Sunday, January 08, 2012

Jan. 2-8 | Your News & Comments: Part 7

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19 comments:

  1. If the goal of our mailed 'Healthy Actions' package was to give me one more reason to escape as soon as possible - mission accomplished, Roxanne.

    Consider that the company has had over a year to implement the 2011 plan of forcing an assessment or physical to avoid 2012 surcharges - still not entirely cleaned up, and the best answer we get is that it's being worked on and the surcharges will be reversed eventually.

    Now, for 2012 we are to go through an assessment, and have a physical, and blood work done - both employee and partner if insured. It's recommended that we then submit those numbers to corporate - with the knowledge that if we're not in the target range we'll eventually get surcharged some more.

    Sincerely, it's a great idea. Incentivize better health, save the company money, win both sides. Grudgingly, I admit that the only way to get people off their butts is to make it expensive to pound Doritos down the feed pipe.

    But I don't trust the company. The next O.C. meeting, the highest and lowest body mass index ratios or LDL numbers among staff will be filler gossip conversation - just as who is seeking counseling help is now. And based upon this year's issues with applying surcharges, I have zero trust that 2013's paychecks will be correct either.

    Instead, my 2012 healthy action will be to get my numbers to where they should be - and then take my healthy butt to a company that sees me as a resource to grow revenue, not as a piggy bank to shake.

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  2. Just read a column, by a local Gannett reporter. She stated that she hates coming to work because it is cold at the paper. They have to use space heaters to keep warm. The question, I have for you freezing Gannett's people, "Have they turned down the heat were you work, to save money?"

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  3. Don Bailey gave his first speech to the troops during the monthly staff meeting Thursday. Bottom line: "We are all revenue generators." He actually said "newsroom" instead of "information center", bless him.
    Also said he's very focused on digital. He and EE Africa Price announced that newsroom and advertising would get some of the iPads and smart phones corporte bought, possibly this month. They also said Shreveport's layout move to the Des Moines design center coming in the next few months.

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  4. Heh 5:40 do you really think your next company wants an unhealthy specimen like you? The answer is no. Most companies have this program now. So you are out of luck if you want to claim it's a Gannett thing. Where do you think the idea came from? My numbers 120 over 80, lipid total 185!!!!

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  5. USA TODAY has laid off Michael Davidson, a 26-year company veteran. That's bad enough. But USATers probably don't know how profoundly stupid this is.

    Davidson was vice president in charge of blue-chip circulation -- in other words, our hotel business. We go to 22,000 hotels, and it's a major chunk (I forget what the percentage is) of our circulation.

    The man brought money into the company every year and kept our valuable blue-chip circulation going. His departure means that Rudd Davis -- whose main claim to fame is producing a lame and money-losing site called Banquet -- is now in charge of our blue-chip circulation. USATers: Think of the potentially catastrophic loss of circulation that could happen if Davis screws up.

    Smart, Hunke. So smart.

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  6. Maybe his healthy action numbers were unhealthy?

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  7. It was another record-breaking Sunday for Florida Today's so-called "innovative" Style section, which panders to affluent and women subscribers. In all eight broadsheet pages and a grand total of eight ads. That's the most ads ever in Style, which was created last year in an effort to win back subscribers. Unfortunately, for reveune purposes this was also a record-breaker for Style. Of those eight ads spread out over eight pages, seven were Gannett house ads. Ouch!

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  8. Rudd Davis - oh, yeah, we know him. He's one of the guys behind BNQT.com (you call it 'Banquet') which is the Gannett site with soft-core porn that Jim has spotlighted a couple on times on this blog. I especially liked the "Thanksgiving Hotties" spread (literally) which featured Native American-looking young females wearing pigtails, an apron and nothing else.

    I guess USAToday is giving up on the hotel/motel business. Maybe they'll start competing with Hustler?

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  9. 6:50 And speaking of BNQT and its (in)famous photo galleries!

    The editors there are once more advancing the diversity-in-news ball with their latest: Chinese Bikini Babes Gallery.

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  10. Gannett's goal is a digital only model. So what's half USA Today's circulation when you shed production and circulation costs? You might as well put a boy genius in charge to accelerate circulation losses.

    He does know a fucking thing about circulation. God help us.

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  11. BNQT carries on the Gannett tradition of faux diversity. At USA Today, the only women usually featured in the sports section are scantily clad NFL cheerleaders or some other hotties.

    Remember that the next time some sports figure winds up in the police blotter.

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  12. Look at the digital product and how that is being fucked up by on line. It is filled with wire copy. If digital is the future, readers will look elsewhere. I fear the flagship will sink itself within two years. Capt. Hunke, walk the plank already.

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  13. 8:26 You mean he doesn't know a fucking thing about circulation, right?

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  14. 8:47 is full of it. USA TODAY's sports section is one of the few to cover women's sports, especially college basketball, seriously, including a Top 25. I can't recall a sexy cheerleader photo hardly ever.

    Such hatred here, but facts do matter.

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  15. Looking ahead to the new year, I have a question- Gannett's been involved in digital media for many years. How good a job is being done? With newspapers showing continued drops with no hope in sight, how good a digital company is Gannett?

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  16. Those BNQT galleries have a "pop out" button.
    I didn't click yet, I'm just not sure what might pop out.

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  17. Way to provide a link, rmichem. Are we supposed to just know which paper that was in?

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  18. 11:44 Aim to please http://www.mansfieldnewsjournal.com/article/20120108/LIFESTYLE/201080321/0/lifestyle&theme=DRAT_IT/Gere-Goble-Don-t-make-me-go-out-in-the-cold

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  19. 1/08/2012 4:43 PM, you mean USA Today used to go to 22,000 hotels. That's history now. Davidson, Heymer and Davis were not able to get Hilton to renew so kiss the newspaper at their hotel room doors good-bye. By the way, whatever happened to that BIG DEAL they pulled off with Diane Barrett with Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts sales? How many copies have those giveaway deals netted us?

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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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