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Wednesday, July 27, 2011
29 comments:
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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Out of curiosity, is the "average" Gannett employee actively looking for a job?
ReplyDeleteI dare say!
ReplyDeleteIF they are currently an employee, do ya think that they'd REALLY TELL?
.....just askin'
If they are not job searching,there is no excuse for it.
ReplyDeleteGannett employee's job security is like playing the lottery every couple of months.You just gamble and pray that your name is not on layoff list.Another "strongly suggested retirement" at midwest site.A 30 year employee leaveing and position is not replaced.Same as a layoff.
Hey, Jim -
ReplyDelete...noticed this was at the top of the blog:
"That Blasted Blog
An independent daily journal about the Gannett Co. Inc."
ROFLMAOOOOOOOOOOOO
I like it!
Jim, you are too funny!!!!!!
"Gannett employee's job security is like playing the lottery every couple of months."
ReplyDeleteYou mean Russian Roulette, right?
If you are not looking for new work, then you deserve whatever fate is coming your way. Sadly, this company will soon be populated by one of six classes of employees: 1) Employees who cannot leave because of geographic, age or spousal/family circumstances; 2) Employees who cannot leave because they lack the necessary gumption to walk away from either a site or job they loved or once loved; 3) Employees who cannot get other work because of narrow or marginal skills or social tendancies; 4) Employees who have a romantic notion of riding the ship down to the bottom of the sea -- or see some value in being among the last in the building and becoming more valuable by default; 5) New and young employees who have nothing to lose and see Gannett as a way to grab some cash and experience before stepping to a better gig; and 6) Employees who are simply asleep and cannot be roused by the fire alarms blaring around them that signal our company's peril.
ReplyDeleteNew Gannett will survive, in some form or fashion, but not what it is now or was even a year ago. But again, you must ask yourself: Do I want to be a part of a company that treats people like this? Do I admire our CEO and top leadership and am I inspired by their vision? Do I feel rewarded or, at least, appreciated? Is my service valued? If I give my all for the company, will it give me anything in return other than a paycheck? Am I afraid to accept a promotion for fear that it only broadens the layoff target on my back as a higher salary employee? Would you encourage a friend to work for Gannett? Would you encourage your child to work for Gannett? If you are over 40, and perhaps even if you still somehow like what you do, do you see this as a place to work for 25-plus more years?
Finally, after 12 consecutive quarters of cost-cutting and job eliminations, do you really think the next quarter will be any better?
From a New York Times column on the debt-ceiling impasse:
ReplyDelete"What business do you know — that is still in business — that would operate this way: making massive long-term cuts, negotiated by exhausted executives, without any strategic plan?"
Anyone?
Bueller?
Any CEO on Planet Earth who'd walk into a room of rank and file and say with a straight face that he "knows the sting of a pay cut" given the difference in circumstances is a proven failure as a leader. CD is absolutely, utterly tone deaf and should take more seriously what gets posted on this "blasted blog" if he has any hope of gaining a shred of credibility.
ReplyDeleteYeah, like Mitt Romney's recent comment about being unemployed himself.
ReplyDeleteSheesh.
Hey Craig: Webster's is on line 1.
ReplyDeleteThey need a mugshot to illustrate "incompetence."
Amusing that there's a grammatical error in the first sentence of this ad for a wire copy editor at Louisville's design studio:
ReplyDeleteGannett Co., Inc. is searching for Wire Copy Editors to work in the newly formed newspaper Design Studio's. The Design Studio Wire Copy Editor will copy edit wire stories and other non-local content selected by newspaper editors at client newspapers. The copy editor will edit for style and consistency and will fact-check as needed. The copy editor will write headlines and other display type and/or modify for design needs any suggested headlines and display type written by client newspaper editors. The copy editor will ensure stories meet the standards of the client newspapers and that they appear at the desired length and on assigned pages as envisioned by client editors. The copy editor will at various times be asked to edit national and foreign stories, sports stories, business stories, features and entertainment stories.
http://www.jobs.net/jobs/gannett/job/wire-copy-editor-louisville-ky/JB963068JJXM08DY45C/
Re: the job posting mentioned by 2:06 p.m.
ReplyDeleteSo the "client newspaper" editors are still going to have to pick wire stories, set lengths, write suggested headlines and assign stories to pages. That's like three-quarters of the work of a copy desk - usually the most time-consuming three-quarters of the work - being dumped onto staffers remaining at the various newspapers after the copy desks are ditched and the "design studios" open.
If that's the case, I guess I can see how design studio staffers will have time to do pages for several papers each night. But I feel sorry for those left at the papers who are going to have all that extra work to do.
Blame McCorkindale for annointing this idiot. We could have had a real journalist running the company instead of Alfred E. Newman's little brother.
ReplyDelete"The 'client newspaper' editors are still going to have to pick wire stories, set lengths, write suggested headlines and assign stories to pages. That's like three-quarters of the work of a copy desk."
ReplyDeleteNo, 2:25, it's not.
"Gimme about 15 inches on the Norway shootings for our national news on Page 3. It'll probably be our lead story, so we'll need a 5-column head with a 1-column deck."
"Client" editor's work completed in a 10.2-second phone call.
Sheesh.
2:46, you've clearly never worked on a copy desk. A good one, anyway.
ReplyDeleteHow is "client" editor going to know they need 15 inches on Norway? Because they'll have to have page dummies and be charting out the paper, deciding what stories go where, how long they should be and how much is needed to fill a given page (work that the copy desk would do).
And how will they know that Norway or any other wire story should be in the paper, or is available to be in the paper? Because they'll have to spend time scanning the wires. Again, the work a copy desk would do.
It goes on and on. The time-consuming work comes in the planning and allocating of space, in scanning the wires and in selecting stories. Once that's done, it's just like paint-by-numbers, which is all it seems the design studios will be asked to do.
But then again, if you think it's acceptable to plan out a paper in a "10.2 second phone call," it's probably a lost cause.
Uh, oh. That Your Life vertical still has the old Gannett logo at the bottom. Someone is going to be in serious trouble for that.
ReplyDeletehttp://yourlife.usatoday.com/index
Any reporter who turns in a story quoting an entire press release verbatim should be laughed out of the newsroom.
ReplyDeletehttp://cincinnati.com/blogs/nkypolitics/2011/07/27/attorney-general-files-suit-against-daymar-college/
Let's see. For the last five decades every newspaper including USAT, has had a special place in each issue for CORRECTIONS which equal mistakes. Sooo that means you experienced journalists have been making mistakes for decades. Yet the LTs on this site live to point out mistakes. Hmmmm how do we spell hypocrites? Oh silly me I just did. Just keeping it real Jim.
ReplyDeleteWe just hired 2 new employees at the CP, in Cherry Hill, to sell "Deal Chicken". Can anyone tell us in "Chicken Land" what the f--k that name has to do with trying to get people to buy, what we use to call Daily Deal. Who comes up with thse names? The name makes no sense!
ReplyDelete7:34 In fact, USAT has only been published about three decades.
ReplyDeleteMore to the point, there isn't a manufacturer out there that doesn't make mistakes. Journalists, at least, own up to theirs -- quickly and prominently.
8:01 The deals "hatch" when enough consumers buy them.
ReplyDeleteThat, and untold numbers of other awful puns, are the spawn of DealChicken.
Oh and Groupon is an obvious name. It sucked when it first came out and it still sucks. But the Chicken, oh yeah that's a stupid name.
ReplyDelete7:34 PM…Tell us something we don't already know. Did you figure that out all on your own or did CD help?
ReplyDeleteI think this is the real reason for the name Deal Chicken, from the website's About page:
ReplyDeleteWhy I like my job so much
I really love being part of a community, passing along my knowledge and savings to my neighbors. I also enjoy working with the reporters and staff at the local Gannett newspapers and TV stations. Of course, it helps when you insist on working for chicken feed.
Are these grades about on target?
ReplyDeleteNeuharth - A
Curley - B
McCorkindale - C-
This Guy Now - F
Is that close?
Gath
Speaking of awful Deal Chicken puns, Louisville's suggested tweets and facebook posts and emails say "Tell your peeps (that's chicken speak for friends)" -- he even had to include a parenthetical explaining the terrible pun in case you're just that stupid
ReplyDeleteCherry Hill's hiring to sell this chicken shit program will probably end up another dismal failure like shop local. Just like With shop local, the brain dead idiots will probably end up "forcing" buys of package deals with what print advertising they have left. This newspaper is a disaster: today they ran a story on a new hot dog cafe in cherry hill but didn't even say where the place is located. Employ low cost reporters and this is what you get. The courierpost is the laughing stock of the area....again.
ReplyDelete4:21: That blog you refer to is nothing but press releases. The writer apparently just opens his email inbox and posts whatever he finds. Oh, occasionally he posts a story he wrote for today's paper.
ReplyDeleteIt's Gannett, so we just keep shovelin'
2:15: My thoughts exactly. The idea of the design centers appears to have come from someone who doesn't have any actual newspaper production experience. Perhaps there are a few Gannett papers big enough to have people who do nothing but read pre-selected stories and slap them on the page. But where I work, the page designers are also required to find many of those stories and make them fit the proper space. As someone who has done a lot of newspaper production over the years, I agree that the hard part of the job is coming up with all of the required elements for presentation, making sure they're about the right size for the space, etc. Slapping the stories and pictures on a page once they're already in the system takes seconds if you know what you're doing.
ReplyDelete