Related: Corporate's News Department in September 2003 unveils the latest quality improvement program: Real Life, Real News.
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[Image: "Homersapien" Simpson]
Another major change in the works, and no announcement. I thought corporate had learned the lesson of making these changes bright and clear.
ReplyDeleteWhere is Kate Marymont, the vice president for news, in all of this?
ReplyDeleteThe devolution towards the Patch dot com model progresses. Slowly, of course, just as does biological evolution. But not that slowly. Websites "with deep roots in the community" here we come.
ReplyDeleteIt makes perverse sense.
ReplyDeleteThey've regionalized photo toning, to the detriment of the newspapers.
They're regionalizing newspaper design to the likely detriment of the newspapers.
Regionalizing (or centralizing) reporting and photography, paring down local staff even more, is the next logical step. It wouldn't be as dramatic as what they've done to production but certainly all features reporting could be centralized, sports above the prep level could be regionalized or partially regionalized. Local news would be harder but there's a will there's a way. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
From the reader's e-mail: The corporate Content Evolution Team is working to redefine what Gannett newsrooms will cover and how they'll be staffed."
ReplyDeleteThat's some scary shit, if true. A corporate team is going to tell newsrooms what to cover? We've already seen what they've done to staffing levels.
I love the fact that mArketing will dictate news coverage at the local level. They are already working miracles at usa today. A blowjob cover on IBM ran in Money today. While IBM ran four full page ads in the competition, we couldn't sell them even one full page. Nice going, ad team.
ReplyDeleteApparently, part of this project involves many if not all newspapers focusing on a handful of "passion topics" -- subjects of high importance to readers.
ReplyDeleteHave any of you heard about this? I gotta say: It sounds a whole lot like the old News 2000 pyramid.
Unfucking unbelievable if that's true. Someone's head ought to role.
ReplyDeleteYeah, somebody must have dusted off the News 2000 folders -- remember how it solved all our content problems? Me neither.
ReplyDeleteYou say you want a evolution oh well you know, you can change the world. First the Beatles, now Garnett. Can't wait to see the Dickey memo written from the gallery @ the US Open.
ReplyDeletePoor Phil Currie has rolled out at least a dozen of these landscape-changing programs. News 2000 and all its predecessors were just so much hooey when the attempts to implement them march alongside cuts in staff and resources. Sure, let's send our four 24-year-old reporters out to find some REAL LIFE, REAL NEWS and cover it at a Pulitzer level. Phil ... take that retirement package and quit trying to pretend you are serious about this crap.
ReplyDeleteGreat. More corporate stupidity and marketing buzzwords.
ReplyDeleteHow many times have we all been through this?
9:07 You know, don't you, that Currie did, in fact, retire in late 2008?
ReplyDeleteNews 2000, the first five graphs, Real Life, Real News, ContentOne, and the hits just keep on comin'! It's the business model stupid!
ReplyDeleteAsk the readers of the Gannett papers in New Jersey how well they like the new "regionalized product" where you pretend to cover local news with a fleeting mention of that paper's county or a town to pass for "local" (Hellooooo Morristown!)
How much more can corporate water down the core product? How do millionaires think they can relate to the "topics" that really concern their readers? (to buy a new yacht or not? A buyers guide).
Way to repair the hole in the hull of the Titanic with duct tape, people! All I can say is, Oh God, No!
Jim @6:29 p.m., wonder what the "passion topics" are? Schools, taxes, government? The stuff we already cover? Egads.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how many people on the team actually have a journalism background.
ReplyDeleteSo in other words, reporters are going to be doing the same exact thing they've been doing for the last 100 years, only there's going to be a new nickname for it.
ReplyDeleteGee, where have we heard this one before?
If anything, with all the cutbacks and furloughs and pay cuts, I'd like to see everyone in a Gannett newsroom (oops, beg pardon, Information Center), stand up to these corporate idiots and say, "We're not doing any of this corporate stuff until you guys start stepping up to the plate financially."
They're going to lay you off anyways. Why not mess around with their little corporate agenda while you're on your way out?