Monday, June 20, 2011

June 20-26 | Your News & Comments: Part 2

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34 comments:

  1. You all are being unusually comment-y today.

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  2. I sense big changes coming and a change in attitude is in the air. Hard to define, but somehow I'm no longer worried about this.

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  3. Big changes are here. Closing Chandler Arizona Plant. All out of work by end of July 2011

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  4. Around 40 or so people out of work at Phoenix Offset. What chaps my butt is management had to know it was coming.

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  5. 5:39 Indeed, management did. Without explanation, management ordered up test runs of USA Today on the Republic's presses -- 17 days ago, according to one of my readers.

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  6. 5:39 Indeed, management did. Without explanation, management ordered up test runs of USA Today on the Republic's presses -- 17 days ago, according to one of my readers.

    AND they knew long before they let the cat out of the bag by their "test runs".

    Nothing new.

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  7. What's the thinking behind the Poughkeepsie Journal's Print Only Exclusive stories?

    Any other Gannett papers doing this?

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  8. @6:34 I can't comment about Gannett, but the Star Tribune in Minneapolis has been doing Print Exclusive stories for about 6 months now. Pretty much limited to Sundays, although they may have done a few weekday stories that I missed.

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  9. Other Gannett newspapers have been doing print-exclusive stories for quite some time -- well over a year now. I believe they run on Sundays as part of a broader effort to boost circulation that day.

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  10. The Poughkeepsie Journal's Print Only Exclusive stories run every day now.

    The whole front page on Sunday was taken up by the Print Exclusive promo

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  11. I hate that "exclusive" or "the Daily Bugle learned today" stuff because it is so unnecessary. The reason it is a newspaper is that it runs exclusive stories and things that should be news to readers.

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  12. Clueless Wonder6/20/2011 8:09 PM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  13. Jim, Everyone at my NJ location is braced for layoffs. There seems to be an attitude if it happens - it happens. The speculation and the closed door meetings are driving everyone kind of nuts. It is hard to function under those circumstances. Lots of higher ups are interviewing elsewhere. We have nothing else to cut - short of shutting us down completley.

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  14. NJ papers aren't the only sites with suspiciously closed doors, aloof senior management, and beady eyes with guilty looks. I would think i was being paranoid if it all wasn't so strangely familiar............

    This time I feel it's something big. Not just layoffs. Like bankruptcy big.

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  15. The B.I.E. group has 5% across-the-board paycuts. Announced by Bodner at a 4 oclock meeting today.

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  16. The ax hits Cincinnati's newsroom tomorrow.

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  17. Getting laid off isn't that bad. I was laid off on November 3, 2010 and started a new job on November 29, 2010. I know I am one of the blessed ones but just wanted to give hope to the doubtful. There are jobs out there so much better than Gannett....Laying me off was the best decision my new boss (old boss retired) ever made and probably the only good decision he will ever make.....Diana....

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  18. 8:44 is the first in weeks to get specific. We'll see if that happens tomorrow, 8:44. If not, will you come back and admit you were wrong?

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  19. Just wait 8:49. I'm right on this one as sorry as I am to say it.

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  20. 8:09 what the he'll are you on? Your post makes NO sense.

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  21. It's not just Cincinnati. Tomorrow will be bloody just about everywhere. Jim, can't believe you haven't gotten a whiff of this though most people who have been hinting at this have been ridiculed.

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  22. A very credible H.R. person let it slip to me today that layoffs are coming this week. I simply asked, "How many?" They said, "Quite a few." With a pit instantly in my stomach, I simply turned and walked away. It is Doomsweek.

    And my sense is that it won't be the drip, drip, drip kind of numbers. Going into the last six months of the year, with revenue numbers where they are, the cuts are going to be quite deep.

    I just can't get out of my head, the last desperate passengers on the Titanic, with no room left in the life rafts and the ship going down fast.

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  23. 8:13, if the paper in question is the C-N, shutting it down would be a good thing. Daily Circ. under 20,000, the inane columns by JJ, it's just a mess.

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  24. What about lay offs
    @ any of the FLORIDA sites?

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  25. Is there supposed to be any "area of focus" for these alleged layoffs this week, like advertising, production, pressroom, online, finance, newsroom, photo, etc., or is it more of an across-the-board or a site-by-site bloodletting?

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  26. Across the board at most sites.

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  27. Confirmed: Binghamton pay cuts of 5 percent for everyone full- and part-time.

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  28. And the Washington Post just did a story on exec pay, noting that Craig is the 15th best-compensated CEO in the D.C. area. I hope he feels good about the way he's getting his money.

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  29. can you say selfish greed

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  30. Confirmed how and where, 11:26? In your mind?

    I really hope this doesn't happen tomorrow, not only because many jobs would be spared, but it also would prove this blog is a hunk of rancid crap most of the time.

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  31. I was laid off earlier this year. It was devastating. But 16 days later I received a job offer with the promise that my worst day at my new employer would be my best day in my old Gannett job. That has certainly proven to be true.
    Some suggestions. Don't sulk. Things like this happen in life now. Be aggressive in your pursuit of opportunities. Don't leave anything to chance.
    I know a friend who hasn't been aggressive and is still spinning his wheels after more than two years.
    Despite being put through the ringer with Gannett as it downsizes its way into oblivian, take a Stuart Smalley approach. You do have skills, you are valuable and people want your services.
    Remember, be aggressive.

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  32. 10:22 just curious where you work?

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  33. Clueless Wonder6/21/2011 5:07 PM

    As for Gannett, sure, they're heartless. And there's no shortage of beautiful peacocks strutting about the deck of the Titanic, their bearings correct at such a gurgling incline.

    But my advice, my career gone, is this:

    So what.

    I know I do good work (yeh, another lie of mine to those who need it to be), and I know now that I will work for another institution that won't file bankruptcy in five years.

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  34. 10:22: Why, do you think you missed a necessary layoff?

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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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