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Saturday, September 15, 2012
38 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."
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What better way to mark the anniversary than provoking the same whining, kvetching, harrumphing and tut-tutting we all heard 30 years ago?
ReplyDeleteIt's déjà vu all over again!
ReplyDeleteLet's review. When USA Today was founded, there was enormous skepticism because all prior attempts at a national newspaper had failed.
ReplyDeleteBut Gannett had somehing none of the others did: The resources of a chain of quality small and mid-sized newspapers across the country.
Those resources were sucked dry to support the national paper, which lost money for at least 14 years before finally turning a profit.
So, yes, Neuharth's dream ultimately triumphed -- at the price of destroying local journalism across the country.
I was there in '82 and saw it happen.
Usat didnt destroy the local profits. Corporate and the local papers managed that themselves. Now we have pros likenWashburn running some of our biggest papers into the ground. So dont blame Usa Today fornyour troubles.
ReplyDeleteNot even an apology from Blue-Balls-Banikarim?
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely shameful.
What is wrong with that woman?
Once all this balls celebrations and anniversaries subside the pink slip balls will begin to bounce.
ReplyDeleteWhere is chairman David L. Hunke? Didn't the ball-less chairman start this transformation?
ReplyDeleteAll of our hard, dedicated work has been reduced to making us nothing more than the biggest joke in the country.
ReplyDeleteThanks Maryam.
http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/usa-today-says-its-logo-is-cool_b68069
All this wasted effort about the USAT de-sign is crap.It's frosting on a huge,spoiled and moldy,cake.
ReplyDeleteThe rest of the Gannett world print revenue continues it's downward spiral and this bunch can only think about how important yet another re-brand is at USAT.The empire is crumbling and they believe a new coat of paint on a building that is ready to collapse will improve it. It's almost laughable,really.
How about getting back to important and real topics,such as how many more talented and loyal Gannett employees will be layed off as the revenue continues to drop and the profit margins continues tp collapse!
We all know that will happen and without nearly as much attention as a new freeken logo!
The media and twitter are on fire with jokes about usatoday's blue balls. And UsaToday marketing doesn't get it!
ReplyDeletethey have put it on usatoday tumbler and tweeting about it!
http://goo.gl/52pex
ReplyDeleteI've said this over and over again on this blog: this re-launch and the marketing effort behind it will expose people. It certainly has. What a fucking embarrassment.
ReplyDeletePLEASE OH PLEASE fix the font type on the new USA today format it is too skinny of a font without enough PRINT in it for a reader to be able to read it. I love the paper and the look (the logo is kinda stupid) but with all the news on the pages it is overkill to read the paper with this font size. HARD TO READ TOO SKINNY OF A FONT-NOT DARK ENOUGH. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE FIX!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteJim,
ReplyDeleteIs USA Today turning a profit? Has Gannett disclosed specifically the paper's operating profit, and I wonder what the profit trend has been the last couple of quarters. It is so thin these days, and so many of the ads are cheesy (same with USA Weekend) that it just comes across as a marginal operation.
If you don't have the operating profit for 2012 quarters, it would sure be helpful if someone in GCI finance to slip the reports to you.
I started to read the now-infamous "Cool Balls" memo but got so angry I had to stop. Banikarim has made us a joke 5x WORSE than anything Hunke ever did. At least Hunke kept his stupidity behind company walls. Banikarim has exposed her's for ALL THE WORLD to see.
ReplyDeleteI actually has high hopes that Kramer can really lead us forward. Now I see he's as lost as the rest of them. The idea that he could look at this redesign and think for a second that it's the way to go is beyond comprehension.
ReplyDeleteMassive failure on all levels.
He doesnt want to remove the cancer that usa today has become. He doesnt even want to hear about it. instead, he has rah rah speeches and a new glossy paint job and he refuses to address staffing and management shortfalls.
DeleteRoll up your short man sleeves and do the work that needs to be done, Larry. Hiring a media columnist is just navel gazing. How about a few decent business editors and reporters? How about a new White House editor who has actual Washington experience? How about staffing digital with people who've worked as editors and reporters? How about streamling management?
MASSIVE FAILURE is right. And what a missed opportunity for us. Instead of making a statement about our company and the way news will be delivered in the future, we have been reduced to a laughing stock.
ReplyDeleteOh how melodramatic! The only people who are wringing their hands are unhappy, stuck in the past "Journalists." The new site is great, the redesigned paper is a huge improvement and there is actually some energy on the stodgy USAT floors. Kramer and Callaway have saved your asses and all you care about are some graphics and a memo that no one cares about. But you keep on whinning. You all wouldn't recognize improvement if it hit you in your over dramatic pusses
Delete1036 Short answer: We don't know.
ReplyDeleteFROM POYNTER'S JULIE MOOS: USA Today introduced a new version of its website Saturday, one day after it debuted a new design in print. My overall impression: The new site does not feel like a newspaper website, it feels like a news website. It also feels a bit like an iPad app, with a horizontal experience and visual emphasis. A click feels like a finger swipe. And yet the site still feels like USA Today because it’s anchored by images and color. Here are five reasons the reinvention works for me.
ReplyDelete11:34 Here's her review -- very well done and quite glowing.
ReplyDeleteBut when will reviews starting looking at the underlying news content?
BlueBallsBanikarim is in a frenzy trying to find something positive to post on here. Enjoy your frustrating weekend effort Maryam.
ReplyDeleteUSA TODAY always has been about presentation as much as substance.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's only a negative if you're a pompous ass of a "journalist" disdainful of anyone insufficiently in awe of your gaseous prose.
Im one of those pompous, gasbag journalists. Love most of the redesign. Is it perfect? No. Nothing is. And we still need better journos. Time to get rid of the losers, Dave.
DeleteIf you're going to spell and punctuate like a third grader, that's your prerogative. But don't expect to be taken seriously if you then accuse others of lacking talent and intelligence.
ReplyDelete1:55 The company's chief marketing officer cared so little about that memo, she recommended that tens of thousands of her co-workers read it.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteWhen will this company hit 90 dollars per share of stock again? Shouldn't it be at least 30 dollars with all the great changes they have made the last four years?
ReplyDeleteDubow's departure was worth $5 a share. Hunke's at least $2. Our CMO's firing could add another .50 cents to the stock price. She's that clueless.
Delete"It's the balls held for pleasure that I like the best!" Name that tune!
ReplyDeleteCongrats, 2:27 for creating a perfect moniker: "BlueBallsBanikarim."
ReplyDeleteI find it amazing that Maryam hasn't been fired as well as Sam Ward for writing and distributing a sexual insensitive memo to employees. Guess when you at this level you no longer have to complete the ethics and sexual harassment training! Also the amount of money spent on the entire overhaul of usat should have been spent on supporting news effort at the local level versus beating the local papers for every dime to pay for the new look. Knowing how corporate loves when items hit the blog, their stomachs must be churning! The only person happy about all this is Dickey because it isn't him as the subject....hope everyone enjoyed the $1 mil party.
ReplyDelete"Give it to me local" keeps showing up in today's Arizona Republic. 2 questions please, what the hell does that mean and who came up with something like that. I think it should have had a "dude" in front or in back. "Dude, give it to me local" sounds much better. I think it may be a quote from a Rambo movie, "Yo, give it to me local". After careful consideration, I think it may be from a porn movie.
ReplyDeleteDoes Gannett consider wire reports "local"?
Here's a fun spoof image of the new logo with a caption: "we have the balls to prove it": http://memegenerator.net/instance/26805372?urlName=New-Dunder-Mifflin&browsingOrder=New&browsingTimeSpan=AllTime
ReplyDeleteIt's with memegenerator so you can change the caption with any text from Sam Ward's email
Banikarim finally showed the rest of the company what a self important narcissist she has been criticized here to be.
ReplyDeleteShe defeated herself which always happens to people drunk on their own egos.
Marttore needed to finally do the right thing and fire her.
If that memo had gone out by one of the senior male executives they would be fired.
I like the new web design .
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to rolling it out.
I agree however the Banikarim distribution of Sam's memo was an insult to every woman and man who worked tirelessly to make this refresh happen.
GANNETTOID A55-KISSERS NEVER WIN
ReplyDelete---
Tech Storytellers: Top Reporters Finding Better Jobs In Tech
http://www.forbes.com/sites/robenderle/2012/09/10/tech-storytellers-top-reporters-finding-better-jobs-in-tech/
"We’ve been talking about the decline in publishing, both in terms of quantity of traditional publications and quality everyplace, for some time. Great reporters are slowing vanishing from our newspapers, magazines and websites to be replaced by lower cost alternatives or simply by air as those publications permanently shut their doors. However a few enterprising folks have found homes in technology companies, not as shills for tech products, but as a way to return quality to areas that the firm is focused on."