Gannett traces its origins to the Northeast and especially to New York State, which explains why so many of the company's businesses and employees are now vulnerable across eight states as massive Hurricane Sandy roars toward landfall today.
In Delaware, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Vermont and the Virginia area, the company owns 18 newspapers, including USA Today, plus five TV stations and assorted speciality publications. And, of course, Corporate's main office is in the Washington suburb of McLean, Va.
The company doesn't break out employment by subsidiary. But USAT and Corporate alone likely have 2,000 workers at McLean. Several thousand more work in the other seven states plus D.C. Worldwide, GCI employs about 31,000.
Potentially deadly storm surge flooding is already occurring along a broad swath of the East Coast, from New England to North Carolina, according to the Weather Channel. Especially worrisome, flooding is forecast to reach its peak during high tide tonight along the Jersey shore.
Underscoring the dangers, GCI's eastern newspaper design and pagination hub is at the Asbury Park Press, just two miles from the shore in Neptune, N.J. It serves more than a dozen dailies.
For a sense of the magnitude of Sandy as a news story, look at the homepage for The News Journal in Delaware's Wilmington. In print this morning, the paper devoted seven pages to the hurricane.
Breakdown by location
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| Hurricane's projected path |
The company doesn't break out employment by subsidiary. But USAT and Corporate alone likely have 2,000 workers at McLean. Several thousand more work in the other seven states plus D.C. Worldwide, GCI employs about 31,000.
Potentially deadly storm surge flooding is already occurring along a broad swath of the East Coast, from New England to North Carolina, according to the Weather Channel. Especially worrisome, flooding is forecast to reach its peak during high tide tonight along the Jersey shore.
Underscoring the dangers, GCI's eastern newspaper design and pagination hub is at the Asbury Park Press, just two miles from the shore in Neptune, N.J. It serves more than a dozen dailies.
For a sense of the magnitude of Sandy as a news story, look at the homepage for The News Journal in Delaware's Wilmington. In print this morning, the paper devoted seven pages to the hurricane.
Breakdown by location
- Delaware: The News Journal
- Maine: WLBZ and WCSH in Bangor and Portland
- Maryland: The Daily Times at Salisbury
- New Jersey: Asbury Park Press, Courier News in Somerville, Courier-Post in Cherry Hill, Home News Tribune in East Brunswick, Daily Record in Parsippany and the Daily Journal in Vineland
- North Carolina: Asheville Citizen-Times and WFMY in Greensboro
- New York: Press & Sun Bulletin in Binghamton, Star-Gazette in Elmira, The Ithaca Journal, Poughkeepsie Journal, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, The Journal News in Westchester County, and WGRZ in Buffalo
- Vermont: Burlington Free Press
- Virginia: Corporate's headquarters; USAT's main office; The News-Leader in Staunton, Va.; Gannett Government Media; Gannett Healthcare Group in Falls Church; WUSA in D.C.
[Graphic: New York Times]
Stay safe my friends.
ReplyDeleteUsa Today actually doing a decent job on coverage. Wow.
ReplyDeleteNothing personal against the rest, but I'm mostly worried about the Maryland Operations Center. They go down and a lot of us will be feeling the pain.
ReplyDeleteGMTI is in Norfolk.
ReplyDeleteThe one Virginia daily is The News-Leader in Staunton.
ReplyDeleteAlso, you omitted WGRZ in Buffalo.
I hope all the Sites vehicles are all fueled up. Oops they sold off all their fleets.
ReplyDeleteThank you, 2:32; I've now fixed that.
ReplyDeleteGo further west too. Cleveland is getting hit with winds up to 50 mph and the waves from Lake Erie are crashing onto the shoreway(WKYC). Wind gusts up to 50+ along with snow/snow rain mix are affecting Cincinnati and Louisville too. Add the central Ohio papers and many more are affected by this storm.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the shout-out, but I'm sitting here in Cincinnati right now watching my son's football practice. It's a cool, clear evening here. Maybe in a couple of days the storm will reach us... But then again, maybe not. We're good for now.
DeleteHigh School Sports is in Pittsburgh along with Schedule Star. PointRoll is outside Philadelphia in King of Prussia. Captivate in in Massachusetts, along with Rovion.
ReplyDeleteHundreds of Gannett people are in New York City, including USA Weekend and National Sales. Godspeed.
ReplyDeleteHigh wind warnings in Michigan, with rain and snow. And the Detroit Tigers lost World Series - very sad.
ReplyDeleteAnd no visible means of support. Thanks again GCI. You've always been there for us - said nobody, ever.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I learned about my period of torture working at a middle-sized USCP: when a huge story drops on your back door, you can count on local management to EF it up.
ReplyDeleteWatch for lots of awards coming out of coverage of Sandy, but next to none from anything owned by Gannett, save for maybe 8:1 odds on USAT.
The skeleton-staffed barely-dailies are much better at owning coverage of the minutiae and trivial.
Asbury Park - Bruce Springsteen-land. Still have the billboards that Springsteen used as illustrations.
ReplyDeleteAnd it is relatively flat, against the ocean. Not good.
The jersey shore will lose lots of money this storm.
ReplyDeleteI pity the Jersey Shore residents depending on the Asbury Park Press for information on the aftermath of Sandy. Their website is a random mess and hardly any photos of the damage. The Star Ledger is doing a much better job so far.
ReplyDeleteGMTI sits below sea level in Downtown Norfolk, VA.
ReplyDeleteWhenever there is bad weather, they fly people to Cincy in case the home office is inaccessible...and it always is. It is usually an island at high tide, and on a peninsula at low tide.....