Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Fort Myers | GCI said getting $105K to add jobs

Amid furloughs, layoffs and other cutbacks at its newspaper in Fort Myers, Fla., Gannett collected $105,000 from Lee County's economic development office to create 35 jobs by August 2012 at The News-Press, a local TV station has reported.

The jobs might have gone elsewhere without the incentives, said Jennifer Berg, a spokeswoman for the office. Lee County was one of the nation's hardest-hit communities and governments after the real estate crash.

WBBH, an NBC affiliate, did not identify the purpose of the jobs, but it sounds like these are to support GCI's new Yahoo advertising sales partnership. The station said it sought comment from News-Press Publisher Mei-Mei Chan before airing its March 10 report.

"But we were told she was on furlough,'' the station's Andy Pierrotti said. The paper's editor was also out of the office for the rest of the week, he said.

GCI has collected thousands of dollars in government tax breaks and incentives in other U.S. communities in return for adding jobs. The practice is widespread across Corporate America.

But the jobs don't always last. That was the case in Tulsa, Okla., where GCI in late January announced plans to close a customer-service center there by the end of this month. Of 150 jobs there, 131 will be relocated to Gannett operations in Greenville, S.C.; Detroit, and Phoenix.

Tax-driven job creation also occurs even as companies eliminate jobs elsewhere in their business. For example, in November, according to Gannett Bloggers, the News-Press eliminated four jobs during a nationwide GCI layoff.

16 comments:

  1. This doesn't make much sense as the Yahoo ad partnership is a failure and on life support. So the county is throwing away money that could have helped residents who have lost their jobs and need retraining, not giving it to a wealthy profit-making newspaper. This is so wrong.

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  2. Of course this is so wrong....

    So both the publisher and editor are gone during the week...? wow, bet the place runs a lot more smoothly.

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  3. And lets not forget the jobs that will disappear later this year after the design center is up and running. Not to mention any other layoffs that may be coming...

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  4. I thought Gracia had an iron-clad grip on all hiring across GCI, so did she approve this?

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  5. Speculation is this story by the TV station was in retaliation for the paper breaking the story about the firing of the station's longtime main news anchor about a week earlier.

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  6. Maybe the publisher and editor can address the "speculation" when they return from their furloughs or wherever they are.

    I would hope that the county would be looking to get its $ back.

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  7. Is there a potential conflict of interest when a government (or quasi-government) agency gives a news organization money??

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  8. There was a time (sound of old bones creaking and young bloggers moaning with eyes rolled) when Gannett had ethics and the idea of snatching this taxpayer loot from government and running for the hills screaming like a banshee would have been totally unacceptable.

    Ruined editors have been reprimanded for far far far far less "ethics" issues in the past than something this blatantly unethical.

    But no one cares today.

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  9. 5o5 you are kidding right? I am with you on a lot of comments but come on. Counties, cities and states hand out hundreds of millions annually to companies to grow jobs, entice jobs etc. I fail to see how a company getting an incentive is some sort of journalistic no no.

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  10. LOL at their timing (publisher being on furlough and editor being out of town).

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  11. 8:20 A couple of points:
    1. This taxpayer money is traditionally not given to companies that layoff staff and then turn to government assistance to rehire. It is designed to bring in new jobs, not help a company reorder its staff while adding to unemployment levels for which states pay. Our government is not that stupid.
    2. Newspapers have historically been the largest employers in their communities, and therefore have added clout over local government. As we see from the national elections, voters take it out on incumbents when the local economy is sour, and that's true on the local level as well.
    3. How are we going to handle political endorsementts in next year's elections. If we endorse incumbents who gave us this money, it will be said by some the politicians bought our support. We do not need to be associated with the government in any way.

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  12. freedom of press - what does it mean to you?

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  13. That was a stab at being a watch dog jounalist. Too bad no one cared about this story.

    Thanks for playing, better luck next time.

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  14. Crowdsourcing is dead now that Michael is gone.

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  15. Somebody find out how many of these jobs actually are in Florida - we've got several people in our group whose paychecks say something totally different from their business cards.

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  16. Wonder what the job count is on this now.

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