Monday, February 06, 2012

Feb. 6-12 | Your News & Comments: Part 1

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48 comments:

  1. Possibly Second? and Yer Point is?

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  2. Let's see who will be first to report buyouts or layoffs.!!

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  3. Just as reported earlier here...wrapper on the Monday USA. Guess someone's comfortable with 15 % more returns on top of an already high number. Wonder what they tell advertisers about their circulation reach. Bet their noses won't let them reach a doorknob!

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  4. Way to go Florida Today and their draw gurus. 36 to 40 percent early reported returns for their double price, added to draws, Sunday. One can only wonder what gem next week will bring. Hope the recycle yard has enough room.

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  5. I've returned to Gannett Blog from my mini-vacation. That sure didn't last long.

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  6. Somebody is happy with Mother Gannett. Stock is over $15.

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  7. So what is gained by doubling the price of Sunday's FT if circulation falls by half?

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  8. Anyone else get bonuses last week? Was happy to see about 10% more in mine!

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  9. Only the senior editors @ usat got them

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  10. Seriously? Bonuses? For what? I'm on my 4the furlough week in 4 years and even editors get bonuses?! Outrageous!

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  11. Had a surprise bonus too. About fell out of my chair, and I am about as low on the totem pole as it gets.

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  12. Sometimes, you get bonuses because dept managers are trying to unload unspent budget money to avoid losing it entirely the next year. It's a classic bit of slight-of-hand. If you got one, just feel glad that your boss thought enough of you to shuffle that cash your way. If you didn't, don't get all a-twitter. Could just be that your department didn't have the leftover cash to spend. Either way, think of it as a nice way to 'stick it to the man,' that being the senior execs at the CP who'd surely rather pocket that themselves as part of their trough entitlement.

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  13. 2:33 It's "sleight of hand," not "slight of hand." And your insight is about as sharp as your word usage. How about a bonus was given to someone to recognize good work?

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  14. Yeah ,just like layoff notice were given to great performers and ring winners?

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  15. I got one of those bonuses too! I know from past experience the bonus did not come from dept heads or I wouldn't have gotten it.

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  16. Oh, 2:33 caught a mistake. Always love getting corrected by this site's self-appointed school marm.

    Yes, of course it's for good work. Or it could be simply because the boss has money that needs to get spent and he/she simply likes you. Even in the dark days leading to massive layoffs (including mine), I got four-figure bonuses (actually two in the three months leading to my downsizing), and one was directly related to the budget needing to get spent.

    Yes, the manager told me it was for good work, blah blah blah. But manager also indicated that, again, it was a case of spend the money or lose it. I didn't care what the cause was. I was happy to get the cash.

    Did I make any stylistic/grammar/spelling/word usage mistakes, 2:33? If so, I'm shore -- er, sure -- we'll all hear about it shortly.

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  17. Quote of the day:

    "As much as I value our print readers, we really need to start to move away from letting them lead our decision making. To often, I still see where our decisions are made solely based on the newspaper -- and its role in all we do is critical, no doubt -- but we need to open our minds to new and different ideas. To do that we need to be more interactive, create more engagement, and really at the end of the day have more fun as it relates to how we play the content we publish across the various platforms. I think we can learn a lot from the gaming industry, and I think that it's very important for us to grow our audience that we start to take some of those gaming techniques and think about how we can utilize those as we push our content across the various platforms."

    BOB DICKEY, Gannett USCP President
    in a Feb. 2 webcast to employees

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  18. Got do what a lot of rock radio stations do. Picture galleries on hot, nearly naked chicks on the websites.

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  19. Gaming techniques? Really? Example, example, example, BD? Don't just throw something like that out there. Cite an example, man.

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  20. Let me guess, once online, people are going to have to find the news by way of killing a pressman via a sword and finding the reporter through a tunnel in order to make reading the newspaper as "fun" as playing a video game. This man is absolutely clueless. The news is the news, not a freakin' game! Stop playing with our readers!!

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  21. 4:29 is brilliant!

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  22. Anonymous said...
    Got do what a lot of rock radio stations do. Picture galleries on hot, nearly naked chicks on the websites.

    2/06/2012 4:24 PM

    In Phoenix we already do.

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  23. @4:29 Again Bob Dickey is talking like he thought of this himself- It has been all over the web and magazines about combining ads and games

    http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/159/gaming-advertising

    But using this to deliver news- no way.

    It is very clear that Gannett does not care about news- all they care about is sucking ad dollars from everywhere. Why don't they drop all the news and just put up games and ads. It would be so much more honest.

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  24. 4:14 Dickey's use of the term "gaming" is interesting. In Reno, Nev., where he was once publisher of the Gazette-Journal, that's the word the gambling industry prefers to see in print. (After all, when people go to a casino, they enjoy gaming, right?)

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  25. Dickey was ad director in Reno, but never publisher.

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  26. As we all know, the gambling industry is "gamed" so the house wins. Dickey is gaming his golden parachute and gambling away the dwindling fortune of his company, not to mention employees.

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  27. Dickey was actually referencing his upcoming play in the Bob Hope Chrysler Pro-Am Tournament in Pebble Beach. He's partnered with Erik Estrada, Don Johnson and Fred Couples.

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    Replies
    1. What you do t know about PGA golf is scary.

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  28. 6:26 is correct. Dickey was publisher for the first time at The Desert Sun in Palm Springs, Calif., according to his official bio.

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  29. Or maybe Bob Dickey is angling for a directorship like the lucrative one his predecessor, Sue Clark-Johnson, had with one of the casino companies. $$$$$$

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  30. 7:12 - What does that mean?

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  31. Is Mary Kay Blake finally bailing from the Freedom Forum? Anyone would be a fool to take this job. How can you raise big bucks for a greedy bunch that runs the Newseum and FF like a family foundation? They hired pricey headhunting firm to find out:
    http://www.imsearch.com/searches.html

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  32. Does anyone know of any LEGITIMATE layoff/buyout news coming this week? Many at my site are nervous.

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  33. Timing in Gannett is always a question, but as far as I've heard, buyout offers come this week.

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  34. Thanks 9:12. Have you heard any info about layoffs?

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  35. Haven't there been all sorts of buyout and layoff rumors here that did not come to pass? Not that that's a bad thing, but it'd be good to know which tales were B.S. and which ones came to fruition.

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  36. 8:30 Looks like a strong maybe. From Blake's bio on the Newseum's website; she's listed as SVP/Development, the same job being advertised:

    Mary Kay Blake became senior vice president of development for the Newseum in January 2007 and oversees its fundraising efforts as a public charity. She joined the Freedom Forum in 1999 to oversee its diversity efforts. Before that, she worked 25 years with Gannett Co., starting as news editor for the Pacific Daily News on the island of Guam and moving through corporate recruiting and staff-development roles to become vice president/recruiting and placement for Gannett’s Newspaper Division. The first non-minority board member of the National Association of Multicultural Media Executives, she also was the first woman to receive its Distinguished Diversity Award for Lifetime Achievement.

    For those of you wondering, Blake got paid $209,000 in salary and benefits in 2010, according to the most recent Newseum IRS tax return.

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  37. Jim: you either have to get some real info on the buyouts or just block the speculation.

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  38. Uh, no he doesn't.

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  39. The speculation does a lot more harm and create a lot more anxiety than any of the other things he blocks. Two weeks ago he said he had information from a reliable source thta buyouts woukd be offered at one site last week. were they?

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  40. I'm sorry I don't have any fresher information on buyouts. Last I heard about one site in particular, they are to be offered this week.

    (I was originally told they were be out last week; timing often shifts in situations like this.)

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  41. The Journal News is becoming irrelevant. A senior aide to the former mayor of the biggest city in Westchester (Yonkers) is being investigated by city police for allegedly stealing thousands of $$ meant to buy thanksgiving turkeys for the poor and laundering the donations through a city agency. The local television station has been covering it all day, so have local blogs. The Journal News has not even a mention of it on their site.

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  42. Dickey and Erik Estrada. Hahahhaahahahahaha

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  43. 6:35p.m....those people are has-beens....maybe it is a sign

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

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  45. Farmville Freddie2/07/2012 10:35 PM

    I'm wondering if Dickey means the gaming industry as in Zynga which gave us the Facebook based Farmville and Mafia Wars and recently had its IPO. If that is the case, he might want to know that there are a fair amount of dissatisfied users and players are leaving the "games" in droves (sound familiar?)And the stock price has stalled.
    It was a great concept in the beginning, players bought "points" to accelerate their progress in the game, but Zynga got greedy and loaded the games with extras, thinking these additional "tasks" would drive people to buy more points.
    Maybe Dickey should look at a more successful model. How about GM?

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  46. Dickeynis finally admitting that Gannett's business model is a crapshoot. Vegas baby!

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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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