Wednesday, May 04, 2011

May 2-8 | Your News & Comments: Part 2

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61 comments:

  1. For Part 1 of this comment thread, please go here.

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  2. Stoney LaDouche tries to explain the half million Magid Research investment in changing The News Journal.

    http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/delaware/item/18412-howard-griffin

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  3. Yet another step in the march towards consolidating all operations of newspapers in McLean. Next step, McLean gives out the assignments to local reporters.
    http://www.editorandpublisher.com/Departments/Technology/gannett-selects-layout8000-from-software-consulting-services-to-dummy-all-of-its-papers-64928-.aspx

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  5. The ABC rules have shifted to favor this or that as far back as I can remember and that's been a long time. But in case you haven't noticed, much of newspaper readership these days is shifting to online, rather than print. So to the dinosaurs here that think print is king are fools. Take the word paper out of newspaper and the numbers reflect wherever people get their news from one source. You can measure hits by the way to the ignorant person who said they'll make them up.
    5/03/2011 12:34 PM

    Nobody said they were making the hit or page views up......but we were told to sell our print product at the Arizona Republic based on readership which which included online..that is how the "readership" was in the millions and we were told to never disclose to separate print from online readership. That is where the smoke and mirrors come in...there was one big readership number no matter what you were selling even if the product have very limited readership, because it was associated with "Republic Media" then the readership was in the millions no matter what. Some products didn't even have an online presence but we were to tell the advertiser that the readership was in the millions.

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  7. 2:40: Ripple 6 and Pointroll provide internet marketing opportunities for business. Funny, but that's exactly what GSI Commerce says it does as well.

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  8. So will USA Today, America's newspaper, put a picture of a dead body on the front page when the White House releases the death pictures? Since most of our papers refuse to run pictures of dead bodies, will our community papers use this picture or not. If they do use it, will we change our policies across-the-board and start running pictures of bodies in car accidents, etc.

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  9. A couple of weeks ago, someone here speculated we would soon be in for printing dead bodies to get more page views. Looks like the poster was absolutely correct.

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  10. 2:40: Ripple 6 and Pointroll provide internet marketing opportunities for business. Funny, but that's exactly what GSI Commerce says it does as well.
    5/03/2011 2:51 PM

    So you think Ripple 6 and Pointroll are the same as GSI Commerce... what planet are you from. GSI Commerce is basically a business to business form of Amazon. Individual consumers do contact GSI Commerce but they are representing, selling, shipping and to some extent producing other companies products. The ignorance on this blog is unbelievable sometimes.

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  11. I'm with 2:40 PM
    This right from GSI Commerce's website.....

    "GSI Commerce® is a leading provider of e-commerce and interactive marketing services for the world’s premier brands and retailers. We offer a broad solutions suite designed to power each aspect of your online business and effectively integrate with your other channels. Our advanced technology, fulfillment, customer care and interactive marketing services enable our clients to elevate the consumer experience and cost-effectively sustain it over time. "

    and you think they are the same as Point Roll and Ripple 6???

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  12. Here is the complete statement about GSI Commerce, if you can find a similarity between them and Pointroll and Ripple 6... knock yourself out..

    "About Us

    GSI Commerce® is a leading provider of e-commerce and interactive marketing services for the world’s premier brands and retailers. We offer a broad solutions suite designed to power each aspect of your online business and effectively integrate with your other channels. Our advanced technology, fulfillment, customer care and interactive marketing services enable our clients to elevate the consumer experience and cost-effectively sustain it over time.
    We maximize your e-commerce results
    By engaging GSI as a co-sourcing partner for the products and services you need, you get the most out of your online channel. With GSI bringing you greater speed and operating capabilities, your e-commerce team has the freedom to focus their management energies on developing essential strategies for growing your online business and providing a unique, brand-centric experience for your customers.

    With GSI, you remain in full control of your business strategy, customers, and data, as well as your site presentation through powerful business user tools. We work with you to deliver a superior consumer experience and drive revenue growth, while you enjoy greater business flexibility, lower total cost and reduced risk.
    We grow your business with integrated marketing services
    When you engage with any of GSI’s interactive marketing services divisions, the return on investment is maximized as a result of our carefully developed, solid integrations with our solution platform, business processes and people.

    From concept to execution, we align our creative energy with your business strategy and brand essence to help you deliver captivating interactive experiences that increase your acquisition of new customers, convert more visitors into buyers, and build significant customer loyalty, driving revenue across multiple channels.
    We provide unparalleled scale and reliability
    GSI provides a broader range of operating scale and capabilities than any single client could justify building, maintaining, and continually improving on their own. Our redundant data centers, 24x7 Network Operations and time-tested processes enable us to consistently deliver the highest availability to your e-commerce business. We aggressively reinvest in our operations to provide our clients with the latest technology and operating capabilities to support their growth.
    We help you expand globally
    GSI’s operating scale is reinforced by our geographic scale, as our capabilities extend beyond the United States. GSI has dedicated international teams that help clients launch and operate e-commerce businesses that serve customers across North America and Europe and in the near-future in Asia.

    Our business approach is inherently designed to go beyond simply providing a multi-lingual store or translating content. We address the complex and intricate regulations, logistics, and marketing needs that are unique to serving customers in each country, thus keeping unrelenting focus on clients' revenue growth.

    Our only business is serving you
    Our designated account management teams go well beyond traditional client services. GSI complements your internal capabilities, so you can focus on better serving your customers instead of spending the valuable resources required to manage multiple systems, vendors and consultants. Let us be your co-sourcing partner for your e-commerce success."

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  13. Looks like McClatchy is doing another round of layoffs. Big G must be next to announce.

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  14. Management must be especially glad that Bin Laden went down: it moved the news cycle away from the embarrassing President's Rings.

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  16. Exactly the same.

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  17. Publisher overlooked in ring zing mentioned in Zidich post. Think another Z. Bad miss by big G.

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  18. Sitting here reading about more layoffs at non-Gannett properties and heard from a friend about more at a Florida newspaper (don't know if it is Gannett). Anyone know? And are the changes more a comment on the industry and less about management taking bonuses. Change is here and the folks who will go forward will stay. The ones hanging on will eventually fall, one would guess.

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  22. You need to let it go. Some things in life just aren't worth worrying about — and this is one of
    them. Move forward and forget the past.

    Anonymous said...

    Stoney LaDouche tries to explain the half million Magid Research investment in changing The News Journal.

    http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/delaware/item/18412-howard-griffin

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  23. The ex-newsroom types from the Journal News just can't let it go -- enough with the endless bashing. Have any of you found work at another newspaper?

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  24. I've read the comments here for a long time. Why is there so much drama from the East Coast and so little from everywhere else?

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  25. Who is stones ladouche (great nickname) and why does he have that nickname?

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  26. So running a photo of bin Laden = running photos of accident victims. There's a technical name for this kind of analogy -- stupid.

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  27. 10:34 - because the folks from Guam to NNCO are too damn busy working to fill the profit hole created by our right coast friends. (and Detroit)

    And the people on the right coast have time to be here because when your circ is only 20,000 you really don't need 20 journalists to fill the space between the remaining ads.

    Forget about breaking broadcast off. Dump the groups that are unending profit pits and we'd all be better off.

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  28. 6:39-

    That would have been a great post. If it were true. Fact is. The east group is still the most profitable.

    But I agree we seem to hear a lot of bitching from the New Jersey papers.

    And by the way. It's the EAST coast. Partisan propoganda and word spining has become VERY boring.

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  29. Look at the map, it's on the right. Unless perhaps your map is spined upside-down. Why do we have to capitalize EAST, btw?

    Comparing profit percentages, we're making more money on less investment elsewhere - Green Bay was mentioned as #1 here two years ago - though the dollar amount might be higher on the EAST coast.

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  30. Ok so you type Deal Chicken in the Google search engine....and do you get Deal Chicken as the first choice? NOPE 1st choice www.livingsocial.com.. and do you get it for the second choice? NOPE 2nd choice dealfind.com.... So do you get it for the third choice... YES, so you type in the exact name of the site and because the sites designers are so pathetic they can't even make their own site pop first when the exact name is typed in, but instead 2 of their direct competitors pop first when looking for Gannett's Deal Chicken.... and you wonder why this company is such a miserable long term failure.... LMAO

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  31. bin Laden dead. Circ may or may not be up. Moving on, any more news of layoffs, pay cuts/freezes, etc.?

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  32. Layoff news should be happening tommorrow as
    cut plans are announced.
    Any word or speculation?

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  33. Could Anyone tell me if there are plans to consolidate Finance to one area Gannett wide? We are having more and more taken over by Cooperate and have a feeling that there will be no Local Finance people in the near future, any word on this?

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  35. @10:23 Ummm Well thanks for that ... A Very well thought out and mature response.

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  36. I swear I am not lying, he was caught and always had evidence on his chair it was disgusting.

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  37. Sorry I haven't written in a while, but we have been very busy. First, the heavy rains washed out all of the pole beans and we had to replant. Then Skippy got in a tussle with a skunk. He smelled so bad, even after two shampoos, that Big Mike built him an outdoor doghouse. It even has his name on it! Big Mike said it was either that -- or else all the rest of us had to move out. Ha-ha! Hope all is well, and I'll write again in a bit.

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  38. 9:59 -- Why start your post with a sentence that makes it sound like you're in the know and then ask about speculation. I, for one, am getting tired of the posts that say, "The cuts are coming today, this week, next week, etc." with absolutely no frame of reference.

    We all know that additional cuts are coming at some point. But do we have to wade through posts like this that have no basis in actual information. The rumor at my site is that there are no cuts in the foreseeable future. Could be true. Could be B.S. But there's no reason to sit around worrying about it because I don't know.

    I assume that my job is unstable because of the things I've witnessed over the past several years and I act accordingly.

    By all means post if you know cuts are about to happen somewhere. But can we dump the layoff predictions that are simply a part of someone's imagination?

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  39. Why so much drama from the East Coast, specifically The Journal News?

    Simply because many Westchester news folks were a spoiled bunch for years and years. Their individual story counts were a joke for the most part, and there was a pervasive attitude that they were so much smarter than their readers.

    The whole news operation in Harrision was touted as a metropolitan daily, when it was really just small-time G a n n e t t. The company never came up with the bucks to make the paper competitive. At one point the editors closed the NYC office and told the reporter to cover Manhattan from Westchester! He wisely left for a berth on a real news operation in the city.

    Add that to the fact that the newsroom leadership has been weak, weak, weak, for years, and you have a captain and crew just watching as the ship sinks.

    The newspaper in all three of its locations: Westchester, Putnam and Rockland, has lost so much circulation that it has virtually no standing in the communities. The formula of cutting staff, cutting local news and then brazenly raising the price spells the end.

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  40. http://assets.bizjournals.com/kansascity/news/2011/05/03/suburban-kansas-city-newspapers-close.html

    Two more suburban Kansas City newspapers are shutting down.
    The Star Herald of Belton, Mo., and the Blue Springs Journal, both properties of Kansas City Star owner The McClatchy Co. (NYSE: MNI), will publish their final editions on May 12 and May 11, respectively, Publisher John Beaudoin said in a Tuesday interview.


    From the May 4, 2011 Listing under the subheading "CLOSING" at:

    dailyjobcuts.com

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  41. Today is my last day at Gannett....by choice. Its been a fun activity cleaning out my mailbox today, but I should have paced myself better. There are 5 hours left in my day, and I have 0 work left to do, other than hand in my equipment.

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  43. Jim why is the 5:15 post still up? I don't know what his alleged sexuality has to do with anything but it certainly shouldn't be inferred or mentioned on a blog.

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  44. 12:20 Thank you for pointing that out. It's gone. Turns out there were two of those, and I only saw the first one.

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  45. Think something big is going down soon? The trolls seem especially agitated the past few days.

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  46. Think something big is going down soon? The trolls seem especially agitated the past few days.
    5/04/2011 1:02 PM

    Why does everyone think there are "trolls" on this site... whatever that actually means, people feed fake info for fun or whatever, but I hate GCI too, but there is no way they are encouraging or paying anyone to post pro Gannett statements on this site.

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  47. FYI - westchester under sherlock was a huge profit center for the company ($100 mill in ad rev) which made it a top paper for the company.

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  48. The layoffs are coming...
    Why do Gannetteers get agitated when there are posts stating this? Do you just not want to hear the obvious.The last financial report made this
    very clear. If you are not prepared for this you should get your heads out of the sand .

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  49. 9:49, I'm hardly a GCI apologist. It is, by far, the most ineptly run company I've ever worked for. But type in "deal chicken" both in Google and Yahoo and dealchicken.com comes up.

    Now, with respect to GCI being incredibly late to the party on this one, only to inevitably get toasted by FB's moves .... That's another story where the 'inept' thing comes up again.

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  50. ....and nowhere on the "deal chicken" site does it say "a gannett company" -- just sayin.

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  51. FYI - westchester under sherlock was a huge profit center for the company ($100 mill in ad rev) which made it a top paper for the company.
    5/04/2011 1:11 PM

    The Arizona Republic use to have ad revenue of $100 million just in recruitment alone and overall ad revenue over $500 million. The amount of money flowing through there was ridiculous that is why almost nobody had to do any work, you would just go meet advertisers and see if they were happy we had (still do) suites at Chase Field (Arizona Diamondbacks), jobing.com arena (Phoenix Coyotes), University of Phoenix Stadium (Cardinals) America West Arena (Phoenix Suns. It's funny how a bunch of little papers think they matter at all.

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  52. Re 1:11 p.m....You're absolutely right! The Journal News was a HUGE profit generator for G A N N E T T, but where the heck did all that money go? I'd wager most went to corporate.

    And that, to me, is the long-term G A N N E T T formula for failure: Suck the local operation dry and pump the cash to the Crystal Palace.

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  57. This just landed in email....

    A Message From:



    Gracia Martore

    President and Chief Operating Officer





    Dear Colleagues,



    I wanted to share with you the news that Tara Connell, vice president of ContentOne, has made the decision to retire at the end of May. Although she is leaving, the mission of ContentOne will continue.

    Tara joined our company in 1972 as a reporter in Westchester. She covered many local and national stories, including the sensational Jean Harris trial. In 1982, Tara became a founding staffer of USA TODAY, beginning as a reporter and eventually assuming responsibility as the Page One managing editor.


    In 1999, Tara moved to the corporate staff as director of media relations, where she says she was able to learn the business “from the other side.” She was named Gannett’s Corporate Staffer of the Year in 2002 and in 2003, she became the company’s vice president of Corporate Communications.



    In 2009, Tara worked closely with our chairman and CEO, Craig Dubow, and other senior members of the management team on a new concept: ContentOne. As the leader of Content One, Tara helped established a company-wide culture of content sharing, created “The Dashboard,” and orchestrated instrumental partnerships both inside and outside the company.



    Over the past few months, we have worked closely with Tara to develop a plan for the continued success of Content One following her retirement. Some fundamental changes will be made that will continue the mission while enhancing the impact.



    Finding, sharing and guiding the development of content across Gannett was the goal and has been the accomplishment of ContentOne and that will continue. Leveraging that content and growing revenue around it also has been the vision and is quickly becoming the reality of ContentOne, and the changes that will follow Tara’s retirement I believe will enhance those abilities. In fact, Gannett continues to be committed to sharing and leveraging the content that is generated across our vast portfolio of media properties. The attached contains our going-forward plan for ContentOne.


    Tara has contributed to Gannett’s success for nearly 40 years. When she begins her next chapter, she plans to travel to China with her husband, after which she will be staying local -- working on personal writing projects, assisting local businesses and enjoying her community.

    Please join me in wishing Tara all the best. I know I speak for many when I say she will be missed.

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  59. The crew is taking all the seats in the lifeboats! Hope the rest of you can swim!

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  60. Adam Hartung at Forbes had an interesting column about the Microsoft and it's loss of market and market cap. While Microsoft's state is nowhere near as bad as Gannett's, and no one is talking about Microsoft going away, there are some glaring similarities.

    One paragraph from the column,

    "The difference is, of course, growth – and how a lack of it changes management – including Microsoft.

    According to the Conference Board, growth stalls are deadly. When a company hits a growth stall, 93% of the time it will be unable to maintain even a 2% growth rate. 75% of the time we can expect it will fall into a no growth, or declining, revenue environment. And 70% of the time it will lose at least half its market capitalization. That’s because the market has shifted, and the business is no longer selling what customers really want. No matter how hard management tries to recapture the past, customers have decided to move on."

    When I read this I thought about Gannett, and the newspaper industry in general. It's interesting reading (especially if you like Apple products). Full url: http://blogs.forbes.com/adamhartung/2011/05/03/why-not-all-earnings-are-equal-and-microsoft-has-the-wal-mart-disease/

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  61. A few days ago---Someone said that Gary Sherlock's reign at the GANNETT SUBURBAN NEWSPAPERS was 100 Million. Then someone said Arizona was 500 Million/Year. OK why then is this Company on the balls of their ass.

    The Gary Sherlock post actually made me laugh....This man single handedly rode this paper into the ground....especially with the name change to THE JOURNAL NEWS.

    Jim , please educate these people, as they do not have a clue!

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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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