Friday, July 15, 2011

Passion Topics | Here are the select 'T-31' papers

Editors of Gannett's top 31 U.S. dailies are scheduled to meet next month at Corporate's headquarters at McLean, Va., to get their newest marching orders following last month's 700 layoffs. I've just assembled a list of those papers, which are the largest by revenue of GCI's 80 U.S. community dailies.

15 comments:

  1. Jim, is this list in any particular order? I find it hard to believe the C-P is a top 10 paper. Actually, I'm surprised to see it still among the top 31. And if it truly is a top 31 paper, I'd hate to see what staffing is like among the non-top 31.

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  2. @1:30, the list is in alphabetical order.

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  3. Is this top 31 list based on revenue, circulation or size of total staff? Jim, would you provide this clarification, please. Thanks.

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  4. Can you list top 31 by revenue from most to least?

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  5. Other posters have said the top 31 are based on revenue.

    However, I don't have individual revenue figures; Gannett doesn't make those figures publicly available.

    I created this list based on information a reader provided to me in an e-mail.

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  6. Reminds me/of/Baskin Robbins. 31 flavors. Of bullshit these editors will be spoonfed.

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  7. Burlington, Vt., is the golden child of passion topics right now. You need to get a stack of those papers, Jim.

    The premise is simply to go after topics, such as the ennvironment in Vermont, in greater depth and provide friendly surroundings for advertisers, many of whom haven't been in the paper previously. Some of the stories that I saw in Burlington were written by readers, and all of them were long. I'm not sure where Gannett is going to get the newshole for passion topics, but Burlington does have a differently formatted paper almost every day.

    Perhaps, Burlington could chime in.

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  8. 7:41 That's helpfull. In the online world, that would be called a vertical. Perhaps USA Tiday's controversial experiment with those is being spread out into the field?

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  9. Yes there are many small market papers here and the NYC metro area is Gannett's largest market, yet I'm still surprised the Journal News is among the Top 31. Quite an indictment on the , do-nothing reign of terror of Donovan, Henry M. Freeman, etc.

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  10. Crap, I didn't expect to see my paper on that list. Long stories written by readers? That'll be hell for the copy desk.

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  11. Brad Robertson the former publisher at the Burlington Free Press built these passion topics and the process the newsroom went through to develop them.

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  12. I wonder if editors are going to double bunk? At the Gannett site I work at, employees who go out of town have to double and triple bunk while they're away from home. What's good for the goose and all that.

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  13. Florida was one of the hardest hit states after the housing bubble burst and all three Florida papers are on that list?

    And Tallahassee and Greenville have paywalls!

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  14. Are you sure all 3 Florida papers are on the list? According to what I've heard we're the bottom of the barrel for revenue! Of course, they could be full of horse hockey too.

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  15. In Burlington we do run several of these "passion topics". We have Green Mtn an environmental section, Savorvore a local food section and more to come. Brad Robertson who we miss dearly was involved with the launch of both of these sections. The new publisher beats the passion topic drum at any chance he gets, when he is not busy spending lavish amounts of money redoing his office.

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