A Gannett Blogger has slipped me a copy of The Arizona Republic's three-page Operational Plan for 2011. I'm especially interested in a section on Page 2 called "Audience Growth: Mobile."
It says: "Serve as one of five local-market mobile innovation and incubation centers for Gannett. Work with Gannett Digital and other innovation centers, focus on mobile development that serves market's needs and can be replicated in other Gannett markets.''
The plan also shows the paper is chasing young-ish Baby Boomers through its news coverage: "Introduce content adjustments as necessary to attract Young Boomers and 25-44 year-olds, especially women."
And for those of you, like me, who love business-speak, there's the following, under "Priority 8: Marketshare." Strategic objective: "Build on the foundation work of the world class sales and marketing journey to develop a market-and-customer-centric culture which achieves success through innovation, accountability, discipline, and collaboration." (I believe this means: We want to sell more ads.)
Earlier: Confidential documents reveal double-digit profit margins at scores of papers on verge of massive layoffs. Plus: Customer-centric, a phrase only a consultant would love
Does anyone know the location of the other four mobile R&D centers? 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.
It says: "Serve as one of five local-market mobile innovation and incubation centers for Gannett. Work with Gannett Digital and other innovation centers, focus on mobile development that serves market's needs and can be replicated in other Gannett markets.''
The plan also shows the paper is chasing young-ish Baby Boomers through its news coverage: "Introduce content adjustments as necessary to attract Young Boomers and 25-44 year-olds, especially women."
And for those of you, like me, who love business-speak, there's the following, under "Priority 8: Marketshare." Strategic objective: "Build on the foundation work of the world class sales and marketing journey to develop a market-and-customer-centric culture which achieves success through innovation, accountability, discipline, and collaboration." (I believe this means: We want to sell more ads.)
Earlier: Confidential documents reveal double-digit profit margins at scores of papers on verge of massive layoffs. Plus: Customer-centric, a phrase only a consultant would love
Does anyone know the location of the other four mobile R&D centers? 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.
I believe the youngest of the baby boomers are now 45 years old.
ReplyDeleteIndy is bound to be one.
ReplyDeleteBaby Boomer -- 1945-1964
ReplyDeleteIn Phoenix, that strategic babble will boil down to more T&A slide shows.
ReplyDeleteYoung baby boomers are the target because the Republic is trying to hold onto print as long as possible. If the Republic can grab more of the younger baby boomers, the age of the average reader could hold at 56 instead of pushing 60, a point where the paper becomes less desirable to many current advertisers.
ReplyDeleteIt is basically saying...Matt Jones in Gannett Digital-Mobile has done SHIT so we are now taking over the mobile initiative!
ReplyDeleteSo, true. Digital with Josh Resnik is a disaster. The mobile guys do not know how to sell. They all suck!
I like the part PRIORITY 2 "Strategic Objective: continue to maintain and improve sunday results, especially among Boomers, while also focusing on growth on other key days- wednesdays, Fridays, and saturdays by providing a comprehennsive news report that focuses on unique enterprise as well as expert and insightful reporting." Which is all horse shit because..... DRUM ROLL.... Wednesday, Friday and Saturday are thrown in if you want to subscribe to the Sunday paper. I called to reduce my subscription to Sunday only (and called twice to make sure) and was told you can do that but you aren't going to save any money because it's the same price as Sunday ONLY. So now they are drinking their own Koolaide, they think growth on Wed, Fri & Sat is from their fabulous product, when the reality is that it is just being included free of charge so of course there is growth on those days. I Yi Yi. What a bunch on numb nuts run the paper and the company.
ReplyDeleteHmmmm. Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Wonder if there's a future plan to reduce delivery to those days and they're conditioning readers to it?
ReplyDelete4 pm. A Thursday-Friday-Sunday print schedule would make sense, dropping the other four days. But Saturday is dead in terms of advertising.
ReplyDelete"Introduce content adjustments as necessary to attract Young Boomers and 25-44 year-olds, especially women."
ReplyDeleteas a former gannett corporate marketing exec I can tell you this line has been the goal of all newspapers for the past 25 years. It's the newspaper marketing version of a middle east peace settlement.
So the ETA on news apps is ... ?
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said... westchester site on life support and brace yourselfs for more changes.
ReplyDeletein response to 2:49 (and I'll assume you are on the editorial side of the business), take the time to UNDERSTAND the overall business model of the paper. Look at the importance of Wed and Friday to preprint advertisers. The revenue growth that comes from advertisers will offset the circ expense. As for Saturday, it can still be a very important day for Auto (I don't see the Phoenix paper so not sure how much of the business they still retain but I suspect it is still important to the segment). It is very tiring to read comments that are not based on the entire facts of how a paper is put together. And, if you've worked at the paper for any length of time, and still don't know, shame on you. And that lack of knowledge is one of the problems facing papers today.
ReplyDeleteSo Jim here is a question: a source gives you a confidential business plan. A plan one would assume the company doesn't want their competitors to see and you have no problem publishing it. If a document is crucial to the future of an organizations financial health what is your justification for publishing it? I can see publishing a document about unethical behavior but why do you publish confidential strategic information?
ReplyDeleteDon't want to burst your bubble but the document that you posted was given to employees so they could understand the company's priorities. It is not confidential. Just a document used by management to communicate with employees. Still have a problem with that?
ReplyDelete8:45 This document contains news of interest to my readers. My publishing it is no different than what newspapers do every day of the week.
ReplyDelete8:58: Look at the upper-left corner of Pages 2 and 3. It's marked CONFIDENTIAL in capital letters.
8:58, I don't want to burst your bubble, but you obviously missed the word "CONFIDENTIAL" at the top of the second and third pages. So yes, I have a big problem with that.
ReplyDeleteWhat's your response, Mr. Hopkins?
Jim did the right thing, just as newspaper reporters routinely do the right thing in disclosing confidential information because it's newsworthy. Was anyone injured as a result? No. Was the company significantly damaged? Hardly. Does the operational plan tell competitors much that they didn't already know about the company's strategy? Hardly. The disclosure does inform readers of this blog about the goals of one of Gannett's largest properties. That's newsworthy.
ReplyDelete8:58's post is another example of what happens at this site multiple times on a daily basis.
ReplyDeleteSomeone has no idea what he's talking about. But that doesn't stop him from not only drawing a conclusion, but also implying that anyone who doesn't agree is somehow not smart. In this case, we have the unintentionally funny "Still have a problem with that?" conclusion.
As always, Jim sets the tone for this. Time and again, he has been wrong on many things. His response is to post some silly, unrelated challenge like: "Do you think I shouldn't cover this issue?"
This has been said before, but I think some people here are 24-30 months removed from their departures from Gannett. Isn't it time to move past the irrational anger? Factual information would be great, but we get very little of that. Instead, we have emotional dumps that are useless for developing a discussion about what's happening.
So Jim you post a Confidential memo. The people that hate the company cheer you on for your great journalism and then the company they work for suffers and doesn't reach certain financial goals and lays off the person cheering and the response is "the company sucks." Ironic comes to mind.
ReplyDelete8:45 pm, et al - Shouldn't you reserve your censure for the person who sent the information to Jim in the first place? How is it Jim's fault for publishing it here? His concern is not confidentiality, but information.
ReplyDeleteThose who remain interested in what Gannett does, and have close knowledge of how the company works from the inside anyway, would not be aware of this stuff otherwise. The information is meaningless to those who do not understand the industry, or the company anyway. I fail to see the problem.
I think you've done a service to Gannetoids by publishing this confidential memo, that apparently wasn't really so confidential. You helped translate the gobbldeygook that passes for internal communication. How on earth can anyone working for a communication company put out a memo filled with so much vaguery and nonspeak?
ReplyDeleteboomers are 1946-1964.
ReplyDelete6:48 Under what circumstances is it appropriate to publish a company's -- any company's -- internal documents?
ReplyDelete6:48, the company is suffering, if you want to call it that, for a lot more serious reasons than Jim posting a "Confidential" memo.
ReplyDelete1. No long-term plans for the future. Coming up with a new gimmick every six months doesn't count.
2. A dying industry that they're still making money on, but that they also refuse to invest in to make the eventual transition to full-time web go smoother.
3. Horrifically poor leadership at the top.
4. Employees, who, no matter how hard they work, or how loyal they are, getting the shaft through furloughs, paycuts and layoffs while top brass takes their rightfully-earned money and gives themselves bonuses.
There's four reasons right there. And if it wasn't for Jim posting a lot of these "Confidential" memos, Gannett employees wouldn't have any idea how badly they are being screwed over because the company hates to perform any sort of communications with their lowly employees outside of glowing memos long on corporate-speak and short on information.
6:48 here Jim. You are the publisher, you are the one that makes the decision. I find it ironic that the haters cheer you on when you choose to share confidential information with competitors and then criticize Gannett when they don't meet financial goals and lay the same haters off. To answer your question, I don't think business strategies should be published, plans that focus on revenue generation. Now as a publisher you may disagree but as an employee who wants the company that pays me a paycheck to succeed, I don't want it out there. Lauoffs, new hires, conjecture no problem.
ReplyDeleteThis is 8:58. About 900 people were made aware of the document. If you makes you think you are 007 or Wikileaks by posting something that says confidential but has that wide a distribution so be it. All I can tell you is that the contents of the document were not a secret. It was just management trying to keep it's employees in the loop. I guess many of you have a problem with that.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteWork place ethics don't exist for people who leak confidential information. Even Google fires people who leak information. And they have an open culture. It's just basic ethics.
ReplyDeleteThe employee is at fault here and showed his true colors. I'm sure this employee is on his way out eventually. So that did not help anyone.
2:43 all you said may or may not be true but the fact is my post questioned the posting of a Confidential memo. Jim's post called it Confidential. If 900 people received it then Jim needs a new copy editor. Stay focused people.
ReplyDelete2:45 Ultimately, these are subjective decisions, based on my experience and the needs and demands of my readers. We all have different standards.
ReplyDeleteFor example, you write: "La[y]offs, new hires, conjecture no problem."
In fact, Corporate does not want layoffs widely reported; if it did, it would make that information readily available. Some people would argue that my reporting layoffs hurts the company's image, so harms it financially.
Where, then, do I/we draw the line?
3:08 The 900 people you reference, apparently, are the employees of The Arizona Republic and perhaps its sister TV station, KPNX.
ReplyDeleteThey account for less than 3% of Gannett's overall employees. Shouldn't the other 97%, plus thousands of other shareholders, have a right to know what's going on inside the Republic? After all, in recent years it has been a significant drag on GCI's revenue growth because it is in a market where the real estate bust hit especially hard.
Jim This is 8:58 abd 3:08 (I wonder if this one is going to end in 8 as well). Sure they have the right to know but every single newspaper has an operating plan and I bet they are all pretty much the same. You are making a pretty routine operating plan look like you just uncovered The Dead Sea Scrolls. No one was trying to hide anything, this is not that big a deal, and this is not any kind of scoop.
ReplyDelete1:37 PM said: "In Phoenix, that strategic babble will boil down to more T&A slide shows."
ReplyDeleteAll I can say is, "Woohoo!"
I use to work in advertising management at the Arizona Republic and basically everything that was emailed by upper management and corporate was labeled confidential, BUT with a distribution list that included everyone at the newspaper and usually included the statement at the end. "If you know of someone who has not seen this memo, please be sure to include them." The word confidential really didn't mean anything in that environment and the execs knew it, I would even be in ops meetings where everything discussed was supposedly confidential and by the time I got down the elevator employees would already know what was discussed. Also in reality there never was a new idea ever discussed just rehashed and recirculated year after year.
ReplyDeleteTO POSTER 3/11/2011 6:16PM I WAS AN ADVERTISING MANAGER SO SEE MY RESPONSES IN CAPS, AS YOU KNOW NOT OF WHAT YOU SPEAK. (and I'll assume you are on the editorial side of the business), take the time to understand the overall business model of the paper. Look at the importance of Wed and Friday to preprint advertisers PREPRINT ACCOUNTS FOR LESS THAN 10% OF THE ADVERTISING DOLLARS AT THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC, PREPRINT IS AND ALWAYS WILL BE THE NECESSARY EVIL OF THE NEWSPAPERS, PROVIDES ALMOST NO MONEY BUT DRIVES READERSHIP. The revenue growth that comes from advertisers will offset the circ expense IT DOES NOT THE CIRC EXPENSE IS ALMOST 4X THE COST OF THE PREPRINT REVENUE ON ANY GIVEN DAY. As for Saturday, it can still be a very important day for Auto (I don't see the Phoenix paper so not sure how much of the business they still retain but I suspect it is still important to the segment). ALL THE AUTO LINER ADS WERE GIVEN AWAY FOR FREE FOR THE DEALERS THAT USED DISPLAY ADVERTISING. It is very tiring to read comments that are not based on the entire facts of how a paper is put together. And, if you've worked at the paper for any length of time, and still don't know, shame on you. And that lack of knowledge is one of the problems facing papers today. AND WHAT YOU MISSED FROM MY ORIGINAL POSTING WAS THAT MANAGEMENT WAS PATTING ITSELF ON ITS BACK FOR GROWING WEDNESDAY, FRIDAY AND SATURDAY; HOWEVER THOSE DAYS WERE AND ARE IN DECLINE EVEN WITH ALL THE ADVERTISING ON WEDNESDAY, ITS JUST THAT THEY HAVE STABILIZED THE CIRC LOSS TEMPORARILY BY GIVING THE PAPER AWAY, BUT THE ADVERTISING WAS AND STILL IS DECLINING ON ALL DAYS. AND JUST ONE MORE POINT BECAUSE YOU SEEM COMPLETELY INEPT (YOU MUST BE A GANNETT EXECUTIVE). NEWSPAPERS DRIVE THEIR READERSHIP DAYS BY CONTENT AND BY CIRCULATION PROMOS AND NOT BY ADVERTISING. JUST NOW ALL THEY HAVE LEFT IS TO GIVE THE PAPER AWAY ON DAYS AND HOPE THEY CAN GET ADVERTISERS. I COULD GO ON AND ON WITH MORE EXAMPLES BUT I HOPE YOU GET THE POINT
ReplyDelete