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.)
Monday, March 19, 2012
45 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)
What Gannlunancy awaits us this week? More senseless memos and hires? Time to go on the offense, Gracia.
ReplyDeleteThird quarter furloughs babeee. All those underworked editors and reporters at USA Today are going to have to pull their weight.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteRising fuel costs cannot mean good news.
ReplyDeleteUnless this company used current day pricing in their 2012 budgets, let alone what most predict they will rise to – both of which is highly doubtful, more cuts will have to come.
Add that to the negative impact rising costs will have on advertisers Gannett expects to fuel its growth, and the consumers who support them, and it’s hard to believe anything but will result.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteRead the blog all the time as therapy and finding comfort in knowing that I'm not nuts. The thing I noticed is gannett must have some cloning device. I thought my managers were the absolute worse. Then I read and it seems like there is a entire company filled with borderline incompetent bullies. At some point they might have been competent but by just spewing stupid edicts and enforcing them with bully tactics they have just become blowhards. The amazing thing is they are able to spread the stupidity with such conviction. Acting like each and every idea is the greatest idea ever and the corporate management types are all some sort of visionaries. Crotchfelt, Silverman, Buchanon, Collins, Donovan, Hidlay, Hunke the list goes on and on.
ReplyDelete@10:16 – Many at all levels are attracted here for the same. Like you, many are also amazed by Gannett’s long tolerance of people in leadership positions who are well-known for their deplorable behaviors the outcomes of which has harmed Gannett’s value and financial outputs far more than any economic downturn.
ReplyDeleteIf competitors actually knew how poorly Gannett was run and had details of its key weaknesses, they’d profit handsomely from it.
BTW, read The No-Asshole Rule as you’ll have further confirmation you’re not nuts, in fact, you might even think it was written with Gannett specifically in mind.
Lafayette gets new EE. Karen Lincoln Michel, who was AME in Green Bay. http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20120319/GPG03/120319049
ReplyDeleteFrom a fun blog on being unemployed, and if it rings familiar:
ReplyDeleteFEH
"I never really expected that being unemployed would give me a deeper understanding of our wonderful capitalist — I'm sorry, I mean Free Enterprise Hurrah! system. Or the FEH, as its friends call it.
"For example, I have a much clearer understanding of what a true living wage is, what's really necessary for two people to survive on. The amount is certainly less than I used to think it was. I may even learn to adjust my estimate downward even more in the future. Of course, I'm talking about surviving on, not living happily on.
"That's what you might call the practical, personal-finances aspect of the FEH. There's also the theoretical side. I had that all wrong, as well.
"I actually thought — and this is really silly when you consider that I've been working in the FEH for nigh on to a thousand years and so should know better — that companies feel the same sense of obligation and duty toward their employees that they insist their employees should feel toward them. If you contribute to your company's success and help it to advance its interests and financial health, often making sacrifices of your own time to do so, then your company will reciprocate by making sacrifices in bad times to take care of you by not depriving you of your paycheck and benefits. That's the way I thought it worked.
"Where in the world did I get that idea? Now I finally understand — and I'm so much the better man and citizen for the understanding — that the true, indeed the only, obligation any company's top management has is to its Board of Directors and major shareholders. And of course to the continued employment of its top managers. My appreciation for the wonderfulness of the FEH can only be deepened by this knowledge, even if I am now forced to gaze upon that wonderfulness from a cold and comfortless place outside the warmth and safety of its shelter."
More, but you get the drift.
Paywalls will NOT save this train wreck.
ReplyDeleteHere's proof:
Newspapers Lose $10 Dollars in Print for Every Digital $1
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-19/newspapers-lose-10-dollars-in-print-for-every-digital-1.html?cmpid=yhoo
Up from $7 for every $1 in 2010.
Face it, Gannett is broken. Without innovative, intelligent and creative leaders whose only solution is to eat their seed corn and carpetbag every local community for profits to line their own pockets, this sorry company is only delaying the obvious.
NYT digital subscription plan called a surprising success (link at bottom).
ReplyDeleteSo, per the tradition at Gannett, the assumption will be we can do exactly the same. Any differences (reputation, product quality, corporate goals, etc) will be ignored. Instead, there will be pointing and breathless exclamations that "We can do that!"
Great to see it *can* work. But that doesn't mean it will for us. Please tread carefully, "wise" leaders.
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/media/2012/03/5509293/year-times-digital-subscription-program-analysts-and-insiders-see-surp?page=all
Any details about what happened in Shreveport with the ad reorg?
ReplyDeletePeyton Manning is joining the Denver Broncos and every news outlet in Denver is reporting it ... except one. Gannett-owned KUSA "9News.com" is saying only that Manning is negotiating with the club.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest sports story in Denver since John Elway retired ... and the Gannett outlet falls down on the job!
12:30 - don' know, but USAT ad sales is about to go through its third re-org in the last year. Third time's a charm I guess.
ReplyDeleteManning IS the biggest story in sports right now, even bigger than the NCAA tourney.
ReplyDeleteMaybe KUSA will wake up when Tebow comes home to Jacksonville!
1:05 - Is this a third re-org because the first two didn't work?
ReplyDeleteI WISH my site had only been through 2 REORGS
DeleteSpeaking of the tourney, Tallahassee is host of one of the women's stops. The paper has not staffed it.
ReplyDeleteNot a word or photo online from either of the games yesterday.
Heard they just ran briefs, no photos, in print today.
Never heard of a hometown paper not covering an NCAA stop in their own town. And they charge people for that website too, sheesh!
@1:22 PM, you know the Gannett way: When the department isn't delivering, it's time to chop some heads among the staff. Funny how the clown in charge (almost) never gets the ax.
ReplyDeleteFrom the fearless leader...
ReplyDeletehttp://video.ft.com/v/1513378640001/The-digital-challenge-for-America-s-daily-newspaper
We have many clowns at Usa Today.
ReplyDeleteHere's PointRoll Employee's edited comment at 9:54. I remove or edit comments were posters make serious accusations about people without substantiation. Here's the comment:
ReplyDeletePointroll is another mess. We just had three more major resignations this past week and two top clients that have not renewed with us.
Rob Gatto has been busy [telling] to us that we will be sold and now we find out that it is totally false and that we have real major issues here.
Someone at Gannett needs to investigate Pointroll. It is funny that the Congress is investigating Pointroll BEFORE Gannett even considered it.
It shows you how out of touch the Gannett executive team is.
The other week, our top sales manager . . . [left] and now he will go work for one of our competitors.
We lost another good reporter at The Journal News today. Gone to the new Newsday start-up in Westchester. I hear that there will be at least one and probably two more ship-jumpers this week or next.
ReplyDeleteNew Lafayette, LA, publisher and executive editor both named and share same name.
ReplyDeletehttp://bit.ly/yHTUHz
So what is the word on the street? I have heard rumors of more furloughs and layoffs on this blog. Is any of it fact?
ReplyDeleteNewspaper Giant Gives CEO $32 Million Severance Package after Laying Off 20,000 Workers in Six Years
ReplyDeleteWhen Craig Dubow resigned as CEO of the nation’s largest newspaper conglomerate amid health problems last year, he ended a six-year stint that “was, by most accounts, a disaster.” Gannett, the parent
http://www.nationofchange.org/newspaper-giant-gives-ceo-32-million-severance-package-after-laying-20000-workers-six-years-13321718
Ok, Lets make the announcement that Dave Pressier is taking on the role of VP of Production at the Indiana Group. It's out their..can we confirm it please...mangers are getting over worked having to do all the work and they need some direction Bad. Does flying by the seat of your pants tell you any thing..what a cluster mess in the group with no leader
ReplyDeleteSo Dubow gets 32 mil while laying off 20,000 employees, but let's all argue over what the final number turned out to be. Bottom line....the man stole money for too long and then kicked us all in the nuts on his way out the door. Who's next at the trough?
ReplyDeleteWho's next? They're already there! Gracia and her gang.
DeleteMaryam Banikarim , just curious. What did you do today? Anything?
ReplyDelete2:24 send in the clowns
ReplyDeleteIs anyone investigating Pointroll. They should. A lot of crooks running this place.
ReplyDeleteTap that ad haha W00t!
ReplyDeleteI heard the ad director and publisher from Shreveport are on furlough this week after dropping the bomb last week. Lame.
ReplyDeleteSeriously? If you have more than one re-org in less than a year, it says that the executives designing it did not have any vision past the point of the second re-org. Shouldn't you have someone with vision at the top? Exactly, how do you lead a company in that manner? You don't...and haven't.
ReplyDeleteUSA Today had a very good special report Monday.
ReplyDeleteHere's what Colton told the staff in his daily note (his note is about the only optimism we hear every day):
USA TODAY Investigates: Reporter Brad Heath goes deep today with an exhaustive look at a federal program that keeps sexual predators locked up even after their sentences have ended. It’s an issue with no easy answer – dangers to the community on one side; the rights of prisoners who have served their time, on the other side.
What Brad reveals, though, is the human side, and that’s the power of the project.
Included is a remarkable online interactive database showing the circumstances of 136 men, their offenses (preceded by a reader warning), and photos when available. A remarkable piece of work by Brad and intern Amanda Muscavage.
This is USA TODAY at its best, and a nice counter-argument when confronted by critics who say we’re just bite-size infografs.
We hope everyone takes some time to read it – in print, online or on a mobile device.
Too bad we can't find it on web site, 11:45
ReplyDeleteLet's hope Amanda and Brad get to keep their jobs now. Keeping competent reporters is not high on Gannett's priority list of things to do.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-03-13/dangerous-sexual-predators-detained/53621210/1
ReplyDeleteThe special report is a good job. Lots of online extras. Wish we in USCP land had the resources and time for this kind of reporting, but we're just slapping anything and everything on the Web sites.
ReplyDeleteFrom: The CMO
ReplyDeleteTo: all the haters
Change agents are never popular. I'm tasked with changing the culture at Gannett. That means people are going to be stepped over and through to accomplish that.
I know what I've been doing seems self serving and ego driven, but if I was a man, people would not be so vile and jealous of my accomplishments.
Focus on your job, not mine.
@11:50 - If you are going to be "changing the culture" from bad to worse, then yes you will need to step over and through others to get this accomplished. And yes, it is self serving and ego driven. If you would use your God given instincts verses trying to act like a man, you might actually have good people follow you.
ReplyDelete@2:18 well said.
ReplyDeleteYes, very well said. One thing to add, any "good" people could never follow her because it is her M.O. to eliminate them before she is exposed.
ReplyDelete"Change Agent"...that's for sure. It will take well over a year after her departure to clean up the mess left behind.