Sunday, November 13, 2011

Nov. 7-13 | Your News & Comments: Part 5

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33 comments:

  1. To jersey folks who put jjc in key position and encouraged his writing?

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  2. From the Enquirer publisher today. Seems in all her rah-rah for putting out a paper, she forgot to mention that staffing has been cut to the bone, they have to use political writers to fill in on the cops beat mid-day, and they are so strapped for people that a business editor had to write the top web story today about two nursing homes in trouble with the feds. Your staff has been decimated to the point you have to rotate weekend coverage, history columns, five questions, obits and now mid-day cops fill ins. Yep, Margaret, swell job you are doing. There's a reason your weekday circulation is dropping like a stone. There is nothing in the monday thru saturday papers. The Thursday health section? Please. It's filler.


    Every day, Enquirer reporters are in our communities finding and reporting the news you need and the information you want to help you through your days. As with any company, all of us are constantly evaluating exactly what that means. What's important to our readers today isn't necessarily what was important to our readers yesterday or last year. So we're evolving. We're making conscious choices about where we focus our efforts to improve our products.

    The Enquirer has been published for over 170 years, and is an important part of our community. As we're deciding what improvements to make, we look at what will benefit readers the most. So, we started with the Sunday newspaper. You've probably noticed a difference over the past year as we've included more photography, graphics and images to help tell the stories. This past summer we overhauled our BUSINESS and LOCAL sections, two of our most well-read sections, to include more people and more stories.

    We're pleased that a recent report shows our Sunday Enquirer circulation is up. A report from the Audit Bureau of Circulation, the organization charged with independently verifying newspapers' circulation performance, shows Enquirer circulation on Sunday, both home delivered and single copies purchased in stores, has increased for the 26-week measurement period ending Sept. 25, 2011 compared to both the prior measurement period and the same time period last year. It's not detailed in the report, but we know from our own data that home delivery circulation is up over September 2008, reversing any declines among those who choose to receive The Enquirer at their homes over the last three years.

    These reports validate our strategy: Give Enquirer readers a product they want to read.

    The other half of this story is the daily (Monday - Saturday) editions of The Enquirer. Sales of the Monday through Saturday editions of The Enquirer have declined in the same 26-week period. We expected this. We started by focusing on improving the Sunday Enquirer - this is the edition more people read, so we are able to affect more people with these positive changes. But we've also been working to improve the daily papers. At the same time we redesigned the LOCAL and BUSINESS sections, we redesigned the Friday WEEKEND section. This section is bigger, bolder and brighter than it ever has been. Reader comments about the change have been very positive. And last week we introduced a redesign of another reader favorite - the Thursday HEALTHY LIVING section. This section brings you news related to you and your family's health, advice from leading professionals, and every-day tips to help you live a healthier life.

    But our transformation is about more than improving The Enquirer. It's about recognizing that readers want their news and information in new forms - online, on their mobile devices, delivered to their email inbox. So we're taking the stories our reporters find and bringing them to you in any form you want, so you have access to the information you need when and where you need it.

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  3. I too,am a proud ex-Gannetteer.I had the guts to leave before being pushed out the door.
    I feel sympathy for those who stay,for whatever reason,and are now faced with yet another round of layoffs just before the holidays.

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  4. If you're good at what you do and are younger than 50, line up another job and get yourself laid off so you can collect severance pay. If you're good at what you do and are 50 or older, hang on as long as you can but be prepared for the worst. If you're not good at what you do, regardless of your age, you have nothing to worry about because Gannett cherishes incompetence and will protect you to the end.

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  5. How nice of the Newseum of offer free admission to veterans and their families this weekend. All possible due to a generous donation from the Altria Foundation. formerly known as Phillip Morris. When it comes to the Newseum and its precarious financials, beggars can't be choosers.

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

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  7. I know why he is still there it must be is ties to the community and his riveting writing:) just wondering if he is the brain chil of my boy skip.

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  8. Interesting conversation between Cincinnati Enquirer publisher Maggie Buchanan and readers playing out online at Cincinnati.com. First, Buchanan writes a self-serving "Letter from the Publisher" where she touts all the wonderful things The Enquirer is doing (no doubt written for her by her marketing guy, Mark Woodruff). This is followed by 74 comments from readers (as of this writing). I've read every one and here are some highlights:

    - Not a single comment is positive toward The Enquirer. Most are very critical of the deterioration of the paper.

    - Buchanan crows about the Sunday paper increasing in circulation. Readers reply that they buy the Sunday paper only for the coupons, and coupons are increasingly important to readers due to the economy ("a $2 investment to get $15-20 worth of savings at the store"). No one says they buy the Sunday paper for the content (which Buchanan claims is improving).

    - Several readers are upset about the closing of the Moms Like Me site.

    - Readers are angry The Enquirer endorsed Ohio's Issue 2 anti-union measure. Many accuse the paper of emphasizing a political message over unbiased reporting, and of pushing the "West Chester Tea Party" agenda.

    - Other complaints: Poor editing, bad grammar and many misspelled words in online stories, disallowing comments on some stories and requiring Facebook logins for comments.

    - A few still mourn the loss of the Cincinnati Post.

    Finally, it should be noted that Buchanan's "letters" appear around the time The Enquirer goes through one of its many "reorganizations" - you know: cutbacks, layoffs, furloughs, etc.

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  9. JJC wrote extensively about Philly cheesesteaks in 2002, with much of the same verbiage as he puts in his current columns. So it wasn't Skip who decided to indulge him.

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  10. 2:15 ok thanks for answering!

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  11. Soooo, could the quality of the Enquirer be considered a "passion topic" then?

    Ya gotta wonder if those readers offering up their comments actually thinks it matters.

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  12. Who is jjc?

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  13. Another week of futlity for Florida Today's new sections. Reduced pages in Health, Spaces and Style publications are indictative of the lackluster repsonse from readers to these "new" sections. Eight out of every 10 ads in these publications are Gannett house or filler ads. How long can this bleeding continue?

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  14. Who is jjjc? Do you live in a cave? Just gods gift to journalism John Jefferson Cooke.

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  15. I think "what is JJC" to be appropriate. My two cents.

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  16. Shit.. if it's really just the coupons like all these cincy readers say, why don't we have coupons in the paper everyday?

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  17. A great sample of JJC awesomeness: "I don't care about Occupy Wall Street."

    Awesome dude, tell me more!

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  18. Well, I don't live in a cave, yet, I haven't a clue as to who jjc is or where he/she works. So, how about it if someone fills in the blanks. thanks.

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  19. 5:37 John Jefferson Cooke works at home news tribune/courier news

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  20. Crotchfelt is so sweet. She gave me a pink slip on Friday and I gave her the finger. I also asked her what the plan was for recapturing the market from the elimination of the print Metromix magazine. Her reply was there is none but we are expanding the online component.

    What a joke.

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  21. how about jiminey j cricket?

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  22. Did you give finger before or after you asked your question?

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  23. Actually I had a Rick perry moment jay Jefferson Cooke

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  24. Lauren Ashburn worked at both USA Today and Gannett. She has something to say. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/11/11/a-flood-of-harassment-horror-stories-after-the-herman-cain-allegations.html

    So who do you think she's referring to?

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  25. So JJC works at Home News Tribune/Courier News.
    Where the hell is that ?
    So to all who work there must assume that everyone across the entire country must know
    who/where they are .A little self important assumption,I would say.

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  26. To see the ABC circulation numbers for period ending September 2011 by state, go here: http://abcas3.accessabc.com/ecirc/newsform.asp

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  27. 8:29. Here, let me Google that for you - those two papers are in central New Jersey.

    To answer your next question, New Jersey is a state on the east coast of the United States of America - bordered on two sides by New York, and also by Delaware and Pennsylvania.

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  28. With everything underway in the industry the chatter from a 50K failing publication on the East Coast is boring.

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  29. 8:08 ha! I was thinking same thing it is a gannett blog and they are gannett newspapers so I thought it was safe to just name the papers. Sort of like being on a baseball blog and mentioning the royals without saying Kansas city. Might not be the biggest team but can assume anyone reading would either know who they are or have the ingenuity to figure it out.

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  30. Gannett has,what 81 dailies and tens of weeklies
    why would anyone claim to know where each is located? Is it so much extra effort for a poster to state the city published?

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  31. Next you'll want them to put spaces after commas. Reediculous!

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  32. i can name every gannett paper. whoopee. that and $5 gets me a starbucks coffee

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  33. 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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