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.)
Sunday, July 15, 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)
MAJOR defection happening at Pointroll, get ready. Lots of good people getting ready to quit this place.
ReplyDeleteThe Joseph Rowntree foundation in Britain have stated that since 2008 the cost of living has risen by a third.During this time Newsquest have given cost of living rises of 2per cent to a majority of employees making a most staff about 30 per cent worse off than before the credit crunch.
ReplyDeleteWhen Gracia from Gannett make a statement to the city, it is double digit increases here, high single digit increases there, and 150 per cent increase in the dividend to shareholders. There are two different stories being told here, which one is right?
SOLD! Dumped what I had left of my employee stock purchase shares from Gannett. Took me nearly two years to pull the trigger, kept thinking things would soon head north but alas they stood as stagnant as the putrid leadership that is running the company. Check in hand, I intend to purchase a wonderful vacation. Should help make up for the vacations Gannett stole from me over the past five years with their furlough program.
ReplyDeleteHow much longer will this company continue to screw its most precious resource?
Zanmiller gone and will be missed by some of us. His reception was not well received but he was a fair man until The Crystal Palace took his career. He knew the employees and it showed. Bailey is just the opposite. He is not trying to get to know us and stands alone from the community. He is The Crystal Palace hachett man and the employees and community stands against this. Good luck to you Pete! You are our captain but you left the ship without letting us off first!!!!
ReplyDelete8:50 answer thius please. Why would anyone who felt a company was "screwing" them stay? really i am not being sarcastic. don"t get noble about the profession. Why would anyone with skills and talent remain with a company that they felt didn't value them?
ReplyDeleteHope to hear more about plans for GPS on Monday. Only thing I have heard so far is cuts, cut's and more cut's.
ReplyDeleteJoe McDonald left Westchester because he knows the ship is sinking. The latest rumor is that they will pull out of Rockland, The Westchester franchise is a train wreck.
ReplyDelete12:31 You are right on the money. Zanmiller was a changed man towards the end of his Gannett career but I don't blame him for the bitterness. He will be missed. Bailey you need to come out your office and mingle with the common employees. You need to get out in the public and see who our advertisers are. Advertisers buy from people they know. You came in with big talk but you are not following through. Zanmiller your new company are lucky to get you.
ReplyDeleteFrom previous thread:
ReplyDelete7:53
Have you seen the subscription adoption rates of 20- to 40-year-olds. It is non-existent and has been that way for a while. Creating a better print product isn't going to bring them in. Better content can help digital. The home delivery print model is declining as fast as the obits are printed. We have, maybe, 10-15 years of profitable print distribution - or maybe it is a worthwhile loss leader for digital.
4:54 Wrong. Wrong. But keep that misinformation coming if it makes you feel better. Newsday is embarrassing. It's hard to believe the Dolans will want to fund that mess for very long.
ReplyDeletePete we missed you at
ReplyDeleteFLORIDA TODAY!
Good luck to you, your wife and family, I personally enjoyed YOU as my production manager. Thanks for the good times!
Dear 1:29:
ReplyDeleteI have skills and talent. I have an unassailable track record of accomplishment. The company and its managers did not value me.
I have left for a better job. It is not journalism, but it's a new life without Gannett.
See ya!
7:53, I don't know what you meant by "10-15 years of profitable print distribution". If you look at the past 5-7 years of circulation declines alone it's questionable how a print model can survive the next 3-5 years. The recent additional (and continuing) losses of quality writers, drivers, local news gathering staff and such will speed the inevitable death. Question, while any Sunday circ increases are questionable, if Gannett newspapers lose the same circ this year as last year, and do the same for the coming 2 years, how would revenue be able to sustain print?
ReplyDeleteTen to fifteen years of profitable print? LOL!
ReplyDeleteI'll be shocked if Gannett's carcass is still putting ink on paper in five years.
Ask yourself why they really split off the circ. and printing departments into GPS.
Where did Joe McDonald go? Anyone?
ReplyDelete6:33 People 20 to 40 years old don't subscribe in great numbers to digital either. That age group believes news should be free. They might buy a single copy paper if they think their is something inside they want like Sunday inserts, or a story relating to them. No Gannett can't give up on print yet their is at least twenty good years left if they put out a quality paper. If the people who run Gannett don't think so they should sell at a discounted price to Warren Buffet. He does believe there is value in local papers.
ReplyDelete12:45 Virtually every penny Gannett is getting in digital access revenue under the new paywalls is coming from print subscribers, as a result of the big increase in their home-delivery rates and in newsstand prices.
ReplyDeleteJust 12,000 readers/households have opted for digital-only access -- and, supporting your point, they are skewing younger. To be sure, these digital-only figures have come without any promotion. They'll likely grow when Gannett starts actively advertising that option.
But the trend is clear: Gannett can't give up print because it's where it gets the vast majority of its reader income. Plus, print advertising accounts for nearly half of all Gannett's annual overall revenue.
Indeed, last year, newspapers and other print products accounted for 68% of Gannett's overall $5.2 billion in revenue. That's down from 83% of $8.0 billion in revenue in 2006 -- but it's still a huge chunk of the company's annual total.
10 - 15 years of profitable print? No way, unless subscriptions jump at nursing homes. With cuts of experience and institutional knowledge,and movement of major advertisers away from the old monopolies, Gannett will start cutting back on print/delivery programs within a year.
ReplyDeleteAnybody who thinks there are "twenty good years left" — or that "quality" has a damn thing to do with it — is delusional.
ReplyDeleteAnd if Buffett or anybody else were actually willing to pony up more than GCI thinks it can milk out on its own in the short time remaining, you can bet that deal would close in a heartbeat. Don't hold your breath.
Believe what you will but people still want the print newspaper...just not at the prices asked for what they get inside. And for you folks thinking that because young people aren't buying the paper (says you!) that they're going online to read news...they're not reading news, period. What youngins still do read the news still buy papers. I see them every week.
ReplyDeleteI'm an old person (over 60 )and I don't read or follow the news anymore. Some of the local stuff, maybe but the rest is all orchestrated. We get what "they" want us to get and that's it. Newspapers used to be in the forefront of investigating our Gov't. ....BOTH sides...instead of championing one over the other. Now they're just big Gov., big money parrots.
Jim's 6:46 point is right on and brings a very difficult situation for Gannett management. When do you aggressively pursue marketing paywall subscriptions? As Jim pointed out, paywall subscriptions are coming from print subscribers and the on-line business model doesn't support the volume of ad revenue print does. As a result, Gannett cannot afford to convert too many subscribers to digital as the costs would be too high. While digital may very well be the future the Gannett model could not support it.
ReplyDeleteGannett will see how much they can milk out of election and olympics and then start dropping printed papers like hot potatoes!!! MARK MY WORDS
ReplyDeleteDoes anybody know what corporate may be predicting print circulation might look like in 5 years? If there's been a 5-7%+ decline annually and increasing, would it be accurate to suggest print would lose another 25-35% in 5 years? If so, how can Gannett continue to afford printing a paper? Wouldn't ad revenue have to drop equally if based on circulation?
ReplyDeleteIn many markets, circ declines have been much higher than 5-7% which means Gannett may have 30-50 papers who's circ could be more than cut in half in the relative near future. If Jim's numbers are correct at 6:46am, print could come close to losing nearly as much print revenue as created by digital.
After surveying several 30 year olds +/-, I found they indeed read the news , but through different sources like Facebook and other social sights, online through The Drudge Report, Wall Street Journal, and other media via apps. They no longer rely on news through one source...the daily local newspaper. Times have changed!
ReplyDeleteFor all the painful downsizing, consolidation and centralization, Gannett is incredibly committed to the print products. They remain profit centers, even if shrinking ones.
ReplyDeleteFears that the papers will be dumped are unfounded. Whether they will survive is a different question.
Pete Zanmiller
ReplyDeleteIt was great having you as production director at Florida Today.We built a great quality team in production until Gannett tore it down.Good luck and be proud of what you have done.
I'm likin' 9:30's take ("Newspapers used to be in the forefront"). And I'm nowhere near over 60, but I remember when the profession was quite different than what it's become today. The paper used to have "everything" in it. Now it's very little beyond a certain mindset. With lots of kindergarten colors. Sad.
ReplyDeleteI wish someone that is supposed to fill the paper racks at florida today would do so. People at one restaurant in Rockledge get screwed because the same paper is left in there from the previous day all day or they are not delivered at all or they are gone by 7:30. The paper doesn't like their sub #'s but they don't put out their print either. POOR customer service- people are really complaining. Could some one please help. CUSTOMER SERVICE SUCKS AT FLORIDA TODAY.
ReplyDeleteI recently got the axe...
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone remember if there is such a thing as a Gannett Employee Handbook? Ive never seen one; only the ethics agreement we have to sign annually.
a link would be appreciated if it is online somewhere public!
Am curious about pay-raise news at other properties?
ReplyDeleteWhat are the raises like this year - if there are any? At the newspaper where I work, it's been pretty pathetic and a sore point this week among reporters, copy editors, photo and video journalists who learned that even the best performance ratings earned a 1-2 point percent raise at best. That falls short of the rate of inflation and comes amidst rumors that a few chosen staffers are actually getting significant raises = after a few years when everyone sucked it up because it was clear there was NO MONEY for raises.
Mainly a few 1.5 and 2.5 percent raises at our shop. Better than 0 percent
ReplyDeleteNeed help here please. It's been years since I worked in journalism. I used to be the champion of public records requests. Now, just filed one to see the records of a charity in Ohio, and the executive director shooed me off to Guidestar.org! Have things really gotten this waky?
ReplyDeleteNow, understand that I worked in Indiana where records requests were serious business, thanks to former governor who happens to be an old news guy.RIP Gov.Frank O Bannon.
To the best of my knowledge, there is no Gannett Employee Handbook (unless you were a corporate employee). Each site had their own handbook, necessary in part because state laws differ from property to property.
ReplyDelete4:51 - There is no real "Gannett Employee Handbook". They send a model to each site and it is modified to meet the site's needs. It still has to be reviewed before publishing, but it's pretty much fill in some blanks and add anything that may be unique to your site.
ReplyDeleteShreveport's DealChicken page really wants you to be happy it's National Ice Cream Day! They ask what is your favorite flavor if ice cream and post a photo of a large goblet of ice cream covered in prescription pills!!!!! Comment made already - maybe it is so you will be too drugged to remember the calories. Surprised there aren't more of these gaffs now that copy isn't proofed anymore and no one proofs pages, etc. Pass the Xanex!
ReplyDeleteWell that was quick. DealChicken Shreveport took down the goblet of ice cream covered in prescription pills wishing everybody a Happy National Ice Cream Day. Somebody must have gotten wise as word spread like wildfire.
ReplyDelete5:02 PM - It's really very simple. Can you make more elsewhere? If yes, then you are free to pursue same and thus have no grounds for complaint. If no, then you are fairly compensated as is and have no grounds for complaint.
ReplyDeleteP.S. You do understand, I'll assume, that wages will never increase in a shrinking industry until the labor supply in that industry declines faster than remaining demand.
There are two different stories being told here, which one is right?
ReplyDelete---
WaPo had interesting column today.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/lifeguards-ordeal-is-parable-about-outsourcing/2012/07/13/gJQAN6TtkW_story.html?tid=pm_pop
To me, it says -- don't like the job, leave.
Whining rarely solves anything.
At our paper, if you have been at the paper a long time- no raise. However, if you began working at the paper last year, with a considerable lower salary than the old timers- you got a raise!
ReplyDelete3:28, unfortunately, the leadership and board are concerned only with themselves and will do anything - anything - to ensure that they get golden parachutes. That includes running the biz into the ground.
ReplyDelete4:51 pm, are you looking for something like this: http://hr.pensacolanewsjournal.com/documents/Handbook020404.doc
ReplyDelete(It opens a Word document that you can save to your desktop.)
The handbooks undoubtedly vary by site. You also can find the handbooks cited in various lawsuits against Gannett, so they might be available from the plaintiffs' law firms.
Regarding the Newsquest salary increases, joke, in 2011 we had a pay review, the first for 3 years and some people got 2%, that was the maximum, some people only got 1% and others nothing at all, the pay reqiew this year is on hold!So yes we are far worse off now than we were in 2008.
ReplyDelete6:41 IRS regulations require non-profits to make their three most recent years' annual tax returns available to the public at their principal business office. These are usually called a Form 990.
ReplyDeleteThe IRS says, "if the request is made in person, it must generally be honored on the day of the request; if it is written, then the organization generally has 30 days to respond. (A request that is faxed, e-mailed or sent by private courier is considered a written request.)"
And: "The organization may want to charge reasonable copying costs and the actual cost of postage before providing the copies. The law permits this. But the organization must provide timely notice of the approximate cost and acceptable form of payment within seven days of receipt of the request. Acceptable forms of payment must include cash and money order (for an in-person request) and certified check, money order and personal check or credit card, for a written request."
Read this IRS FAQ for more information. You can show it to the executive director.
If he continues to drag his feet, tell him you will contact the chairman of the board of his organization, as well as senior executives at companies that have made contributions to the non-profit. You can also contact the non-profit's attorney or law firm.
Thank you 12:20!
ReplyDeleteJoe McDonald in Westchester recently earned his MBA. He is changing career paths and will be working in the accounting/financial field.
ReplyDeleteSomeone else asked about raises. I was told mine would be 2%, but not everyone is getting one. I was told some people didn't deserve one, and others were already at the top of their bracket. Some newer hires would be getting raises to bring their salary more in line with what the rest of us were making when we had put in X amount of time, as they were hired cheaply.