Can't find the right spot for your comment? Post it here, in this open forum. Real Time Comments: parked here, 24/7. (Earlier editions.)
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
54 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."
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Echoing someone on the previous thread:
ReplyDeleteDo not fear layoffs. I left Gannett under my own power a few months back, taking a considerable chunk less money to get away from the poisonous "leadership" in Cherry Hill. The result has been more time for my family, less stress from work and fewer ridiculous edicts from people who just don't seem to get it.
I don't wish layoffs on anyone. If it happens, though, it's not the end of the world.
And to my former Cherry Hill colleagues: I wish you nothing but the best. I certainly won't suggest you're wrong if you want to keep fighting the good fight; but I certainly won't suggest you're right if your long-term plan is to keep on working for Gannett. Happy Thanksgiving!
I am also an alumni of the Cherry Hill, NJ Courier-Post, and like the earlier poster, I got out on my terms. "leadership" at the Courier-Post, ha, what a joke. The place is so poorly run by a group of complete incompetents. No one can understand how the ad sales department continues to exist with a group of people, many of whom should have been dumped years ago. But then look at the current ad director! I only point out this department because it is the worst aspect if this newspaper, but the rest of the place is in sad shape! Leadership? No at the Courierpost!
ReplyDeleteI can't take it anymore.In circulation we are being asked to identify more positions for a December 1 staff reduction. I know that this site is populated mostly my journalist, but do not forget the other departments that have less of a future with digital. When people like Mike Huot and Gary Disanto, both chairman ring winners, are let go there is no justice. When some folks that are left do nothing but talk about how horrible of a boss these pillars of performance in circulation were, you can only wonder the selection process for job elimination. VQ you know who I am talking about. Margaret and Helen you should hear what VQ says about you.I for one can only hope that I am on the December list.
ReplyDeleteAs a valued long time employee Gannett is a wonderful company to work for. You can let all the newer, younger workers do all the work while planning on taking vacation and sick days. You can spread them out taking one day at a time during the busiest times of the year. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.
ReplyDeleteI left a Gannett paper a few years back and don't wish layoffs on anybody. It's humiliating and emotionally draining. But I'm better off today and am very happy. But I still think of and worry about my friends and the industry as a whole and would like to very strongly urge that everybody be actively looking for a job. You'll find references to the newspaper industry carry little weight in a resume and in many cases are detrimental. But getting the job hunting experience and learning how to transition will be best while employed. Although, I found a substantial amount of sympathy during the job hunt by perspective employers complimenting me for hanging on as long as I did. I'll be amazed if Gannett doesn't shrink by 50-75% in the next few years so it's best to be looking now.
ReplyDelete10:24: Was Gary Disanto let go??? When??? I missed that one. Seriously? I knew about Huot. But Disanto too? We're eating our own arms off. What a totally fucked-up company!!!
ReplyDeleteRe: "Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteA surcharge notice was mailed out for subscribers to Florida Today to cover extra paper costs for printing the Black Friday ads. Does anyone really wonder why the circulation has dropped to a little more than 57,000?
11/22/2011 1:19 PM"
Is this true? Are they really mailing out surcharge notices for the Black Friday papers? Man that is one classless act.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete10:28, ha! Did I work with you in the past? I remember a lot of the older employees having that attitude.
ReplyDeleteWe have the biggest travel day of the year and USA Today supposedly is geared toward the traveller, so I wonder how many will sell with a full page Chrysler ad covering the headlines? Hello-is ANYONE in charge out there?
ReplyDeleteCan that really be true about Florida Today -- that they are charging a surcharge because they printed an extra-big paper? If so, I'm astonished. I've never heard of such a thing.
ReplyDeleteMost, if not all Gannett papers charge the Sunday rate for the Thanksgiving paper. This started about three years ago.
ReplyDeletePublisher says:
ReplyDeletePrepare position elimination list and have it fine tuned by Dec.1 .
Just a heads up .
10:28 You think you are a valued employee? HA HA
ReplyDeleteCherry hill is bracing itself for the worst next week. With the composing and platemaking depts. being combined and the remnants of editorial being moved in with the remaining sales reps, there are savage layoffs expected. All the remaing employees are praying to be laid off and not left to struggle on in that vaccuous, toxic, and depressing environment. It will be another worrying Thankgiving holiday not knowing whatvto expect on their return and I wish them all the best. Things could be worse - they could be working in Asbury!
ReplyDeleteIt is not uncommon to charge premium ad rates for the day after thanksgiving and black friday. home delivery is usually adjusted to sunday numbers. It is am ABC allowed bonus day. to charge subscribers a premium is new.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 11/22/2011 1:19 PM said:
ReplyDelete""A surcharge notice was mailed out to subscribers of Florida Today to cover extra paper costs for printing the Black Friday ads."
Ha!
I wouldn't be surprised if many of those subscribers mailed that surcharge notice back along with the message: "Please cancel my subscription! My family can live without receiving that publication and save money, too!""
Regarding the Chrysler wrap... Once the ad is printed and paid for does Gannett really care who reads it or how many cars are sold because of it? I mean, covering up the brand, the name? The Arizona Republic gets this "Gannett-ized" treatment, too... Sunday's paper has a quarter fold ad blocking "The Arizona" and a "Stick-it" ad covering "Republic."
ReplyDeleteIn the same vein... When a subscriber doesn't get his/her paper delivered, in most cases a refund is made. How myopic and short-sighted is this thinking? This happened to my in-laws recently. They were pissed and called me to complain!
How many of us have heard this line from Gannett exec's? "Our greatest asset is our employees (and/or readers?)" Last time I heard it was from Sue Clark Johnson exiting the AZ Republic.
Everything from Gannett is just so disingenuous these days.
I call Shenaniganson FLAT if that's true. The extra paper is needed to print PAID ads. Why should paid subscribers be hit with a surcharge to cover PAID ads. (Rhetorical question.)
ReplyDeleteThe surcharge on Thanksgiving Day to home delivery customers and single copy has been in place for probably the last five years. Thanksgiving Day is charged at the Sunday home delivery or single copy rate. There is significantly more value there is the reasoning. Now, if Florida Today is sending a special notice on this, how stupid are they? Their circ billing system should be set to automatically do this, and notify the customer ahead of time as well.
ReplyDeleteThis is not a new initiative, people. It's been going on for years in Gannett already.
If surcharge is true it's a joke. Do they send refund when they deliver the usual thin paper?
ReplyDeleteHAPPY THANKSGIVING
ReplyDeleteTO ALL THE NON SALARIED EMPLOYEES!
THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS
WITH GANNETT.
There now at least someone said it.
"You'll find references to the newspaper industry carry little weight in a resume and in many cases are detrimental ..."
ReplyDeleteThen you obviously need a class in resume/self marketing. The only person who can turn valuable experience as a skilled researcher/communicator into a negative instead of a positive is you.
I was able to leverage my decades of print journalism experience into a thriving business, and then got hired by one of my clients -- for much more money than I ever made at Gannett.
Read that E&P article -- means tabloid papers are the future. (It's going to be slightly deeper than current tabloids, but it will look more like that than a broadsheet.) And despite what the article says (and the article reads like a press release for Kodak), the readers will get less content.
ReplyDeleteNot only do we charge Sunday circ rates on Thanksgiving, but we also charge Sunday advertising rates, like 2 Sundays in a week, but we've never had complaints from advertisers (because we're giving them Sunday circ), and we've never had many customer complaints because of the value of the paper that day.
ReplyDelete10:32 a.m.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
I read the E&P article, too, and a few things stuck out. It's nice that the press can run faster, but they probably won't have later deadlines since the papers have to be shipped 100 miles to be delivered. And the two times my site has moved to a different printing plant, they said, oh my, we'll have so many more color opportunities for ads! Well, maybe so, but it never seemed to lure more advertisers in, and the ads don't seem to be better quality, either.
ReplyDeleteBut I wish this new venture well.
Here's a laugh: I received a phone call the other evening. "Hi, I'm So-and-So from your newspaper circulation department. We sent you a bill recently and I'm just calling to see if you received it?"
ReplyDeleteWhen I explained that I had been laid off in June and, since my subscription fee was deducted from my paycheck, when my paycheck stopped, the subscription stopped too, she sounded absolutely dumbfounded. "You mean you don't receive the paper anymore?" Uh, no.
BTW, when my former clients heard I was being laid off, my phone started ringing. They were fed up with Gannett, their stupid policies and regionalization efforts. Now I'm working half as much and making twice the money. Thanks, Gannett!
Regarding Thanksgiving surcharges: I understand the idea of charging extra for advertising; that's simply a function of supply and demand.
ReplyDeleteBut I've never heard of a surcharge to readers to cover the cost of printing extra advertising. That's absurd.
I would really, really, really like to see a copy of that notice to readers. As always, I'm at jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]
Jim: The surcharge to readers is not at all about the cost of printing extra advertising. It's about the value of the much larger product to the reader. Readers pay a higher rate for the Sunday paper because it's a more valuable product. Same for Thanksgiving. There's more "there" there in the way of content, making it command a higher retail!
ReplyDeleteNow, again, if Florida Today actually told readers that we're charging more to cover the cost of printing extra advertising, they are truly stupid!
And, to the previous reader's point: Are we refunding for those Monday-Tuesday thin, very thin papers? Nope! That's the rub!
The USA TODAY brand is right there on the front of the cover wrap, so let's calm down. I think our readers will figure it out. And meanwhile, we just pocketed around 800k. That'll pay for a lot of ink and paper.
ReplyDeleteJim: A story worth posting and discussing. Peggy Noonan's column discusses why big companies fail. It reminds you of Gannett's demise: http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/11/19/peggy-noonan-on-steve-jobs-and-why-big-companies-die/
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteRE: 1:47 p.m.
ReplyDeletePushing 55/retiring at 62. Seven more years of employment and then in retirement start a second career/something different, like missionary work. Why would I find life after Gannett, meaning starting a new career, wonderful at this juncture, especially no matter how well it turns out, I'll be spinning my wheels getting started in the new endeavor, and wasting time getting there.
Re: 1:24PM
ReplyDeleteThe 800k will pay for executive bonuses. The ink and paper will be paid for through layoffs and furloughs.
Meanwhile... USA Today and The Arizona Republic have just covered up their "newspapers" and turned them into "shoppers."
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete2:15 That is exactly what will happen!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete2:20 - 3:31 I remove comments where other posters are called names including "stupid" and "dumb ass."
ReplyDeleteBankiram is listed as a “mindful messenger” and one of ten “bold thinkers” in Fast Company’s December 2011/January 2010 edition…not for her work at Gannett.
ReplyDeleteIt was in recognition of “trusting her gut” to give 30,000 NBC Universal employees Moleskin notebooks that had sketches of great ideas to celebrate the merger of Comcast.
Surely, a creative type like her must have had a better example to share, else that doesn’t speak well of what she now brings to Gannett.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteIn my neck of the somewhat gritty woods in Central Jersey, my first thought upon seeing that the Thanksgiving price on the newsstand will be $1.25 was that my home delivery paper (and many more) will most likely be stolen to be re-sold cheaper on the street by our local vagrants.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete2:15 pm--You nailed it!!
ReplyDeleteI love those money making covers. More please! The news is still there. I have no problem with a big fat ad wrapping the whole paper! It smells like M O N E Y!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI left Gannett over 8 years ago. We were outsourced to another company by a fool of a director. All the good, long term employees were let to while the crooks remained in place. They're still there- still undetected. What is the world coming to when a dedicated, hard working man like Gary Di Santo is let go? He gave his life to that company and where did it get him? UNBELEVABLE!!!! Any way, everyone will be gone soon- that remainder of characters better start hunting new jobs at monster.com
ReplyDelete