Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Dec. 19-25 | Your News & Comments: Part 3

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25 comments:

  1. 8:26
    What Post??

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  2. Get over the tsk-tsking about people going on FB for personal use at work, OK? That kind of sentiment is a relic from a different age. With the rise of the mobile worker, the knowledge worker and the use of personal devices for work and the blurring of lines of "company time" and "your time" ... Yesterday's rules no longer apply.

    Don't like it when you walk past an employee's computer to see him posting a status update? Why don't you just worry about doing your own job instead? That employee also likely does work-related emails and even projects while at home/watching his kid's soccer game, OK?

    Smart organizations now evaluate employees now based upon this simple premise: How much value they bring to the company. Got it? So focus on your job. Stop obsessing about when everyone else clocks in and what they have on their computer screens and just get to work.

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  3. Very Good Source12/21/2011 9:19 AM

    Gannett has been trying to sell PointRoll to AdGregate Markets (www.adgregate.com).

    It is widely known that PointRoll has been floundering since departures of keys executives and that the current management team lead by Rob Gatto has underperformed last year and this year.

    David Payne has already take. Away Shoplocal and contributed it to Bob Dickey's business and now they are deciding who else could buy PointRoll or turn it around.

    Rumors in the marketplace is that Gannett has hired an executive recruiting firm to start looking at senior level replacements if the deal with Adgregate Markets falls through.

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  4. First 9:19, that must be you, Gracia - thanks for stopping by!

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  5. You mean you'd rather be assessed based upon how many office hours you put in and putting up appearances of work, rather than the performance, 9:43?

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  6. Guess all the rumors about the pubs at the smaller papers being laid off turned out to be just that: rumors.

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  7. @10:17 ... rumors? On the internets? That's astounding!

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  8. WTF? I used to live in this town, so I wanted to see what the paper had about a body found in one of the growing towns in the region. I got my answer - they dont give a damn!

    http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2011111220004


    Good thing Patch is around.

    http://collingswood.patch.com/articles/body-found-in-newton-lake

    http://collingswood.patch.com/articles/authorities-id-body-found-in-newton-lake

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  9. Today's Cincinnati Enquirer shows how the paper keeps digging itself deeper into irrelevance. Once again, keeping with its practice of late, there is no editorial or staff-written column on the one-page editorial page. Only a syndicated column from the Kansas City Star of all places in the banner position, a self-serving "guest column" by two local businessmen, and letters to the editor. The thin 6-page "local" news section overseen by the illustrious Julie Engebrecht features not one, not two, but THREE stories from the Columbus Dispatch (I thought the Dispatch was going to be printing the Enquirer, not reporting for it, too??) and one story each from the Toledo Blade, AP and the, uh, Youngstown Vindicator. If Gannett doesn't want to offer a decent paper in a city of nearly 2 million, I wish it would sell it to someone who would.

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  10. Sad, 10:52. How anyone at the CP thinks this is somehow a business strategy for success remains staggering. Even if your ultimate plan is to exit print either entirely or for "Sundays only," you've done so much damage to a local brand by making local reporting irrelevant that the online product also loses any sense of value to local readers.

    All of this, however, falls upon deaf ears to the CP 'leaders' who obsess about this blog.

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  11. 10:52, this strategy will fit in nicely with their plans to make the Enquirer a pamphlet when they start printing in Columbus.

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  12. 10:52 - Don't blame Julie. Much of the staff is on vacation trying to use up remaining days and the rest are cranking out "passion topics" stories to use over the holidays.

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  13. 10:52 and others: If you get a chance, please send me a recent edition of your print paper to:

    Jim Hopkins
    584 Castro St.
    Box 823
    San Francisco, Calif. 94114-2594

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  14. Interesting announcement in Broadcast

    http://www.wkyc.com/news/article/220984/45/CBS-Network-anchor-Russ-Mitchell-joins-WKYC-as-lead-anchor

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  15. 11:12: Don't blame Julie? She's the local news manager and that means she's in charge of news gathering, sceduling. Heck, she and Carolyn Wasburn have canned so many local editors they only have two left. That's one less than the business desk has for five reporters. She is to blame because she's gone along with all the marching orders coming down from Margaret Buchanan's office. She's been in newsrooms long enough to know that his is a tough time to generate stories. She should have been prepared rather than let the Columbus Dispatch and other papers in the state fill her local news section. Never had these problems before.

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  16. 2:22 - You're blaming Julie for following Buchanan's marching orders? Do you think she has a choice? As for newsroom cuts, where do you think those lists come from?

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  17. 9:19 a.m. Interesting rationalization, indeed. Reads like a Gannett Press Release.

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  18. 10:48, glad you like Patch so much. Too bad AOL has lost $100 million on Patch this year.

    From Business Insider:

    AOL's local business, Patch, will lose at least $100 million this year and generate paltry revenues, according to documents we've obtained from a source.

    Article goes on to say that most of AOL's losses this past year were from Patch.

    Read more: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-12-16/tech/30523936_1_ceo-tim-armstrong-sales-person-local-ads

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  19. Patch is AOL's baby, not Arianna's. It is bleeding out and she will finish it off.

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  20. Yeah, I remember when Microsoft launched Sidewalk back in the mid-90s. It was going to be an intensely local entertainment/dining site in a bunch of markets. My sister-in-law (formerly of Gannett's Ft. Collins paper) got a job at the Denver Sidewalk, but MS pulled the plug after a year or so.

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  21. Patch's days are numbered. Not sustainable without interest from advertisers and they are not interested.

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  22. I posted yesterday (7:38pm) about the outrageous requirement of Gannett Inc to require commentators to disclose their identity via FACEBOOOK IDs first. No anonymity or whistleblowing allowed here.

    This is about the real decline of the USA media interest in finding the truth and it is akin to the NAZIs in Germany or the Commies in Stalinist Russia requiring whistle blowers to give their street address and names before stating their opinion.

    Apparently even our corrupt media has bought into the need of names and addresses of whistle-blowers first.

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  23. http://career-services.monster.com/yahooarticle/jobs-in-decline-2011#WT.mc_n=yta_fpt_article_jobs_in_decline_2011

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  24. Re: 7:19PM
    Godwin's Law.

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  25. 7:29 sounds very Renoish!!

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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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