zoibi can make it in Lafayette.
Any other close observer knows that Karen Crotchfelt is a protege of Bob Dickey and her move to Indy should not be a complete surprise. She has been the top advertising and marketing VP at the largest property in the company for a while now. Indy as your first publisher job is raising eyebrows around the CP, but nothing about the moves for this rising star should surprise anyone at this point.
Don't be surprised if there are other changes with notable names soon. I can't wait to see how those are played on this site. It is really fun to watch you all scurry about.
8:08 It's a safe bet that 99% of my readers knew little of what you've described before today. That's why I publish this blog.
ReplyDeleteJim,
ReplyDeleteNot at all a safe bet unless 99% of your readers are clueless.
Oh, nevermind.
I worked for Karen in Palm Springs, she can be tough but she is very smart, has great vision, and will kick butt in Indy.
ReplyDeleteHa, ha! It's great when Jim gets burned.
ReplyDeleteScurrying is the perfect word for Hopkins and his minions. They run around, talking about bad Gannett is, but they have no answers.
Jim, how is it you did not know about Kane's Rochester situation? Your sources must really be dumb. Then you compound your lack of knowledge with those crazy conclusions.
You must have been a phenomenal reporter with those investigative skills.
Two things: First, Zoibi from Rochester to Lafayette could not be a bigger demotion. Can you say Siberia?? Second, "back to normal"???hahahaha....back to normal would mean someone like Crotchfelt would get her first Pub job at a much smaller paper....regardless of being a dept head at a large paper. Let's face it, the ole SCJ, Dickey, Krans, Greiwe, Z Man, groupies are still in action. Karen will have to be very careful....her old habits are not that far behind her.
ReplyDeleteI am torn. It's sad to see Jim coming close to his monthly financial goals.
ReplyDeleteBut then we have a thread like this, and it's all worthwhile. As long as he gets his money, Jim will keep on making a fool of himself.
Ohhh the ole company diehards crack me up!! They are giving Jim shit for not knowing in advance the highly confidential announcements from The Prez of Newspapers.....that says to me Jim you have their attention. They can only crow about being late on the biggest of the big....and I notice no mention of the dozens of items he has broken first....
ReplyDeleteI have to admit I am disappointed with these pub change strings. Yes many may have been surprised with the timing but anyone who even remotely knows MK knew his family was still in Rochester. Anyone who was surprised about KC doesn't know much. She was responsible for more revenue in Phoenix than the revenue generated by USAT. Indie was a no brainer.
ReplyDelete10:07, you are full of fail. Your "company man" dismissals are not going to work here. If you cannot see how obvious some of these moves were, then you are just as out of it as Jim.
ReplyDeleteUhhh hey DISAPPOINTED....KC was in charge of all that ad revenure you refer to for only a little over ONE year....Griewe ran advertising and all that revenue you refer to before that. AND if it was so obvious that MK was headed back to Rochester then why didn't they just say so when they made the announcement?? It's dumb moves like that that make the gossip spread....
ReplyDeletethis post is meant ENTIRELY for 6:31.
ReplyDeleteClearly this entire thread is being posted from the crystal palace (or Lord Rochester).
Are we to assume that the corporation's only objective in sending MK back to Rochester was for him to be closer to his family? When did Gannett start caring that much about their employees?
And if it was the case. Why is he so special? why does MK get the warm fuzzies when others just get pink slips? No my friends. There is more to the story than MK just wanting to be closer to his family.
Over the next 3 months the east group will be rearraged. MK was sent there to do that. The NJ group, Wilmington, and Salisbury will look very different when he is done.
10:48 you are so out of touch it's scary. He is the East Group Prez. His family never left Rochester. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see this one coming. Geez get a freaking grip.
ReplyDelete10:55- 10:48 here.....
ReplyDeleteIt must be your investagative skills that keep this organizations content relevant.....
I think think i'll create a screen name 10:48. Because when this all comes down (without your knowledge) in the next three months. You'll know exactly who is saying "I told you so".
The East Group comprises something like 27 newspapers. Purely from a logistical standpoint, where should the group president be based in order to have the easiest travel access to all those sites?
ReplyDeleteBy that measure, isn't Rochester a fairly remote, out-of-the-way location? Can Kane be posted there for any reason other than his desire to be near his family?
For that matter, didn't Corporate choose the Tysons site mostly because so many of the top brass already lived nearby?
FYI, following is the breakdown of the four groups:
ReplyDeleteWest: John Zidich, President – Phoenix
Mark Winkler, VP – Palm Springs, Visalia, Tulare, Salinas, Reno
Steve Silberman, VP – Salem, Great Falls, St. George, Fort Collins, Guam
Midwest: Laura Hollingsworth, President – Des Moines, Iowa City, St. Cloud & Sioux Falls
Linda Ramey-Greiwe, VP – Springfield, Mountain Home and all Louisiana properties
Genia Lovett, VP – All Wisconsin properties
South: Carol Hudler, President – Nashville and all Tennessee properties
Leslie Hurst, VP – Jackson (MS), Montgomery, Pensacola, Hattiesburg
Mark Mikolajczyk, VP – Brevard, Fort Myers, Tallahassee, Greenville, Asheville
East: Michael Kane, President – Indianapolis, Rochester, Binghamton, Westchester, Poughkeepsie
Howard Griffin, VP – Wilmington, Cherry Hill, Staunton, Vineland, Burlington, Salisbury
Tom Donovan, VP – Asbury and all Northern New Jersey properties
Margaret Buchanan, VP – Cincinnati, Louisville, Richmond, Muncie, Lafayette, Lansing, Battle Creek, Port Huron, MNCO
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ReplyDeleteJim, your feeble attempts at putting a spin on this are growing more laughable.
ReplyDeleteWill he eventually move to another location? Maybe. But right now, the facts are his family stayed in Rochester, and he went back to Rochester.
This one reader would not have noticed all the shifts that are happening were it not for Jim's postings. Corporate has made it clear personnel issues aren't discussed. I also wish there were pictures with the post because it would answer a question nagging me : ?any blacks or minorities
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ReplyDeleteNo replacement named at Fort Collins Coloradoan while all the other papers have new publishers? This very well could mean the Fort Collins paper is on the sale block - to the Denver Post. The sale is a topic that was talked about during the session in which it was announced that Kim Wilson was no longer publisher. Salem publisher made it clear that somebody is finding value in the Coloradoan and is willing to talk about buying it. He said no sale 'yet'. Maybe it is easier for Gannett to negotiate without a publisher on board and it looks beter on the bottom line, right?
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting tidbit here is that Zoibi has family ties to Indy. Even in The Advertiser's story announcing him as the new pub he talks about how he and his wife spend all their time in Indy because that's where their two children live...
ReplyDeleteJust weird that there's that connection. Here's hoping he does something good for Lafayette, Louisiana. Those people down there deserve better. What's happened to that paper is a crying shame. And Hurst isn't solely responsible.
Is it possible that there is going to be a publisher purge? It appears feasible that the group presidents and expanded number of vice presidents could easily handle more than one property, especially if they expand this general manager concept they have been testing. It's definitely a way to trim a lot of bloat from the budget. These days it just doesn't make sense to have a publisher for every newspaper property.
ReplyDeleteSomething has to be up, especially with all of the bashers on here.
I would like to say that once again, My Boss had this one too.
ReplyDeleteLet me get this right. One dude, in San Francisco, is supposed to know the back story of all the publishers, vice presidents, etc. for a 30,000+ employee multinational with brandnames in the thousands. Failing that, he should have a network of knowledgeable and trustworthy sources that can verify and then independently verify again any rumor or news item.
ReplyDeleteAnd be able to turn on all of the above news-gathering on a breaking story where the company does not want a word to be shared.
Lastly, he should do all the above with a stated goal of earning $44.44 a day from donations and advertising.
Oh you're right, shame on Jim for all the failures of his international news syndicate.
To the real people reading this - ignore the trolls.
To the trolls - delegate this part of your day to your staff. At least they're more creative, your stuff is getting old.
FYI: When Kane left Lansing for Rochester, his family stayed in that community for quite some time. Kane also had deep connections in that community, but he didn't return there.
ReplyDeleteTo all the know-it-alls on this thread, how in the world do you think the rest of us in Gannett would know anything about Indy's publisher having family in Rochester? I get it that it's common knowledge out East, but how would any of us in the hinterland be privy to that information? You grinches should lighten up.
ReplyDeleteActually, the most amusing thing about people who post information about what Jim doesn't know, in order to show what he doesn't know, are adding to the value of his blog. And we should all shed a tear that these people who appear to be in the know within our company still know so little about how crowdsourcing works.
ReplyDeleteThen again, that might just be Jim's master plan.
5:24 Hah!
ReplyDeleteIf you Jim Trolls weren't so busy spewing your poison you would have realized Kane wasn't fired and as the new East GrouP President he was heading east to one of the two large sites. Of course Jimwon't publish this because he only allows his trolls to post. Right Jimmy?
ReplyDelete6:29 I believe you missed something. Re-read my post, above, and you'll see I wrote the following: "Kane is returning to his former job as publisher of the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, N.Y., the paper is now reporting. He remains president of the East Group."
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ReplyDeleteJim, I believe you missed something. Actually, you missed a lot of things.
ReplyDeleteWhy do you keep trying to spin this in your favor? You were ignorant, and you were wrong. Just admit it, and move on. When you act like an 8-year-old and keep stomping around, insisting you are fighting the good fight and that corporate is trying to poison the blog, then you just look foolish.
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ReplyDeleteI'm not certain a change in newspaper editors or publishers is as newsworthy as it once was. In Gannett, most people who fill those roles are corporate nomads who serve a community just long enough to qualify for their next higher-paying gig. Their number two challenge (just after profits, of course) is to convince their communities they are sincerely happy to be there.
ReplyDeleteAnd so Kane returns to whence he came, which many of his cohorts would find hard to swallow, but with a long list of other titles and responsibilities. So it is that Rochester, where the Gannett empire began, gets a publisher who must oversee not only the D&C but 26 other daily publications, located from Michigan to Delaware.
Gee, wonder if he'll also have time to work on United Way, the Rotary Club, the PGA and all the other things publishers typically do to get where Kane got?
Watching the incessant, seemingly mindless, ill-coordinated "Gannett Shuffle" is nothing new to insiders interested in who's succeeding and who's crapping out. Yesterday's hero is tomorrow's goat, as poor Ali Zoibi well knows.
But think about what the shuffle means to those "served" by Gannett in its 83 or so communities. How many publishers has Lansing had in the past 10 years? Four? Five? How long will the current one remain? Lansingites, home to the proud Michigan State Spartans, are smart enough to know that Gannett's commitment to Lansing is srictly financial. No heart...no soul...no commitment to high quality journalism to help make Lansing a better place.
Indy and Rochester both played the Kane thing on page one. Seems like maybe a business cover or local insider to me. Leave the page one space for people who contribute to their communities over an extended period of time...you know, the people who didn't do good deeds to get customers or otherwise benefit themselves.
I once participated in a meeting between the relatively new publisher and her relatively new executive editor at The Idaho Statesman in Boise. Our guests were about 10 residents brought in as a focus group to talk about what was on their mind.
ReplyDeleteOne of the residents, a local stockbroker, noted that Gannett had changed publishers and editors frequently in recent years. He asked why that was a good thing for the newspaper and for the community.
It was painful to listen to the publisher's response: She talked about the advantages of bringing in a fresh perspective, of an outside-in view of the community. The residents sitting around the table were politely quiet in response. But you could tell they though the publisher was full of B.S.
This was around 1994. Three years later, I believe, that publisher got busted down to a smaller Gannett paper. She, in turn, was followed by two more publishers over the next eight years.
So, from about 1993 to 2005, the Boise paper had at least four different publishers before Gannett sold the paper to Knight Ridder, which itself got sold almost as quickly to McClatchy.
Four publishers. Lord knows how many editors and ad sales directors and production directors, etc. And three different corporate owners. All in 12 years.
That's some fresh perspective, alright.
Jim, I am not sure you are one to speak of continuity. Didn't you shut down this site for several months last year?
ReplyDeleteFive months, to be exact. I started publishing Gannett Blog Sept. 11, 2007, and except for that break, I've posted nearly every day since then.
ReplyDeleteSo you failed to last two years, left for five months, and now you've been back for about a year.
ReplyDelete1:06 Jimmy Stewart called to tell you It's a Winderful Life starts in 10 minutes. Seriously it's been decades since Publishers stayed at a site for years. By the way banks don't give away toasters anymore and you can't smoke on commercial airlines anymore!
ReplyDeleteThe "This is your life" comment is an example of the poor judgment that has weakened newspapers as they adapt and reinvent themselves in the digital age.
ReplyDeleteNewspapers have a higher calling than many other businesses because the good ones use their precious credibility to right wrongs and expose wrongdoing. They play an important role in our governmental process. They are more like Catholic bishops than bankers, by the way.
A publisher's longevity in a community is part of that credibility package. The here-today-gone-tomorrow approach I call the Gannett Shuffle strokes many egos and lets corporate folks think they're doing something important with each move, but the constant change makes it difficult to maintain constructive community relations.
It's like contributing to your own irrelevancy and it suggests top management is wayyyyyy out of touch with what its customers expect and deserve.
The comment form 11:21 is an example of exactly why this company is failing. It's old school and doesn't recognize the rapidly changing information society we live in. It ain't Murrow's world any more. Not that it isn't a romantic notion to be cherished. It's just not how the world works anymore. It's been changing for a while and there's one very good example of how we feel about such things now.
ReplyDeleteHillary Clinton. Did anyone in NY really care that she moved there JUST to become the Senator? No. They elected her in a landslide. Did they really expect her to be there forever. No. Everyone new it was a stepping stone to the Presidency (except for that whole Obama thing getting in the way).
My point is. We don't expect people to do the same thing their whole lives anymore. Mostly because we don't expect if of ourselves. What we do expect is that while they're there. They do a bang up job.
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ReplyDeleteCome on Jim! 2:54 Really? From FF to this?
ReplyDeleteThat was outrageous. And I've now taken it down. But that's what happens when I turn away for even an hour.
ReplyDeleteYes, some movement among top managers of dynamic companies is expected. It's part of doing business. When it's done properly, it is a big deal, and it is seldom disruptive. But scale matters and it's worth thinking about when Gannett's changes out number more stable companies, 10-1.
ReplyDeleteBut if these moves are inconsequential, as poster 12:21 suggests, why move these people at all? Just have them run their papers from whatever remote location they choose. Publish and air their e-mail addresses with their photos on the edit page every day and invite readers to talk online with the publisher whenever they want. That way, each publisher could run 26 newspapers at a time, just like Mr. Kane.
Efficiency experts love that kind of stuff, but they do not understand that there are longterm consequences to taking your customers for granted. The recent Indy-Rochester-Phoenix-Lafayette shuffle suggests someone in a manic state of mind made some very bad,expensive mistakes.
It's embarrassing to watch, and to suggest that "everybody does it now-days" doesn't cut it with the intelligent inhabitants of Gannett outposts.
All of these publisher moves are just a silly waste of money. It's just an attempt to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic in hopes that moving all the chairs to the back of the ship will weight it down just long enough to keep it afloat a little longer.
ReplyDeleteThe once important role played almost exclusively by newspapers for centuries is rapidly diminishing, mostly due to the Internet and ease of publishing. This blog being a prime example. As much as Gannett's lords dislike GannettBlog, there isn't much they can do to supress it from sharing information and engaging debate. Newspaper publishers have engaged in encouraging -- and supressing -- debate on topics for centuries. Oh yes, Gannett's brass can ruffle their feathers and poo-poo Jim, but it's not like they can afford to go out and buy Google, just to shut GannettBlog out of the Blogger platform. There was a time when had the resources to do just such a thing.
All of these troll comments that are likely coming from Gannett management just further diminish the credibility and existence of newspapers as a member of the Fourth Estate. It's amateurish. In reality, the corporate-owned and controlled newspaper is just causing this industry to die a little quicker than it normally would.
3:39 why is it that anyone who disagrees with your point of view is a Corporate Troll and you and folks who think like you are the "voice" of the people? Can't I like ny job, appreciate my boss, disagree with leadership decisions, disagree with you and still be welcome here. Or is it agree with you are be labeled a troll?
ReplyDeleteThe only people who care about who the publisher of a newspaper is the Newsroom. I guarantee that 99.5% of the readership has no idea who the publisher of their hometown paper is, or even what the hell a publisher actually does..... Get over the publisher thing.
ReplyDeletesad to say, but anon 5:54 id probably correct. Other then city leaders, and I would venture not all of the even know, and some involved citizens most people do not know the name of the Publisher nore would they recognize them if they ran into them at the local grocery store.
ReplyDeleteTimes have chnaged
Great job of editing your post, 6:56.
ReplyDeletegreat job of being a douchebag 6:56.
ReplyDeleteerr... um I meant 6:58. Damn it!
ReplyDeleteIf times have changed so much and publishers are virtual unknowns, as the poster above suggests, why pay publishers so well (salaries/bonuses/stock options)?
ReplyDeleteWhy pay their memberships to top country clubs and other expensive places where many influential people spend their time? Why give them huge expense accounts? Why treat them as stand-in owners if they don't need to contribute time, energy and expertise to their communities?
If today's publisher need only pass along money to corporate, eliminate the position and hire an accountant.
The best publishers I've known and worked with in the past 1-to-10 years have and still are forces in their communities. In fact, I'll bet is that community involvement is still an important goal for all Gannett publishers. Corporate's bumbling of key assignments (the indy, rochester, lafayette shuffle) makes the publisher's role more difficult, but the goal remains in place. The poster's suggestion that such things no longer matter tells me that the sender has little or no first-hand knowledge of what good publishers actually do.
10:12. Good question. Why do we pay them so much? Quite frankly all the things you mentioned above are and can also be done by an EE or GM.
ReplyDeleteAll of those situations are involved with the Publisher for one reason only. Because as of now they are the top decision maker at the daily rag. They don't care what the title is. They just want to get in with the newsroom.
Everyone else in this company has to do more and not get paid for it. Why shouldn't a General manager or Exectutive editor? Talk about saving payroll expense.
The days of the Publisher (otherwise known as fiefdoms) are coming to an end. Just ask any of the 17(?) that have recently left (ummmm for wahtever reason). They saw the writing on the wall. So should you.
Our publiisher is known and very well liked by most everyone in the community and at the paper. The publisher is very involved in the community and the paper is doing well, all things considered.
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