"None of the top people here were very digitally oriented. When you’re successful at something, you get very defensive about what you do."
-- Publisher Larry Kramer, speaking to The Daily Beast for a post today about USA Today and its new editor, David Callaway.
This is pretty much EVERY media organization. If it's TV, then they're too wed to TV. If it's digital, they're too wed to digital (and not mobile). Et cetera.
ReplyDeleteAnd, worse, when they do deign to let the latest technologies in, they exist only to push the old medium. TV station websites post shooting scripts barely edited and VOSOTs as two-paragraph articles; digital media never focuses enough on mobile, or only focuses on iDevices; they all push social networking as if it's the BEST THING EVER when only a tiny fraction of people even USE twitter...
*sigh*
This is why I quit the news biz and went into advertising.
He's already making broad pronouncements and does not necessarily know what he's talking about. So far, just a windbag.
ReplyDeleteIs this a shot at Frank, Micek, Banikarim, Ellwood, Weiss, Murcko, Buesse and Martore?
ReplyDeleteNo shit Sherlock. senior editors are print centric and think of digital's kiddie corps as having th answer. (They dont). We need experienced news poeple overseeing digital and making sure reporters are thinking web first. that isnt happening now. COLTON, ULLMAN AND HORWICH dont get it. Hillkirk didnt, either.
ReplyDeleteObviously, the guy is not a fan of print. Guess where the layoffs will be coming from.
ReplyDelete11:29,
ReplyDeleteAh yup! There is no digital expertise among the entire group.
I love the fact that Gannett now considers worthless the very people who gave their time, talent and energy for years upon years to build the profit margins that corporate has demanded and enjoyed for decades. It's not only at USAT, but across the USCP.
ReplyDeleteIt really doesn't matter that you've been running "media groups" as a top editor, publisher or GM, managing a digital site as well as a print product with the same team of journalists. It really doesn't matter that you've given GCI the best years of your life, at great sacrifice to your health and family, to serve their "greater good."
It really doesn't matter that you endured NEWS 2000; Real Life, Real News; the New Media Spectrum; the Information Center rollouts.
Simply put, everything we've asked you to do in the past is now shit and these folks from outside the company are more worthy of praise and promotion -- because they didn't do that.
Where is the digital b-u-s-i-n-e-s-s plan??? Because the print dinosaur is still bringing in revenue (even if it is diminished revenue) with those nice double page ads. Come up with the business plan that brings in the same revenue from digital ads and then you can say "kill the dinosaur." Right now, the dinosaur is still a cash cow by comparision.
ReplyDeleteShow us the revenue plan which works, then you can shoot your mouth off, Kramer.
For the past 10 years the Publisher, the VP's and sales managers were the problem not the solution for digital growth.
ReplyDeleteSo thousands of Newspaper workers were let go from GPS for nothing.This is a company in the newspaper industry that doesn't like the newspaper.
ReplyDelete4:18 they aren't geniuses, just that desperate times call for desperate measures. Kramer was tapped because of digital and he tapped an old pal who was digital. Nothing briliant there.
ReplyDeleteI wish everyone well, I really do. But it's the hardest damn thing to fix.
Martore had an opportunity to bring in real talent at the sales/marketing level and an ace at the editor level and she failed on all fronts.
Too many people involved in management over the past few years have screwed it up worst.
Print brings in revenue but at a very high expense and slim PROFIT margins. Digital generates less revenue than print but digital generates more PROFIT because it has lower expenses. Wall Street rewarded GCI today because per-share PROFITS were above estimates while revenue fell. Management will continue to cut, cut, cut on the print side to reduce expenses while having minimal impact on company PROFITS.
ReplyDeleteWere? Larry, get a grip on your operation. You are missing a lot while you're on your three week cruise. The place is foundering. But you dont want to hear about anyone with any constructive suggestions on how to improve things.
ReplyDeleteStop the 'I'm an expert Bamikarim schtick and go learn first hand what ails the operation before shooting off your mouth to Howie Kurtz and the Washingtonian. You need to get your hands dirty. So does your pal Calloway.
1:33 what a cheap shit. He had scheduled the cruise before he took the job. Your position is he should cancel it? Secondly, what did he say that's wrong? Grow up and stop living in the past. USAT us dying. It will survive in the digital world. Which of the current leaders are the digital gurus? That's right...... None of them
ReplyDelete8:15 Hardly a big reward from Wall Street. They know this is a sweet spot for Gannett with the Olympics and the election coming. Gannett did not have a great quarter. Next year will tell if the strategy paid off. Killing off print will bring in more revenue to digital but the loss of revenue from print which still is where Gannett makes the majority of it's profits will hurt as advertisers cut back even more. Especially when they find out Gannetts single copy Sunday paper circulation has dropped like a rock.
ReplyDeleteHaven't read USAT in several years. Was out of town this past week and it came free in the hotel. This rag is now barely a pamphlet. $1 for useless information I can get anywhere for free? And now you want to hide it behind a paywall? C'mon man!
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that not only do most of the print editors dont get digitsl. The sigitsl people are low budget, inexperienced processors who dont know journalism. Too young to have perspective, too inexperienced to know know basics. The homefront people cannot decipher a simple earnings report.
ReplyDelete