Monday, September 05, 2011

Sept. 5-11 | Your News & Comments: Part 1

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64 comments:

  1. Anonymous9/05/2011 5:58 AM

    Coupons come in all forms. I see coupons in regular ROP ads, sales flyers for the likes of Office Depot, Lowes etc.

    Someone is stretching to find something to bitch about.
    9/04/2011 12:30 PM

    Technically correct but common sense says people know "coupons" in this context means the Smart Source, Redplum, and P & G coupon "books". What you say is similar to the also deceiving "up to 300,400,500 plus savings in today's paper" gimmick.

    Point is, haven't the know it all heads ticked off what readership we have left enough?

    Lastly, we who still care don't have to "look" for something to bitch about. There's plenty staring us in the face most every day.

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  2. Anonymous9/05/2011 8:59 AM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  3. Anonymous9/05/2011 9:16 AM

    Does anyone know how many people work at the Cincinnati Enquirer printing plant that will be shut down in Q4 2012 when production will be outsourced to Columbus?

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  4. Anonymous9/05/2011 9:18 AM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  5. Anonymous9/05/2011 9:23 AM

    9:18. Really happy to hear that. As the old Aeroflot advertisement said, "We're happy you're happy."

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  6. Anonymous9/05/2011 10:23 AM

    This is what a REAL newspaper looks like, in case anyone's forgotten:
    http://www.statesman.com/
    Note the packaging, depth and reader-submitted content. In tech-savvy Austin, the Web site is the key to audience share--but I bet the print product is just as good.

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  7. Anonymous9/05/2011 10:28 AM

    Please add "LT" to the list of insults that warrant automatic deleting. Maybe then he'll learn how to express himself without name-calling.

    One can only hope.

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  8. Anonymous9/05/2011 10:34 AM

    Three shot in a bar, man killed by lightning. Minor headlines in Cincinnati Enquirer, but still no names the day after both events. Does the Enquirer have anyone working on the holiday? Does anyone care?
    Fortunately, there was beach volleyball which gives the Enquirer many chances to post bikini bottoms riding up tight butts and six-pack abs. Yes, journalism at its finest.
    Wonder if there was a specific reason this led off the usual over-indulgent Metromix photo gallery:

    http://cincinnati.metromix.com/events/standard_photo_gallery/u-s-open-of/2802632/content

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  9. Anonymous9/05/2011 10:34 AM

    10:28 that us fair but you have to remove Troll ad well. LT is a response to folks calling pro company folks Trolls. Fair is fair

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  10. Jim Hopkins9/05/2011 10:43 AM

    10:34 Yikes!

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  11. Anonymous9/05/2011 10:45 AM

    No room here for ex-Gannetteers doing well!!!!!!! Delete....delete

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  12. Jim Hopkins9/05/2011 11:08 AM

    1045 I welcome comments about life -- good or not -- about post-Gannett life when they are fresh, original, detailed, and include new information.

    Vague, generic-reading posts that only recycle established perspectives contribute little to the discussion.

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  13. Anonymous9/05/2011 11:30 AM

    Typos aside 10:34 is right. You can't delete LT but approve someone calling another poster a Troll.

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  14. Anonymous9/05/2011 11:35 AM

    Interesting. So Jim is now deleting things because they are "vague." Anyone recommend a good alternate site where those of us who take Gannett's problems seriously can go to share info? This page has become pathetic. Jim "Delete" Hopkins, I'm going to delete this page from my favorites, I think. it used to be a window into my company. Now Gannettblog is merely another daily frustration.

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  15. Anonymous9/05/2011 12:17 PM

    OK, take a step back from your computers, folks. That means 11:35 AND Jim. It's a holiday after all.

    11:35: You want a window? This is the window. No other site is going to provide the insight into company news, layoffs, etc.

    Jim: You maybe have gone a bit far on the delete thing here. I'm a fan. But you're opening up a very broad can of worms (and inviting more abuse that you don't need) by saying content needs to be "fresh, original, detailed" etc. This ain't a repository of the works of staggering genius. It's a blog forum. Stick to the policy of deleting posts that are clearly inappropriate (mean, profane, etc.) and let the rest ride. While posts indicating, for example, that there can be a very lucrative and relatively stress-free life after Gannett is hardly fresh or original, there are clearly people here who need reminders that this sort of thing really does happen.

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  16. Anonymous9/05/2011 1:06 PM

    Jim "Delete" Hopkins, I'm going to delete this page from my favorites, I think. it used to be a window into my company. Now Gannettblog is merely another daily frustration.
    -----------------------------

    Good riddance to ya!

    ReplyDelete
  17. Anonymous9/05/2011 1:32 PM

    I think Hopkins is doing the best he can and with good intentions. This blog did sink deep into rank goading and depressing uncivility, and who wants to read that? Obviously it's a judgment call, but Hopkins has good judgment more often than not, and I respect his choices on his blog.

    Some of the posters have become flat-out rude and personally insulting. Differences in debate, information and self-expression has neither of those qualities. It is that fetid fact alone which requires at least at attempt at moderation of content.

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  18. Anonymous9/05/2011 2:04 PM

    How does "vague" or "repetitive" amount to "rude" or "insulting"? Fact is, Jim makes up a new excuse to delete something the minute it gets specific about what is going on at USAT. Now ask yourself: why?

    Loyalty to old friends? Protecting a source maybe? It doesn't add up. I don't know the answer. I do know he doesn't like real information about management at Gannett's flagship to get out through this blog.

    Feel free to mock the new logo or kick Deal Chicken, though. That's nice and safe.

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  19. Anonymous9/05/2011 2:14 PM

    "Vague, generic-reading posts that only recycle established perspectives contribute little to the discussion."

    Then how do you explain letting hundreds upon hundreds of the same negative stream of insults toward certain individuals and companies continue to stand? Listen, this your page, and that's fine, but you have zero consistency. Don't try and lay down rules when clearly the only one "rule" is that you do whatever you feel like doing.

    Again, that's fine. Just be honest about it.

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  20. Anonymous9/05/2011 2:22 PM

    Longtime readers know this is true of Gannettblog:

    Unrelenting criticism of David Hunke and the publishing staff -- GOOD.

    Specific revelations about chaotic management on the editorial side -- "This post has been removed by a blog administrator."

    So ... Why is that?

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  21. Anonymous9/05/2011 2:25 PM

    Let's hear more about that post that said The Journal News is closing on Thanksgiving- end of year latest.

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  22. Anonymous9/05/2011 2:39 PM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  23. Anonymous9/05/2011 3:15 PM

    The lectures about decorum are funny, given that many people here are unmanageable wastes who were asked to leave the company.

    No one here needs advice from those people or the site owner, whose intelligence and sanity are questionable at best.

    Give it a rest. You played, you sucked, you lost. Move on.

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  24. Anonymous9/05/2011 3:28 PM

    Really, 3:15? I received an Employee of the Year award (not my first one either) with a big, fat bonus the same month that I was laid off -- no joke. But, sure, feel free to make yourself feel better by convincing yourself that only "unmanageable wastes" get laid off at Gannett and, therefore, it would never happen to someone like you.

    As far as "playing, sucking and losing ...," the joke is on you. Can't keep good people down. We've moved on to far, far better (and better paying) places where professionals are treated like professionals. What a concept, huh?

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  25. Anonymous9/05/2011 3:31 PM

    The whole problem with the Internet and modern media, and this blog is a great example, is that it is possible, and easy, to invent an alternate reality.

    3:28's braggadocio is a perfect example. Yes, you've all moved on to "better paying" jobs.

    Give it a rest.

    In the old days, people talking like that were only found at the end of bars at 8:30 in the morning. Now they post online.

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  26. Anonymous9/05/2011 3:39 PM

    Time for change. Hang it up, and submit. You cannot control this blog:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S6Xqia-1RY&feature=related

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  27. Anonymous9/05/2011 3:43 PM

    2:25 What post about The Journal News closing? This is the first I've heard of that.

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  28. Anonymous9/05/2011 3:52 PM

    3:43, some idiot posted that as an unsourced rumor. Jim is too stupid to ax those, so they float around here and become reality to the fools.

    3:28, no one is buying it. Stop trying to sell it.

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  29. Jim Hopkins9/05/2011 3:53 PM

    2:22 I treat USAT editorial with kid gloves?

    Perhaps you missed my post about the non-editing of Al Neuharth's column. Or the hardly-credited use of an amateur videographer's work.

    And then there was the five-day-old, already-published-in-print story featured prominently on the homepage. What about the story everyone in the industry was reading -- except those reading USAT?

    Don't forget the disaster that was bin Laden Sunday, embarrassing Editor John Hillkirk just 24 hours after he was hobnobbing with President Obama. Coverage of the Japanese nuke near-meltdown? Not so good. Highlighting that Amsterdam pot-buying story probably won me no fans, either.

    But the pièce de résistance, of course, was this.

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  30. Anonymous9/05/2011 4:23 PM

    2:04. In either case, this is more like it. Think about it. I would love to be proven mistaken, it's no detriment -- it's an opportunity! Yet there is scant stuff left for that these days. There's no interest in "the other." And this we see displayed on Gannettblog. No interest. Certainly no names, and that opportunity alone unleashes a nature that I had hoped did not exist among well-educated professionals.

    Just poisonous slights. Really? You kids think this is discussion? Where the hell did you go to school? Your degree, just an effing piece of paper, some victim of the need to keep up the graduation stats?

    Trust me, though this group won't, there's a lot of good posters on Hopkin's blog.

    And a lot of people who have lived their life, worked in this profession, wholly blinded by corporate crap wondering about their misery.

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  31. Anonymous9/05/2011 4:31 PM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  32. Anonymous9/05/2011 4:54 PM

    "Hopkin's blog" -- all we need to know about that person's ability.

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  33. Anonymous9/05/2011 5:18 PM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  34. Anonymous9/05/2011 5:25 PM

    Bill Ringle has died.

    Most of the people posting here have no idea who he was. If they did, they'd remember a time when reporting was more important than brand positioning.

    RIP, Mr. Ringle.

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  35. Anonymous9/05/2011 5:37 PM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  36. Anonymous9/05/2011 5:43 PM

    5:25 yep the good old days before mobile phones, 100 twenty four hour cable news shows, tablets, the web, pod casts, and a thousand more outlets and devices. Please folks the world is changing at light speed. It's NEVER going to be like it was not even a little bit. Brand marketing is just the tip of the iceberg

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  37. The Big Biz Professor9/05/2011 6:20 PM

    %:43, you need to have a product worth marketing first, behind the brand. What Gannett has done is take it's best product (news) and hollow it from the inside out until the slightest wind is liable to bring it crashing down. You can wrap it in the thin veneer of a new "logo" or "branding" and if there is nothing behind it, the public, ie: the customer will go else where. Example: Chrysler vs Ford. One company is introducing fresh new products and backing them up with good design, they other is rehashing the past, hoping the customer won't no the difference. Now translate that to Gannett.
    I have an iPhone and love the on demand world, now go look at what Gannett offers on the iPhone and iPad. Looks like a rehash of the "big" (monitor) screen website.
    So much for changing at "Light Speed" unless that light is a 40 watt incandescent bulb.

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  38. Anonymous9/05/2011 8:06 PM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  39. Anonymous9/05/2011 8:22 PM

    Big Biz Professor is right on the mark. The lights are going out all over Gannnetland and I fear we will never see them lit again.

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  40. Anonymous9/05/2011 8:22 PM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  41. Anonymous9/05/2011 8:24 PM

    It's the Guns of August all over again. Can't the fools see what they are doing and head off this disaster? Where are the board of directors and why aren't they storming into the Crystal Palace to throw the bums out.

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  42. Anonymous9/05/2011 9:12 PM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  43. Anonymous9/05/2011 9:14 PM

    Today's Enquirer local news front is what you get when you lay off too many reporters: A full-page Labor Day tribute photo spread of hands. This should have gone inside to B3 or on the web site. There is simply no shame among the top editors in Cincy.

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  44. Anonymous9/05/2011 9:24 PM

    Jim, it is your blog and do with it as you wish.but you made a mistake pulling the rather nebulous comments about Susan Weiss. And now your rationale is downright sillly. There was no name calling or nastiness directed at her. The comment focused on her management style. Inexplicably, you seem to be protecting her. I don't get it. Is she a source? You don't do this for any. Other Gannett manager. You didn't work for her. So what gives? Your defensiveness astounds even fans like me.

    And your piece de resistance is publishing an in-house flow chart? How about allowing an open, free flowing debate that may conflict with an ever-changing standard that appears based on your whim?

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  45. Anonymous9/05/2011 9:31 PM

    It sure seems you ARE treating some with kid gloves.

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  46. Anonymous9/05/2011 9:40 PM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  47. Anonymous9/05/2011 9:41 PM

    Jim likes to credit his big usatoday "gets" on lack of news judgement, editing mishaps and other stuff a lame, inexperienced night crew should take heat for. Or the ramblings of an octogenarian columnist who no one cares about. Yet JIM decides to snuff out excessive talk about an editor he personally likes. Many people at the paper do like Susan. But we can distinguish her niceness from her poor management style and lack of leadership. Jim seems unable to.

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  48. Anonymous9/05/2011 10:07 PM

    "Vague, generic-reading posts that only recycle established perspectives contribute little to the discussion."

    So, you'll be deleting the bi-weekly posts that predict sourceless gloom-and-doom as well, I hope?

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  49. Anonymous9/05/2011 10:13 PM

    The endless, pointless, witless whining about the "management style" of particular editors at USA Today is of little interest to most of the civilized Western world.

    There are only about 7 of you who keep harping on this. Can't you all just meet in a McDonald's booth somewhere?

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  50. Anonymous9/05/2011 10:16 PM

    I couldn't understand it, but these theories start to make sense. Why else would he remove even the positive comments, which seemed to confirm a lot of tHe criticism, while spinning it in a positive light. Someone got in touch and said, hey can you take that stuff down. Not all of it. Just the incriminating stuff.

    Jim has been absent on other major CONTENT gaffes: Money running a YEAR OLD auto story last year, the weekend crew dropping the ball on the Arizona
    shootings, the huge, embarrassing fiasco of the Delta anti-semetism story, which had not a shred of truth to it.

    Jim is protecting someone who is not solely, but significantly responsible for the debilatating morale problem at USAT. (minor thing, but this is the manager who NEVER would tell an employee what his/her raise would be, back in the days of actual raises of course. We calculate it ourselves based on the change, if any, in our paychecks. Again, minor but annoying, and evidence of aloofness.)

    Finally, revelations bubble to the surface about Marie Antoinette and this blog stifles it. But why? What could she possibly be giving in return? Or is it just what the other poster said, Jim? She just a friend you don't like seeing called out?

    I am skeptical about the "source" business, but it might explain the were behavior of having an indebted reporter printing out Gannettblog so there is no record of her computer visiting the site at work.

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  51. Anonymous9/05/2011 10:21 PM

    Looking for Ringle obits, and not finding many. He was a world-class guy and deserves better that what I'm finding. He worked like hell for Gannett. RIP, Bill, old friend to me and uncounted young people who came across your path.

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  52. Anonymous9/05/2011 10:39 PM

    10:13, no, it's not 7 harpies. Besides, the inner workings of Usa Today should concern all Gannett properties. The content staff is increasingly providing YOUR content, for better or worse. Mismanagement at this level affects everyone. Jim should see the big picture. So should you. The paper needs to improve. Hillkirk is not the answer. Either is the rest of senior management on the print side or dot.com.

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  53. Anonymous9/05/2011 10:40 PM

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  54. Anonymous9/05/2011 10:45 PM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  55. Anonymous9/05/2011 10:56 PM

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  56. Anonymous9/05/2011 10:58 PM

    I've gamely, criticized, on this blog, the Journal News in Westchester County, NY. I've been most critical of the JN's performance on spot news. I am happy to concede, tonight the Journal News and Rebecca Baker did a very good job, reporting on the discovery of the body of a long sought, elderly woman. Seems like a minor story to a national audience but this horrible situation gripped a lot of people in our community. To Ms. Baker, I offer this cheer...Holiday weekend or no, Rebecca is a pro!...journalist, that is.

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  57. Anonymous9/05/2011 11:03 PM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  58. Anonymous9/05/2011 11:08 PM

    http://www.mediabistro.com/mediajobsdaily/gannett-preps-for-consolidation-layoffs-tk_b3030 This links to a story from last July announcing Gannett's purchase and transition to NewsGate CCI. Page layout will be consolidated into 5 design hubs. It seems that Asbury is very close to going live (Sept, Oct, Nov?). How are the other hubs coming along?

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  59. Anonymous9/05/2011 11:39 PM

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  60. Anonymous9/05/2011 11:45 PM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  61. Anonymous9/05/2011 11:56 PM

    This is getting scary and unhealthy, Jim. Some of the postings (not the one above), sound like threats.

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  62. Anonymous9/06/2011 12:12 AM

    Jim, ignore your vile critics. It's your blog; edit as you see fit. You do not need to defend yourself or your work to these jokers. These few folks are creating a smokescreen, trying to take the focus off the catastrophic management of this company and its downward spiral.

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  63. Anonymous9/06/2011 1:02 AM

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  64. Anonymous9/06/2011 4:26 AM

    Throwing Someone under the Bus is awful. Today the Operator of my crew said on the Radio, "I am ready to start" after the supervisor told a crew member to tell the operator NOT TO start.....Which makes the crew member look like he never relaid the message. He did tell the operator not to start. It's just not right. It's not the first time this operator threw someone "under the bus". What is Unionism in my shop? Phoenix Union Members, there are Officers not looking out for your best interest.

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