Thursday, October 04, 2012

Government Media orders another furlough round

Employees of the division publishing Army Times, Military Times and other speciality publications have been told they must take a five-day furlough by the end of the year, according to a memo out today. Gannett Government Media ordered similar furloughs a year ago.

Earlier: Politico beefing up military coverage.

11 comments:

  1. Is Gannett Government Media still part of the USA Today Group?

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    Replies
    1. No. Gannett Government media falls under Jack Williams' Digital Ventires division.

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  2. Jim,
    One of your former newspapers, the Idaho Statesman, also announced another round of furloughs recently. It will be the second furlough this year.

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  3. The Idaho Statesman was sold by Gannett to Knight Ridder in 2005, and now is a McClatchy paper.

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  4. Do you think the person who originally came-up with the idea for furloughs has a statute outside the National Accountants Association HQ?

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  5. In 1991, we had furloughs in Westchester. At the time, I supported them, because I had just come from the Arkansas Gazette, a paper that Gannett closed. I felt it was better to do a furlough than layoffs, because I felt keenly the sting of a job loss. That position didn't make me popular with my colleagues, but it's how I looked at things then.

    But to use furloughs as an ongoing, regular business practice -- that's nuts. And that's where Gannett appears to be right now.

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  6. Re: Boise/the Statesman, when I worked in Reno, a bunch of us crossed our fingers that Gannett would also sell Reno to KRT/McClatchy. It seemed plausible, being that Boise wasn't too far away. Of course, it never happened. I don't know anybody who's worked for MCT, so I can't say whether it would have made things better.

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  7. The money Gannett has saved via furloughs is now permanently in its budget as cost savings. If Gannett did away with the furloughs now, all that money would show up in the budget as an increase in expenses which would make their year over year numbers look really bad to Wall Street. As long as you work for Gannett, you will be furloughed at least 2 times a year, more if you're an employee making $100,000 or above. This is why I no longer work for Gannett.

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  8. THIS IS BAD

    Did you see the movie "Ted?" Where one joke about high-powered MJ was "This Could Be Permanent."

    Well, this is not looking good, IMHO.

    One has to believe, times were looking hard, in this unit, with military cutbacks. After all, people are leaving in droves from Lockheed, etc.

    To add onto to this -- not good. Getting a terrible feeling about the "fiscal cliff." The JIM-note about WARN yesterday was dead-on.

    We could go into the Nov. 6th politics of WARN. But that's a secondary issue, right, Jim?

    This is bad.

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  9. 11:04,
    There was plenty of jubilation when KR bought the Idaho Statesman in 2005. However, since 2008 McClatchy has cut the newsroom to the bone. The paper has had four straight years of furloughs and layoffs. So I'd have to say no, things wouldn't have been any better or much worse under Gannett.

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  10. The newsroom was told that the uncertainty of sequestration and the election severely hit advertising and while the powers-that-be should have "seen it coming," they didn't. And thus, we all need to pitch in because the company didn't make profit goals. ... the papers have run many, many "the sky will fall" scary stories about sequestration and the publisher is then surprised when advertisers (Lockheed, Northrop, etc.) actually curb their spending in response?

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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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