Wednesday, July 13, 2011

July 11-17 | Your News & Comments: Part 3

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64 comments:

  1. Has anyone heard of layoffs? and not reporting here.A friend of a friend was laid off yesterday.

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  2. I know many of you do not like Deal Chicken. At my site, we have hired two pretty smart people who have done a good job building our email list and signing deals. We will launch soon. I see Deal Chicken as a way to save/create jobs. Before any of you get on your high horse about Deal Chicken keeping you employed keep in mind that Career Builder, Cars.com, Bob's Tire Barn, the guy selling his motorcycle, etc. pay most of the bills including our salaries. Let's give Deal Chicken a chance and see what it can do.

    Signed, I like Gannett

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  3. Deal Chicken is an earnest and enthusiastic effort to become the 413th business to launch a daily-deals site. It would be swell if it succeeded.

    It also would be great to succeed at something that hadn't already been wrung out 412 times.

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  4. Deal Chicken - saving/creating jobs? Gannett has no interest in saving/creating jobs. How many thousands of former Gannett employees have to raise their hands to prove that to you?

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  5. Where did your friend work, 8:24?

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  6. What pays most of my salary is the thing we deliver 43,251 times a day to my neighbors.

    What pays a fraction of my salary is the 10-15% of revenue we can realize from online vehicles like the Chicken or Cars.com.

    What pays nothing is the investment in lame Tap-That-Ad-type marketing plans and million-dollar-plus salaries at the CP.

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  7. Any word on when Florida Today will have layoffs and how many? And what positions are being laid off in general everywhere else?

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  8. Sounds like Detroit is going down

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  9. 10:55 ... more details, please!

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  10. @10:55 a.m. - Quit with the rumor-mongering. If someone actually has some intel on this, post it and quit being coy.

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  11. Might not want to get rid of Gannett stock just yet.

    http://seekingalpha.com/article/279190-4-companies-with-great-valuations

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  12. 12:19, I read with great interest the article you referenced. For whatever reason, it has been said several times over the past few years that Gannett is an undervalued stock yet our price remains low and Cramer is forever saying on his television show NOT to buy Gannett stock.

    "If this company can find an audience for its writing through the new technologies, this stock could be huge. The stock trades at a PE of 6 and just above book value without an adjustment for intellectual property."

    Unfortunately, we've lost a lot of our best reporters to make the above quote a reality. We need people at the corporate level who can recognize talent and capitalize on it.

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  13. Interesting read on the stock valuation. NBC stations could spur huge growth and the value of journalism could be big.

    We can only hope. I would love to see the stock soar this year.

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  14. @12:19 - I, too, read the article completely...and there are a lot of "ifs" in it relative to Gannett. Unfortunately, as 1:01 said, the best are gone, with many properties lacking severely in resources, and corporate remains clueless. Cramer is right...do NOT buy this stock!!

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  15. 8:24 et al: You have been sent to Coventry

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  16. May want to also note that the guy who wrote the Seeking Alpha article is long on GCI stock. (Noted in the disclosure at bottom.)

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  17. Gannett's stock has a low valuation because institutional investors aren't willing to pay more for the stock. The market's belief is that GCI shares are fairly priced at $13 and that the stock -- and the company behind it -- don't rate a higher price and, therefore, a higher valuation in terms of P/E ratio. The P/E is a pretty good indicator of the Street's lack of confidence in Gannett and perhaps above all, its management.

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  18. I would love to see the stock soar this year.

    Soar to what? $16.00?

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  19. Gannett continues to lose revenue and an ad base. Until that changes and the company/cannot grow profits without cutting staff, the stock isnt going much higher. The inbred management and non engaged board of directors does nothing to inspire wall street, either. I cant see this stock adding more than a couple of boucks over the next year. No catalyst except a takeover. And who would want us?

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  20. Ronnie Agnew's departure -- just ahead of Craig's visit to Jackson and just behind the beginning of Leslie's anticipated dismantling of Mississippi's capital newspaper -- is worthy of more note, Jim.

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  21. Great points, 2:15. Maybe the value can be unlocked in the TV stations, real estate and spinoff sale of usa today. That could unlock lots of value.

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  22. Enough with the layoff rumors. Without proof or a source, those should just be deleted. Any idiot can come in and say: "Heard of any layoffs today? After all, a friend of my pet groomer's stepson was canned today."

    Also, this blog has been around for quite a while, but other than Jim's ill-fated appearance at the corporate meeting, there has been no action. All people do is post layoff rumors and anonymous attacks. Why not do something? Anything. Anything would be better than the stuff that appears here.

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  23. @3:06 - then why are you here? Maybe you think all that happens are posts about layoffs...but guess what? That's the world according to Gannett these days...on a daily basis. The real question is, "how long will you last?"

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  24. I get way more out of the rumors and conjecture and anti gannett bias than i do from the bullshit pablum i get from our fearless leaders. And i find the like minded anti management sentiment comforting. If gannett actually had ethical, competent, selfless managers who put employee and shareholder interests ahead of their own money grubbing goals, i wouldnt be here.

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  25. Isn't the big stockholder's meeting happening next week? Has anyone else noticed that the corporate trolls are on the Blog in full force this week trying to put a positive spin on what Gannett is doing? Like @2:41 said, timing is everything. The only way I will believe GM and CD have an interest in the employees is if they visit EVERY Gannett property, not just the papers in Jackson and Montgomery. I too wondered why they chose to visit the CL first and then I realized that Leslie is their biggest suck up and they can go there without her asking any questions, do their thing so it looks good to the stockholders, and then go back to doing no business as usual until next quarter's results.

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  26. Stockholders dont care if these yokels visit gannett props. They just want results, which they arenr getting. I know no one likes to hear this, but when you have incompetence in key positions, the only way to more profits is more RIFs.

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  27. Sad but true @4:50.

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  28. http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/index.php/site/comments/clarion-ledger_hiring/

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  29. Just sat through a building wide corporate "talking head" meeting. I was hoping it might be an actual real down to earth meeting about where we were headed instead of being mouth fed more corporate bs about how answers to questions about future lay offs are complicated and they can't discuss anything regarding profit margins and economy and advertising loss is why we had lay offs even though we had such major successes in advertising this year. --courier journal

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  30. Ronnie gone!!? That's huge. Star departs.

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  31. 5:45, 5;46 You are still in Coventry. We are ignoring you from now on out. Realize the implications of what that means. The only way out is a public confession.

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  32. ...and It won't work for just one to confess and ask for forgiveness. It has to be you all, or you are staying there.

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  33. Layoffs merely rumors? Shocking. I can't imagine this fine company and its top executives laying off loyal workers. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. What a putz.

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  34. The C-N and THNT have more than four writers each, so stop with the misinformation. The writers are grinding out a lot of copy to fill the white spaces around the ads, that's the goal. Reporters? Wrong terminology. It's writers and content. Hey, even the Head Ed in Morristown writes weekly, that's being a team player. Same at the C-N, the GM and his newsroom pal each are in the trenches, writing, writing, writing. We're all in this together, just like the Tidy Bowl man.

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  35. The Clarion-Ledger is F'd with a capital F. Larry Whitaker and the Terrible Terzotis's combined to nearly destroy it. Now leslie Hurst is positioned to finish it off. It took here 6 months to run Ronnie Agnew off, now she will bring in a hand-picked editor to completely destroy what is left of the newsroom. W/ dubow and martore coming in August, who knows what other convoluted BS will be announced. This crap is getting really old, but it never seems to stop.

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  36. 3:20 and 7:47 must be sharing tainted crackers with each other. Listen, stupids, it does no one any good for every fool to come in here saying "I hear there will be layoffs today!" Well, where'd you hear that from? Without that information, there's no reason to take the claim seriously.

    If you can't figure that out, then the real question is: Why are you here?

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  37. The list of department heads that have left or changed since 2009 is staggering, monumental. More editors have left under the new leadership than ever imagined. More are contemplating due to "corporate has all the answers" and "how are your passion topics".
    Come on!
    Many who left were still young but some went to early retirement.
    Some losses are due to consolidations ... but if you look around at an OC at a newspaper and see faces of people in their jobs for more than a few years, you will be looking at the new minority. Then, consider if they are really a diverse group anymore.
    Just cut the staffs and leave editors to squeeze out some great journalism. They don't need corporate programs or corporate motivation.
    Trust them and see what happens.
    Ronnie left because his publishers did not care about the journalism. They lost his trust and vice versa. He could have put up with much, but when the team stopped understanding that the journalism matters, he was beat. He left a job he truly loved because the appreciation for what he loved about it went out the door somehow.
    Godspeed to a man who inspired many, and had enough.
    Who will be next?

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  38. To 8:18: The fools are the suck-ups and lackeys who pretend they are safe from the leeches who run this company. Keep kidding yourself, 8:18, and remember these conversations when Dubow and his crowd raid your pension. I got the hell out and got my pension lump sum. This weekend I'm going to a party for a talented young man who got the hell out because he knows there's no future for him in Gannett. Two weeks ago I went to a "party" for a longtime employee who was laid off. Good luck to those who are still with the company. They're going to need it.

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  39. This "tainted cracker" stuff is about the lamest thing I've read on the Internet, and considering the vast amount of lame things on the Internet, that's saying something.

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  40. @ 8:31, nice tribute to Ronnie Agnew; the last Clarion-Ledger director who had a real connection to/with the community. And it was correctly said that with the current regime from local OC on up, no one cares!! True journalism -no one cares; making sure the advertiser gets what he NEEDS- no one cares; producing a quality paper one can be proud of-no one cares. And if Gannett's newspaper division shuts down-no one cares. After all, we have Deal Chicken! Or do we?

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  41. 7:25 I assume your post is referencing mine (courier journal) but I have no idea wtf you mean. I guess I don't grasp the lingo here yet. It sounds kinda nutso though, just FYI.

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  42. Craig Sevier7/13/2011 10:08 PM

    This reference reads like the same person who used that phrase on me. "Tainted crackers." What?

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  43. Craig Sevier7/13/2011 10:12 PM

    I don't see that 8:18 poster having much more to offer than personal slights, rather than defending their employer's lack of ethics. Oh, wait.

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  44. Craig Sevier (name is Flemish for wafer -- a type of cracker), 9:31, and 9:37 have been sharing crackers. They know how the game works -- each person is challenged to carry a cracker between his cheeks for a certain distance. (Not the face cheeks.)

    If the cracker falls out before the end of the walk, the walker eats the cracker. If it stays, the spectator eats it. Of course, if Jim is the walker, he eats the cracker no matter what.

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  45. I'm proud of my co-workers in their efforts so far on Deal Chicken. Hate all you want. Business (revenue drivers) and journalists have a long history of an adversarial relationship.

    But truth is, we all should be supportive of something new that might help revenue.

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  46. Sevier preaching about ethics. Love the post Craigy.

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  47. If 8:18 wants to know more about my source he can take it up with Arnie Garson. Jim has my email about the publisher meeting. If he wants to know more he can contact me directly.

    This will be my third and last contribution here. Don't really enjoy commentary with name calling.

    Take care. -5:45

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  48. 9:21, Gannett has done a number of things to try and save jobs: furloughs, news hole cuts, elimination of unprofitable circulation, elimination of marginally profitable products. All of these moves have had the effect of saving jobs. The fact is, revenues are significantly down over the past few years and expenses had to be cut.
    10:09, what pays your salary are those 43,251 paying customers, but mostly the advertisers who run ads in print and online.

    Signed, I like Gannett

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  49. Really 10:14? That's the best insult you can come up with? We're sorry to have poked fun at your efforts, we see you're doing the best with what you have.

    "From each according to his ability"... I guess this "tainted cracker" gem earns you high marx somewhere.

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  50. 10:28 - I was talking about the advertisers, who still spend cubic money on print, not web. Our readership barely pays the carriers.

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  51. Lemming trolls was lame, tainted crackers is even lamer. Seriously, with a brain trust like that, it's no wonder we now have something called Deal Chicken.

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  52. 10:34 you need to study your Blog history. The haters originally called anyone who disagreed with them Trolls so it was a natural progression to call the haters Lemming Trolls, as in Jimbo's Lemmings. It's cute don't you think???

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  53. Don't sell yourselves short, people. It doesn't get much lamer than a bunch of laid-off workers spending 30 or so months whining about the company that ushered them out.

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  54. Well, friends, the corporate flunkies are afoot, and "blog history" tells us that means only one thing: Bad things are about to happen. Again.

    So predictable.

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  55. From monitoring this blog for about four months and looking, I estimate from 4-6 corporate trolls, which is impressive considering Robin's salary. I don't know what the budget is for p.r., but that is putting the equivalent of 12-15 reporters and throwing them at a blog where people don't use their real names and write anonymous posts. Congratulations, Jim. Anyone who gets that sort of attention in this Internet age has to be appreciated for doing something right. Maybe someone has more of a handle on the number of corporate trolls, but since some come on at night, but light on weekends, there must also be some contractors involved.

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  56. For those of us who have the good fortune to not work at a Gannett property, this blog gives great insight into what happens in that company and the ripples that ride out to the rest of the newspaper industry.

    One has to feel sorry for those who attempt to demean Jim and the hard working men and women that post here in an honest fashion without the personal attacks and insults.

    What's happening now to the various Gannett properties isn't surprising to anyone who has looked upon the past of what were solid and great local papers. Recall the Asbury Park Press and Binghamton papers: Press and Sun.

    Then Gannett bought them.

    We're all suffering no matter which newspaper company owns our place of employment.

    What is wonderful here is that there is a community and a place to communicate; a place where news that corporate wants hidden is exposed.

    Keep up the good work Jim! My Boss, whoever you are, whether one, two or multiple, keep providing the truth. And for those who are honest, remember the woeful ones here have the bitterness of their hate in their mouths every moment. They deserve what they have drunk.

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  57. 10:14, considering none of us understand your game and the fact that you have to keep explaining it to us makes me realize that you've obviously played this game a lot growing up and have eaten a lot of your friends' tainted crackers. Sounds like you may need therapy.

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  58. 10:28 -- Those things were not done to save jobs. They were done to save money. Jobs were also cut, saving even more money. The company isn't serious about saving jobs or it would cut executive pay. It's fine for you to like Gannett, but let's get real. Like most major American corporations, Gannett is incredibly greedy and bottom-line oriented. The only jobs the company cares about saving are the ones at the top.

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  59. Deal Chicken is an OK idea but those of you thinking it will help save jobs are mostly wrong. No journalist will see his job spared because of Deal Chicken. If it's successful, it will remain its own entity, like Groupon. Flailing papers will continue to be gutted whether it's a hit or not. A few salespeople might be saved thanks to Deal Chicken, but nobody else is going to get anything out of it, regardless of how well it does.

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  60. echoing 8:31, r Agnew is a good man and journalist who was run-off by idiot publishers who continally cut his staff, budget and newshole while bitching about the lack of Sunday enterprise that would help sell papers. Whitaker didn't know shit about how a newsroom operated, didn't want know to know and constantly told Ronnie he didn't need to know. And hurst has never liked Agnew and made it clear she was not pleased w/ some of his decisions. Congratulates to him for getting out of Gannett.

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  61. @12:05 a.m. thanks much for your thoughtful and insightful post.

    "Then Gannett bought them." That's what happened at my Midwest site, and we've never been the same.

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  62. JIm- please do not delete this! @ 10:45pm You truly are an asshole. Thanks Jim.

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  63. Craig Sevier7/14/2011 2:32 PM

    10:14, the name is not Flemish, and it does not mean "wafer." I also like 10:45's whacky context in the phrase "ushered out" -- as if the layoffs were targeted on personal lack of merit, contradicting every public communication which Gannett has made, rather than a blind reduction in force.

    As another poster has noted for him/herself, I'm getting really tired of these personal mockeries, visiting this blog only because I spent most of my career caring about this company. It ain't easy to just say, oh, O.K., fine, thanks for the shag.

    I want to read about what's happening with Gannett, its staff -- not this name-calling crap (anonymous to boot). Even the speculation.

    But when it comes to intentional libel either by corporate trolls or corporate's victims, not so much.

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  64. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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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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