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.)
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
29 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)
@9:51 from yesterday RE: new rate for employees in Phoenix . . .
ReplyDeleteI hope you didn't work in the Business section. The NEW rate for employees (past and present) is $13.08 a MONTH, which is 50% off - not a bad deal. That means you're paying a buck a week more, or about $2 more per paycheck.
How you get to over $700 on that is beyond me. Sure you weren't looking at a New York Times rate card?
We had a monster storm roll through the Phoenix area, beginning about 8pm last night.
ReplyDeleteAs of 2:45 this morning . . . NOTHING on the azcentral website. In fact, the top story shows a sunny landscape at Arizona State University.
Even the TV side, 12news.com, has absolutely ZIP. Did all the web people leave early to beat the Flash Flood Warnings?
I'm going to pay extra for THIS? When I can get real-time info right off The Weather Channel??
I don't want to hear any crap about "our server went down" or "we had electrical problems".
TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/Production/Article/Gannett-Selects-Presteligence-for-Prepress-Production-Workflow-Consolidation-Project
ReplyDeleteThis is how I found out my days are numbered at Gannett/GPS. Knew something was coming, but what a way to find out
So Gannett's Des Moines paper refuses to enter information into www.highschoolsports.net website because it's too slow and clunky?
ReplyDeleteThat is just awesome!
Here's the prepress consolidation news release from the software company, dated Aug. 10:
ReplyDeleteGannett Selects Presteligence for Prepress Production Workflow Consolidation Project
NewsXtreme software will manage all pages and products that Gannett prints or distributes.
Gannett selected Presteligence’s NewsXtreme Production Workflow Software for their corporate-wide prepress workflow solution as they consolidate their prepress operations. The project includes deployment of NewsXtreme into 41 print sites and USA Today, and the transmission to non-Gannett print sites.
Gannett will host three prepress operation centers in Des Moines, IA, Indianapolis, IN, and Phoenix, AZ where NewsXtreme Enterprise will manage their dailies, USA Today, weeklies, and all commercial jobs that are printed or distributed through their print sites.
NewsXtreme Enterprise will integrate with CCI, SCS Layout 8000, and DPS, among others in this innovative approach to production. Super users at the three hubs will proof the pages using its web interface. This will allow for consistent production and control as the approved pages are transferred to the appropriate print sites.
The NewsXtreme software installed at each print site will then manage the rest of the production functions such as, fan out, page pairing, creep adjustment, plate templates, press proofs, and plate approval. Each site will be communicating its status to the operation centers.
NewsXtreme’s open interface, rules based workflow, and future upgrade path were among the reasons Presteligence was selected.
Pre-planning meetings and installations are already underway for the fast-paced deployment schedule. Doug Arnold, Operations Manager/Workflow and Output , will be managing the rollout for GPS.
Im ignorant about what this means in obtuse language. what does it mean for jobs and who is at risk?
DeleteInteresting take from former C-J sports writer on the recent exodus of former colleagues to the competition:
ReplyDeletehttp://insiderlouisville.com/news/2012/08/22/mark-coomes-every-time-the-courier-journal-chases-off-a-distinctive-voice-it-diminishes-the-paper-as-a-whole/
Oh my, 5:43 you may be right. Mr. Zidich's letter on our subscription increase just said "The new rate for your subscription . . . will be $14.33." Since for 30 years, we've paid a weekly rate (we pay once a year), I assumed he meant per week. My mistake for making an assumption or maybe his for not adding per month to the end of his sentence. My math is fine ($14.33x52=$745.16). I hope you are correct. I like your math better ($14.33x12=$171.96).
ReplyDeleteWe're not just shoving all our eggs in one basket on Email and GIADC and NewsGate and obituaries and Finance, now our press sites are all going to be using the same centralized software?
ReplyDeleteWhat's our BCP action steps for a failure? "Go home, there's nothing you can do?"
QUOTE OF THE DAY
ReplyDelete"It has a newspaper operation, for which it is unfortunately known, which attaches a stigma to the company."
-- Alden Global Capital's Randy Smith.
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/business-news/the-biz-blog/185165/newspaper-investor-randy-smith-breaks-silence-to-speak-up-for-gannett/
phx big storm, damage, power outage and there only one small blip buried on az central.
ReplyDeletethey must need the $10 now to pay the reporter they just hired.
Re: azcentral.com. A website that fails to cover big storms has truly lost its way. Asking readers to pay $10 a month for coverage of something so basic, so essential then becomes an insult. It's the kind of failure that will send readers to the free websites of local TV stations, and they won't come back.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for the prepress information, I just resigned from the prepress/IT managers position in Atlanta.
ReplyDeleteIt has been apparent to me over the course of the last year that major changes were going to unfold.
Best of luck to all DTP folks!
Someone told me that they heard Florida Today is going to prin t 3 days a week---is this true, any info?
ReplyDeleteHoly crap, 9:45! That column about the exodus of credibility at the Courier-Journal was a good read until about half-way through. That had to be around 2,000 words -- double what it should have been.
ReplyDelete"So Gannett's Des Moines paper refuses to enter information into www.highschoolsports.net website because it's too slow and clunky?
ReplyDeleteThat is just awesome!"
That's interesting, and maybe worth following up, Jim. I heard Kate Marymont say on a conference call this summer that with the highschoolsports.net now falling under the USA Today umbrella now, that ALL Gannett papers and stations will be required to use it. Not encouraged, but required.
The quote she used was that there "will be no exceptions, no appeals, no excuses. Everyone will use this."
This was a no-gray-area mandate, and I'd be interested in how many sites are choosing to ignore it and what Marymont and Gerry Ahern would have to say about that.
I just read on the World Association of Newspapers site that once again it seems, the whole world's newspapers are doing great EXCEPT North America and parts of Europe. Why is that? It's been that way for at least 4 years now that I have checked the site out. Seems most countries are really informing their citizenry while We. and others, are doing our best to uninform them. Must say something smells wrong.
ReplyDeleteAnd before someone says it's the under developed countries and less tech countries still reading print...one of the top 5 is Japan, and they are well ahead of us in some aspects of the tech world.
Jim I haven't seen a post indicating how much money you've raised this quarter. What's up?
ReplyDeleteHighschoolsports.net was horrible from the start and has never gotten better. Sites were smart to avoid it, and corporate is making a big mistake in mandating participation. There are alternatives out there that are far better.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, will highschoolsports.net have a paywall, too? If so, it'll be eaten alive by free competitors.
I remember when highschoolsportsnet came out. We were required to tell all of our local schools about it. And all the local schools told us they weren't going to use it because they wouldn't benefit from it.
ReplyDeleteSo management wanted us workers to use it. Only, thanks to furloughs and layoffs, none of us HAD ANY TIME to do so.
A total joke, just like Gannett corporate.
Agree, 5:14.
ReplyDeleteIt would be nice if the energy being spent to make this a "mandate" were devoted to making it something worth using.
I was on that conference call/webinar thing that 2:44 referenced. If there are sites just refusing to use it, that's a pretty clear sign how much clout Marymount and Ahern really have for their pet projects.
I don't believe in any "report" that's really just self-promoting p.r. from the World Association of Newspapers or Newspaper Association of America or any so called journalism group.
ReplyDeletehighschoolsports.net = TOTAL CRAP
ReplyDeleteEpic FAIL.
Everyone but Kate (apparently) knows that.
At one time, I thought it was supposed to have stats on it, entered by the coaches. LOL, like they have time.
Or interest.
I concur with the assessment that HighSchoolSports.net is horrible. It must have been developed by someone who's never had to take stats by phone.
ReplyDeleteWhile we're on the subject of sports...USCP sites must add a USAToday Sports module to their websites. Just a matter of time before the content we feed USAT shows up in the module back on our sites.
ReplyDeleteI was just informed by my wife that her mother's subscription to the Arizona Republic was increasing from $15 to $24!!! Not only that, the paper's representative who called her today said that she had a contract and had to pay it. I smell a strong arm tactic here.
ReplyDeleteNot sure of all the particulars, but I will call her in the morning and hopefully post more about the 50 plus percent increase and exactly who it was that called her.
If Gannett wants readers to pay for online content, it better start demanding higher quality. The Reds story this a.m. in the Enquirer appears to be been twittered in at 146 a shot. It's choppy, choppy, choppy. In addition, it would be nice if someone edited it before slapping it up online. Needs help. An editor should not have accepted something like that.
ReplyDeleteEnough about the Enquirer already. Borrrrring. We gotcha, bad pub, bad editor, no quality. Anything else?
ReplyDeleteANYTHING ELSE?
ReplyDeleteThe UC teacher union owes Jim, big time, IMO.
Chances of Jim getting a dime from the UC teacher union: 0.0000001%.