"But he noted, too," Friedman says, "how the USAT newsroom became 'complacent' through the years and the staffers, as a result, 'weren’t motivated, really, to change much. We’re all very anxious to try something new. I want our people to produce content native to each platform.'"
According to Friedman, a few months ago, Kramer got a call from a headhunter, who asked if he was interested in editing USAT.
“That was not what I wanted to do at this stage of my life. I didn’t think that the transformation could happen at an editor’s spot,” he told Friedman.
He said no. "Then I got another phone call and I was asked, ‘How would you feel about (running) the whole show?’ I thought, ‘Gee, that’s kind of an interesting idea!’”
Amen brother. He said the same thing in his meeting with staff. We finally have someone who cares. That is a good thing. Who doesn't want to be on all platforms, 24/7?
ReplyDeleteLarry Kramer is a blowhard. CBS bailed out Marketwatch and Marketwatch is still a shitty website with crappy reporting. Welcome to Gannett, Larry. Good luck dealing with Gracia and her cronies.
ReplyDeleteLarry Kramer is desperate. He has some bills to pay. Did he say he was anaoaat going to relocate to corp HQ?
ReplyDeleteArticle in today's WaPo reports that he is selling his home in California and looking to purchase in Northern Virginia.
ReplyDeleteIf the staff has grown complacent, as he says, it's because of the carousel of senior management at USAT over the years. The conflicting edicts from one boss to the next. The roaming consultants who recommend fooish sales organizations, grab their checks, and leave for us to deal with.
ReplyDeleteLarry - you think we're complacent then perhaps you'll stay long enough to inject the staff with a sense or pride...a sense of purpose and belief. Belief in you AND this product. You're predecessor left a near wasteland in those areas. It's only up from here!
Larry, here are some things you can do:
ReplyDeleteAsk every one of the two dozen vice presidents appointed by Hunke to define what they do. Are they content generators or securing revenue deals? If not, they need to go.
Determine what senior editors do to facilitate the news gathering and production process. Do they process or generate copy? Then they need to go.
Examine the production of every reporter on staff. Are they in the paper or website at least once a week? If they aren't on an investigative project, they need to go.
Look at the digital operation. Are these people capable of reporting and editing on deadline? Do they have experience at other journalism enterprises that gives them the breadth of knowledge and news judgement befitting a national media organization? Then they need to be replaced with veteran journalists.
So he's not crazy about the existing staff? I wonder how they feel about that statement. Not that it matters as he'll replace them all in the near future.
ReplyDeleteHe should replace most of the editors who've been running the place with naive impunity for years. There are so many underwhelming leaders who got their jobs simply because they've been around for years. Too many asskissers and politically correct employes. Too many sheep.
ReplyDeleteThe boat rockers and aggressive types are there. They've just been stifled for so long by the lunacy and idocacy, there's little reason for the, to stay.
Let the changes begin! Start with all editors require to reapply for their jobs.
9:35 a.m. said: "The boat rockers and aggressive types are there. They've just been stifled for so long by the lunacy and idocacy [sic]."
ReplyDeleteYes, they are there -- the loose cannons and passive-aggressive types who blow up when they're asked to do something helpful that they consider to be "beneath them." They are the ones who need to go.
Any reporter who does this should be fired.
ReplyDeleteBefore Larry launches the first missile, he should investigate why people became complacent in the USAT newsroom. It had very little to do with staffers or lower-level editors and a lot more to do with people playing favorites at the top.
ReplyDeleteThose people at the top coddled existing employees who weren't performing very well but kissed a lot of ass. The top editors hired all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons. They fired or pushed out some of the best folks we ever had -- people with integrity, talent and ethics.
So after several years of this sort of b.s. from the likes of most our MEs and others who gutted the place by smearing reputations and leaving us with a slew of incapable morons, yeah, I guess many of us are a bit jaded.
I doubt Larry or any one person will turn this newsroom around. It's not so much about platforms as it is about pride and doing the right thing. USAT no longer embraces either of those virtues. There is a rot so deep in the foundation here, and corporate interference that is getting thicker by the year, that I find it hard to believe that any one person can right this ship.
To really have a shot at moving forward, one must sincerely understand the past. I don't see Larry making an effort to get the real scoop on what has gone on here in the last five years or so.
12:13,
ReplyDeleteAnd I think the shortage of comments on this blog about Kramer is a good indication of how complacency and apathy is setting in at USAT.
Strike 1. Going on what you're told about the staff and not observing for yourself. Bad journalist!
ReplyDeleteStrike 2. Insulting and alienating some very good and hardworking people before checking that what you've been told is actually true.
Strike 3. Not understanding that people do not become complacent amid constant chaos and total disruption. They become disheartened.
Those are just practice strikes. I'm sure you'll do better from now on. Best of luck to you. Seriously.
Maybe if Kramer actually listens to his employees, they won't have to write on the blog to vent frustrations.
ReplyDeleteGood leadership reguires a skill few at gannett have ....LISTEN first.
Listening to employees has not been practiced by any of the new senior management staff at USAT over the last few years.
ReplyDeleteSo is he saying off with the heads of Weiss, Frank, Page, Colton and the rest of the complacent bunch? I think so.
ReplyDeleteKramer is already proving to be an arrogant, know-it-all, ego- driven asshole. Welcome to the club Larry, run by Banikarim, Beusse, Micek, Ellwood, Payne and sitting on the throne - Martore. Here we all go again.
ReplyDeleteWow so by watch it took five complete days for the winners to hit their stride. How dare he question our drive? How dare he expect more of me? How dare he expect a poorly performing product to get better. We've got one guy who writes one column a week and complains how he gets no respect and is over worked, and yet the guy who has been here five days is an a hole? Nope their no complacent.
ReplyDeleteGood points, 10:27, even if the writing is badly flawed.
ReplyDeleteThe problem, for far too long, is with the people who won't work and won't change. Some of them have been let go, and they post here frequently. They refuse to admit they caused their own demise.
Come on folks instead of crying that Larry said we don't walk on water, get it in gear a d get excited for once. If you can't get excited now then we really are doomed. He loves journalists. He lives to kick the competitions ass. WTF is wrong with that????
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ReplyDeleteByline counts and electronic hits on the stories,, babeee. Nothing else will matter. A lot of people are in for a very rude awakening that will make Silverman look like a choirboy next to Kramers hit man.
ReplyDeleteNo one who loves journalism and journalists would take the career path that LK has taken. Granted, he probably has more ink in his veins than your average publisher who rises up without ever stepping into a newsroom, but don't be fooled by a wolf dressed in sheep's clothing.
ReplyDelete25% staff reduction. unavoidable in the disaster known as dave hunke.
ReplyDeleteTurn over the leadership, gonna have to happen. Susan Weiss has entrusted a gang of fools to make decisions for her. In News and Money, bone headed decisions and non decisions still being made, with the focus, unfortunately, on the next day paper. Not right now, which is the way the news business needs to be.
ReplyDeleteMuch of this lies in dated thinking. Some of this is in the post transformational mess that has some editors left with filling the paper, others off in their own dated dreamworlds. But reporters are at fault, too, if they are too lazy to write for the website first, then retool their hallowed prose for tomorrow's paper, they are not going to survive in Larry's World.
Can't wait for some fresh leadership to see what actually goes on day in and day out at this place. These managerial frauds will have no place to hide.