USA Today Executive Editor Susan Weiss forwarded the following memo to staff yesterday. It came a day before many U.S. journalists were to participate in a Web conference on the future of wire news. My question: Does this spell the beginning of the end for Gannett's use of wires including the Associated Press? Here's the note:
Over the past few weeks you have heard Gracia Martore talk about playing offense and proactively building Gannett’s future.
During town-hall meetings at every site, you have heard the leadership team talk about Gannett’s powerful combination of hometown advantage and strong brand advantage. Our hometown advantage comes from deep connections in communities coast to coast. Our brand advantage is built on iconic brands like USA Today, The Des Moines Register and WUSA.
Across Gannett, more than 5,000 journalists make up a powerful news organization. Each reporter, producer, photographer, developer and editor is a member of that news network.
To showcase and leverage the journalism of that network, we are creating a national digital-first news team based in McLean to serve every site in USCP, Broadcast and USA Today. As a working title, we’re calling it The Desk.
Its assignments:
For community journalists it means more time to concentrate on local coverage with impact and depth. It also provides the chance for superior local content to be shared across all of Gannett in a powerful new way.
For USA Today and the new national desk it means access to the best all of Gannett has to offer on a 24/7 basis.
A group from Broadcasting, USA Today, USCP, Digital and Military Times together defined the role of this centralized news team, which will be housed within the USA Today newsroom. Journalists from across divisions will be enlisted to help the Steering Committee build the right structure to best serve readers and viewers across Gannett.
A critical first step is to identify a director. We will post this position on careerbuilder.com this week.
The director will report to the cross-divisional Steering Committee comprised of Rob Mennie, Broadcast; Kate Marymont, USCP; Mitch Gelman, Digital; and Susan Weiss, USA Today.
The centralized news team does not change the role of the Washington-based regional reporters who serve USCP sites.
The Video Production Center at WXIA will be the video arm of The Desk, working with the producers on The Desk to provide the best, most relevant on-demand and live video programming.
This operation will be rolled out in phases. First to be created will be the portion that produces print pages for USCP newspapers, with launch scheduled by May. The 24/7 national digital report will launch in June by using Odyssey templates and will be upgraded with the relaunch of sites starting with USA Today this fall.
This is an exciting venture that gives us the opportunity to better leverage our hometown and brand advantages.
We’ll share lots more information as we continue to build. . . . . Kate, Mitch, Rob and Susan.
And I will be available today – and the rest of the week—to answer any questions. And I welcome your suggestions/reactions.
Thanks,
Susan
Over the past few weeks you have heard Gracia Martore talk about playing offense and proactively building Gannett’s future.
During town-hall meetings at every site, you have heard the leadership team talk about Gannett’s powerful combination of hometown advantage and strong brand advantage. Our hometown advantage comes from deep connections in communities coast to coast. Our brand advantage is built on iconic brands like USA Today, The Des Moines Register and WUSA.
Across Gannett, more than 5,000 journalists make up a powerful news organization. Each reporter, producer, photographer, developer and editor is a member of that news network.
To showcase and leverage the journalism of that network, we are creating a national digital-first news team based in McLean to serve every site in USCP, Broadcast and USA Today. As a working title, we’re calling it The Desk.
Its assignments:
- Produce an engaging multimedia national report 24/7. This report will appear on every web site across USCP and Broadcast to supplement local coverage. It will draw from USA Today’s enterprise and seek the best local journalism from all Gannett newsrooms.
- Work with Design Studios to produce national news content in our daily newspapers. This is designed to free up local time for local journalism. (Because this is specific to USCP, there’s more detail about this in a separate document attached to this message.)
- Facilitate coverage of national events so that we have the best possible content – stories, photos, videos, etc. – created and curated efficiently for all of our platforms. It will coordinate planned events as well as big breaking stories.
For community journalists it means more time to concentrate on local coverage with impact and depth. It also provides the chance for superior local content to be shared across all of Gannett in a powerful new way.
For USA Today and the new national desk it means access to the best all of Gannett has to offer on a 24/7 basis.
A group from Broadcasting, USA Today, USCP, Digital and Military Times together defined the role of this centralized news team, which will be housed within the USA Today newsroom. Journalists from across divisions will be enlisted to help the Steering Committee build the right structure to best serve readers and viewers across Gannett.
A critical first step is to identify a director. We will post this position on careerbuilder.com this week.
 |
| Marymont |
The centralized news team does not change the role of the Washington-based regional reporters who serve USCP sites.
The Video Production Center at WXIA will be the video arm of The Desk, working with the producers on The Desk to provide the best, most relevant on-demand and live video programming.
This operation will be rolled out in phases. First to be created will be the portion that produces print pages for USCP newspapers, with launch scheduled by May. The 24/7 national digital report will launch in June by using Odyssey templates and will be upgraded with the relaunch of sites starting with USA Today this fall.
This is an exciting venture that gives us the opportunity to better leverage our hometown and brand advantages.
We’ll share lots more information as we continue to build. . . . . Kate, Mitch, Rob and Susan.
And I will be available today – and the rest of the week—to answer any questions. And I welcome your suggestions/reactions.
Thanks,
Susan
Associated Press will still be used in the newspapers -- my understand is that it's all that will be available, other than USA Today copy. The supplemental services some of the bigger papers used -- nyt, washpost/lat/mcclatchy -- will be dropped.
ReplyDeleteSo, Back to the Future we go! In other words, we're recreating Gannett News Service from the rubble of ContentOne. Wow. I suppose we have Tara to thank for burning down the village in order to save it.
ReplyDeleteIf only they would have listened to us top editors in the early 2000s... we called for everything they are describing here and, in some cases, GNS did some of these things. Oh well, it's brilliant now because THEY thought of it.
Note to Kate: Ask Mark Silverman to give you his plan for blowing up GNS that he wrote while he was in parking orbit GNS editor (before he shipped out to Nashville).
Soooo....a cheap in-house version of AP or Reuters?
ReplyDeleteSounds a little like a turd polishing contest to me. Its still Gannett and their "brand" of digital-age journalism.
Will it all be done via iPhone?
I heard the desk was going to be based in Des Moines with some in McLean.
ReplyDeleteI see they're reinventing the wheel. Again.
ReplyDeleteSo, I'm confused. We'll have national reporters write national stories so the local reporters can focus on community news. Isn't that what we're doing now?
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ReplyDelete3:23 This means wire editing/wire layout positions can be eliminated at the local level. If positions must be cut -- and this apparently is a given -- dropping those jobs in favor of, say, reporters jobs will keep a tighter focus on producing local, community news.
ReplyDeleteThat's my interpretation.
I wish someone would explain to me the dynamic between Marymont and Silverman. He seems to be taking on a more visible national role. She seems to be hiding in her bunker. All of the above seems odd. Anybody have fact-based insights?
ReplyDeleteExcept all those positions are getting the ax when the hubs are in full swing.
ReplyDeleteI have no problem with centralization that makes sense, and this seems to make sense. But I will say that I would never want a job that reports to a "committee."
ReplyDeleteWhat this means is that local newspapers and websites will get homogenized wire coverage that bears no resemblance to the issues in their communities. Phoenix will get the same immigration coverage that Burlington and Des Moines do. Des Moines will get the same agricultural coverage that Reno and Palm Springs do. So much for being hyper-local.
ReplyDeleteSmart move.
ReplyDeleteThe only wire editing done at my place is that somebody puts together a wire budget and then corrects all the wrong stuff done to wire stories by the hubs.
ReplyDelete3:06 Bingo. Same concept. New day new name.
ReplyDeleteI smell more consolidation and layoffs.
This is confusing and underwhelming.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the only way this makes any sense from a financial standpoint is if Gannett cancels its contracts entirely with AP.
Fact is, AP wire and photo services are expensive; especially the full package which I suspect most Gannett papers subscribe to (since they have been subscribing to the full service - whether they really use any of it or not - for years, and cancelling is at least a two-year process).
Yes, Gannett can actually save a ton of money if there were no AP contracts.
However, the problem is that with all the layoffs and cutbacks, many community newspaper newsrooms depend on some of this wire as fill.
Will this new Gannett service provide enough copy to replace AP?
And if not... what is the point?
How are they gonna offer stellar local content when they've already sent the best/senior content creators packing?
ReplyDeleteThey should call it "The Cuckoo's Nest", not "The Desk."
Trib papers (Chicago, Orlando, Ft. Lauderdale, etc) already cut ties with AP.
ReplyDeleteThere is a fascinating number in this memo that I haven't seen in years: the number of journalists working across Gannett.
ReplyDeleteIf accurate, this confirms that GCI likely remains the single-largest employer of journalists in the nation.
I hope they are planning to hire actual working editors (as opposed to meeting-goers) and that they aren't just going to stretch the few remaining USAT employees who work with copy even further.
ReplyDeleteI think I understand what's going on. There will be national people doing national news and local people doing local news. Except a lot of the local people are gone and numbers dwindling. But that's okay because we'll have a lot of national people doing national news. Right about now is when someone explains the amp goes to 11!
ReplyDeleteThe last time I saw a Gannett number on newsroom employment was as of December 2001, when the company said it had 5,614 journalists.
ReplyDeleteThe last time I asked for an updated figure, the company's publicist at the time, Tara Connell, said that wasn't something the company would disclose.
Since 2001, GCI's overall employment has been cut 40%, to 31,000.
If the figure in this memo is correct, this means newsroom employment has fallen only 11% during the same period.
So USA TODAY becomes the new GNS? And whoever runs it will have 4 bosses?
ReplyDeleteI missed an acronym somewhere. USCP?
ReplyDeleteWhatever could we call this thing?
ReplyDeleteI know.
How about.....the Gannett News Service!!!
Incredible waste of a decade...
7:24, USCP? Oh, that's easy. It stands for Unadvised Scabbed Coven Poseurs.
ReplyDeleteUSCP = Uniformly Silly Corporate Perfection?
ReplyDeleteI swear that announcement of Susan Weiss', inserting a different subject, reads like carbon copy of a speech that Sue Clark-Jackson gave at a company Christmas party back in the early 90's..., complete with mic squeals.
ReplyDeletethere is no way newsrooms have lost ONLY 11 percent in 11 years. At my place, the desk alone has lost more than 50 percent in SIX years!!!!
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ReplyDeleteThis is a half baked idea still in the formative stage. It will happen, but there are more questions than answers. Reporting to a many headed monster will be a disaster. Content One is no GNS. And The Desk, or whatever you want to call it, is unworkable without its own reporting staff.
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ReplyDeleteWho comes up with this shit? The Hometown Avantage team? What a bunch of crackers.
ReplyDeleteJim's impression of what the desk is expected to do is correct. Eliminate the need for wire editors and copy ediitors assembling inside pages.
ReplyDeleteI take exception to the number of journalists at the company. The actual number of can do reporters is in the hundreds,
Exactly right on both counts: this allows more job cuts at the community paper newsrooms, and that number is far, far too high if you are looking at people who actually produce.
ReplyDeleteA cross divisional steering committee reporting to a director. five managers needed to shovel crap, one to package it and a third to coordinate this mess,
ReplyDeleteAnothern,halfbaked idea paramount at GCI. Maybe we can we get Some fashion forward 20 something to guide us?
USCP is U.S. Community Publishing, the name since 2008 for the domestic newspaper division.
ReplyDeleteAnd the first, hire another executive! Is that cheering or groaning I hear from the trenches?
ReplyDeleteIf this works, and that's a huge if, community papers will carry USAT stories, which means there will be even fewer reasons to buy that fading paper. Or, local readers will be annoyed that the Stepford pages are squeezing out even more local news, which means fewer people will buy the USCP papers. Classic Gannett -- it's a lose-lose proposition.
ReplyDelete8:26 a.m.: Community papers already carry USAT stories on a USAT branded Nation/World page dropped straight in the news section and USAT branded sports pages dropped in the sports section. It's glaringly obvious, too, because the USAT pages don't match the fonts or layout in the rest of the paper.
ReplyDeleteUSAT seems to be depending more on community papers to provide content, too. One reporter at my site is the "designated" USAT reporter on top of local content responsibilities, which means they do stories for USAT that will eventually be offered to USCP. USAT also is pulling feature stories from my site for Web site use and occasionally print. I've wondered if this indicates dwindling staff at USAT, or just the same need to feed the 24/7 Internet beast.
What a farce.
ReplyDeleteI keep focusing on this sentence from the memo: "For community journalists it means more time to concentrate on local coverage with impact and depth." (Emphasis is mine.)
ReplyDeleteI wrote earlier at 3:38 that this national desk, combined with the page production hubs, would mean wire-editing/page production jobs could be eliminated at the local level, rather than eliminating, say, community journalist jobs.
But I don't see how any of this would result in MORE TIME available -- unless those eliminated wire jobs were then filled with local new reporting/editing jobs.
What's more, this is all coming as buyouts are being considered for hundreds of newspaper workers in newsrooms and other departments. Unless those people are replaced, the net result will be fewer local wire jobs PLUS fewer local reporting jobs.
How will that translate into "more time to concentrate on local coverage with impact and depth"?
Pretty simple really: community newspapers will cover their communities which is why people buy those newspapers. They don't buy it for national sports results or news stories you get hours earlier and better. Memo to community papers, start covering your stuff.
ReplyDeleteOh, and the design studios are where it's at. Especially for jobs. Hope you like what we give you, because that is it.
That's exactly right about the opportunity for "more time" to produce stories....I don't see it unless the infamous "they" create more jobs. And we know that G A N N E T T isn't about that!
ReplyDeleteDeck chairs! Hunke...have another single malt!
ReplyDeleteWonder if this goes along with the paper that was recently handed out to the hubs to let the higher-ups know how much time we spend designing pages with wire copy?
ReplyDeleteJim wrote: "What's more, this is all coming as buyouts are being considered for hundreds of newspaper workers in newsrooms and other departments. Unless those people are replaced, the net result will be fewer local wire jobs PLUS fewer local reporting jobs.
ReplyDelete"How will that translate into "more time to concentrate on local coverage with impact and depth"?"--
Beats me. If what had been some copy editing jobs became reporting jobs, it would make sense. And if that happens, people at those papers should let us know here. My suspicion is that the new plan allows corporate to further cut already decimated local copy desk operations. At my paper there is no wire editor as such, not as a position anyway -- each day, a copy editor is designated to move over wire stories, and once that's done, the person becomes a rim copy editor again, probably splitting his/her time about 50/50 over the course of an evening. I'd expect corporate to simply eliminate 1 FTE for the wires, not shift 1 FTE to reporting.
Jim:
ReplyDeleteYou're right, it doesn't create more time to do local work. Community staffs already are focusing on local content and enterprise. They don't have staff or time to do any national work and depend upon Gannett or AP for the content what little they get to use because newshole is so tight.
Maybe Phoenix or Indy still has these positions -- wire editors who do mainly pick wire content- -- but that isn't happening nor is there anyone who spends more than 2% of their time scanning wire content anymore. Many of the stories are pre-picked by the top editor now.
So I don't see savings anywhere in this plan.
I see more reshuffling of staffing (smaller) and resources to appear as though corporate is maximizing and leverage its size and number of sites.
But they're doing the same things as in previous attempts. I still questions the newshole to run this content. Also any national news has to be localized to be relevant so local reporters still will devote time to do it.
What they need to do is just create a special team to create niche content for national advertisers and call it what it is and call it a day -- stop pretending to be anything else.
Plan is just reshuffling of staff and resources.
ReplyDeleteIt won't save time -- local reporters localize national content.
No site save for maybe Phoenix or Indy has anyone dedicated to wire copy. The person doing it spends less than 1% of their time doing so. So no money saved or bodies to cut Jim.
This just looks like another attempt to create a story to sell to Wall Street. But it's empty. They should just create a team assigned to write specialty content for national advertisers and call it a day and call it what it is.
I'm glad they're calling it The Desk instead of something like the National Information Center. Maybe one of 'em will notice that LIC is just as lame as NIC would be. 'Newsroom' works out here in the real world and it's what we all say, except for a few scattered Stepfords who feel they must obey (you know who you are...). You can fix that LIC embarrassment with one, quick email Gracia. Do it!
ReplyDeleteThis is not a fraud or a sales job.
ReplyDeleteWhether the papers like it or not, this is the ultimate bigfoot. No longer will local editors be able to move national stories around their newspaper, or their website.
Everything Gannett spent decades celebrating, namely a world of different voices, is now becoming what anti-chain critics always feared. One voice, one view of the news, no matter where you live.
It's understandable financially, but it is really sad.
1:32 is correct. Back in March 1982, when the company slogan was, "A world of different voices where freedom speaks," Gannett published an ad in Black Enterprise magazine that included the following text:
ReplyDelete"As a matter of principle, Gannett has no single voice. That principle is freedom. And that freedom is rooted in the First Amendment. Each Gannett voice is free to express its own opinions, free to serve its own community, free to meet its own professional responsibilities, free to speak as its own local professional managers see fit."
Some additional information here ... you know each paper pays Gannett for the Gannett news feed they get? Part of it goes to AP for retransmission fees, but that should go away once each site is running NewsGate. And, what each site pays Gannett for this news feed isn't cheap ... it's about 50 percent of what each site pays AP. We're talking a lot of money.
ReplyDeleteSo there's already a budget for this. It makes sense to do this sort of consolidation for national news, and they should have done it years ago.
Another concept that looksngoodnon an easel board to rationalize more local job cut.
ReplyDeleteI sure some underutilized Digital dweeb will have a prominent role in this. Like other digital wunderkind, they have no clue how actual reporters and newsrooms operate.
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