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Monday, December 17, 2012
40 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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Jim, I cannot post using my Mac on Safari here.
ReplyDeleteI have to move to Firefox in order to post.
Are you aware of this bug in the new commenting forum?
BTW, I like the new thread formatting.
I'm sorry you're having trouble. I use a MacBook and Safari as well, but I'm not having any trouble posting comments -- as you can see here. I'm using 6.0.2 version of Safari.
DeleteI'm on a MAC -
DeleteTry posting using a different search engine.
How would a search engine affect how someone can post here?
DeleteWondering how many USCP papers that have dropped below 30K in circulation still have:
ReplyDelete1) 100% occupancy of their building (no rental space)
2) A publisher
3) An executive editor, and
4) A managing editor
As a journalist with a business degree, it never ceases to amaze me how a company that relies on content creation to grow itself could ever get so top-heavy. Keeping the meeting-makers and axing the content creators has surely been the yellow line on the road to ruin for GCI.
Wow a journalist with a business degree! You should run the company. We are wasting your expertise on things like writing one story a week
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DeleteLouisville was renting some office space to a local health care company. May still be.
DeleteFor what it's worth: Wes jackson, publisher in Louisville, said at employee mtg Thursday that no furloughs are planned in Q1. But he said that could change...
ReplyDelete3:52 is right,so that poster gets ridiculed for being a journalist,I guess.
ReplyDeleteI am so glad I'm no longer associated with this terrible company.The moral and mindset of Gannett people is so filled with anger and distain for life in general it is amazing.I have friends who are still at Gannett and I keep telling them to get away,some way, some how, get far away.
I am doing very well away since leaving and the other day I went by a former co-worker friend on the street.I said hello ,how are you?,in a pleasant greeting.This person snubbed me like they didn't know me.We worked together for 7 years!
Unbelievable that someone would be angry at me for getting away and prospering.Like I said Unbelievable anger!
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DeleteIf you're young or under 40 and have talents sought by other companies, don't waste your time in Gannett. Gannett prizes obedience, timidity and conformity over initiative, creativity and independence. What elicits praise at other companies draws scorn and envy in Gannett. Managers are very insecure and are threatened by subordinates with greater ability and potential. The only way to keep employees down in their place is through intimidation and the notorious performance improvement plans. By today's workplace standards, Gannett is a relic. A total no-show on the list of Most Admired Companies and Best Companies to Work For.
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DeleteNote how Jim keeps the anti-Gannett comments and deletes the responses that oppose them.
DeleteThe leadership at Gannett is not angry. I'd bet they are actually very happy. They get paid very well and don't have much to be angry about. If you are unhappy in your division at Gannett look for other opportunity. If you are happy stay. Does the company have some bad leaders, of course, every company does. This is a publicly traded company and it is run for profit. Not to meet your specific needs. People should be treated fairly and it is a shame that folks who have worked at Gannett for years have been let go or pushed out, but remember this isnt unique to Gannett. Happens all over!
ReplyDeleteThe problem with your statement is that people should be treated fairly. This does not happen at Gannett. Look around you. How many leaders are there from Arizona, just because that happens to be where the majority of leaders at corporate come from? Instead of talent, corporate chooses to hire friends. Hundreds of people have been let go of unfairly in order to hire a "friend". As you can see from the poor performance at many sites, this has not been a successful strategy.
DeletePointroll: Operations layoffs and revised compensation for sales to be put into effect starting January 2013. With major revenue loss there will need to be cuts.
ReplyDeleteThe tech team is busy working on integration with rovion and once complete many of the very folks who worked on that integration will find they are no longer needed.
West Coast leadership has plans to exit.
Our revised comp plans went into effect in p12. I don't believe there will be layoffs... Firings yes..layoffs no
DeleteGannett leaders are well paid and not overly worked. So unless they cannot get a friend hired,why would they be angry?
ReplyDeleteWhat happened at the Nashville design center last night? Were all papers put together in Nashville an hour late or was it just us?
ReplyDeleteWhat are we calling the whole jack up the newsstand price to push everyone to digital strategy? When we will be able to see some results good/bad in the circulation numbers?
ReplyDeleteMichael Wolff's USAT column today is NOT about Rupert Murdoch. Whom Wolff appears to believe is the Anti-Christ. And keeps repeating that, over and over again.
ReplyDeleteDid some place very hot, just freeze over?
Or did USAT editors finally get off their butts, and told Wolff to come up with something new?
Thank you, God.
Yeah, I kept looking for the inevitable Murdoch reference and got none. I almost feel cheated. C'mon Michael, let's get back to your core beat of skewering Rupe every chance you get.
DeleteActually, Rupert Murdoch's name appears in the fifth to last paragraph of Wolff's column today.
DeleteWhat I noticed immediately about his column was that he was relying, once more, heavily on The New York Times' reporting. (See the second paragraph.)
(If I'm a USA Today reader, I'm wondering: Why should I read USAT? Wolff never quotes the paper; perhaps I should be reading the NYT.)
The column is about speculation that N.Y. Mayor Michael Bloomberg might want to buy the Financial Times newspaper once he leaves public office. The FT would complement Bloomberg LP, the business empire that's at the center of his $25 billion fortune.
The mayor, Wolff writes, "is not just an eager buyer, but, arguably, the ideal buyer for the world's best titles."
The other best title that Wolff mentions is the NYT. Conspicuously absent, of course, is USAT itself, which Editor in Chief David Callaway last month declared was a "national treasure."
Does Wolff think otherwise?
Dear Mr. Callaway -- why not cut the crap?
DeleteJust called Mr. Wolff's column "I HATE Rupe." That would be more honest and to-the-point.
BTW: Bloomie made his money in financial DATA terminals, not news. News came second.
/A GCI Stockholder/
It is one thing to quote FT. It is another BE the FT.
Bloomie's spending a bundle on news now. But he's a data-hound, not a news-person.
Run from the light! There is life after Gannett. I had 6 great years in Gannett as a department head working for a great publisher in the Pacific Northwest. Life was good...Lots of successes. The boss was involved but hands off and I was allowed to do my job as I saw fit. Then I had the misfortune to work for a publisher in the South group who thought market development was the department down the hall where you get the balloons. Can't speak for anyone else, but ultimately, leaving Gannett was the best thing that I ever did. But since I spent 8 years with the company, I can't control this morbid need to follow this blog. So it seems you can leave Gannett but Gannett never leaves you.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that a blog like this has existed for as long as it has shows that there is an overwhelming problem at Gannett that isn't getting any better.
ReplyDeleteHow many ex-Gannettoids do you know who speak well of this company?
How many current employees don't have some sort of morale problem?
Folks in the Crystal Palace have been ignoring the smoke for years. Then, when the flames became visible around the time this blog began, the arrogance at the top just became more entrenched in their ways.
Now the whole place is burning, yet no one with a six-figure salary anywhere in this company seems to give a damn.
This is a greedy, almost evil company. Leaders lie. Mid-managers stab other mid-managers in the back. Layoffs are based on personalities and often age. Favoritism is rampant. Corrupt and talents supervisors hold positions on a all levels.
Look, everyone has a beef sometime or another with their employer. But when generations of Gannett employees basically complain about the same thing, well, that's not just smoke. It happens at the smallest Gannett paper right on up to USA Today.
What can be done short of getting a brand new board and replacing every publisher and top manager in this company? Well, start small and cheap. Acknowledge the wrongs that have been committed here - the cruel acts against good, loyal people. Try to mend some fences, not only with current employees, but with people who lost their jobs for no good reason.
Then, begin replacing some of the incompetents who were only hired or retained for all the wrong reasons. You know who they are. It's painfully obvious to most of us. These people are not pulling their weight and causing the rest of us unnecessary hardships. These are people on the front lines. People who must perform at a certain level for everything to work. Yet they fall short on daily basis. Not only are their skills not up to par, but many have work ethics not suitable for any news media.
After all of that, begin the process of finding true leaders, not just people who can play the game, but folks with vision and charisma. Talented people who aren't afraid to roll up their sleeves. Leaders who aren't insecure. Men and women willing to be honest and respectful.
Well said. Yes, this could have been said about every Gannett property in any year, but the company "culture" showed its true colors when the stock price started tanking in 2005 and the business model followed suit a couple of years later. The very newsroom people who were the lifeblood of the product became viewed as "cost centers." Rather than surgically remove dead weight and people who had no value to add, management began targeting workers by age and salary. The resulting disembowelment of journalistic talent raised Gannett's dubious standing as the worst large newspaper company to work for. Doubtless the company will never recover, short of a few trips through private equity ownership and a clean sweep of the board and top management. For the sake of the readers in Gannett communities, all of those things must happen.
DeleteBoth excellent observations. Hate to tell you all the game playing and salarymanipulation that has gone on for years at Usa Today. But there are huge disparities In who gets what that has nothing to do with job performance or productivity. That goes for editors as well as reporters.
DeleteYou're delusional if you think the existence of this blog proves anything other than the existence of bitters who have more wrinkles than the Rolling Stones.
DeleteJim Cramer praises Gannett on CNBC, says it is a "buy."
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cnbc.com/id/100322378
Cramer's mentioned on air more than once that Larry Kramer's his buddy.
DeleteOther than the point about cleaning up the balance sheet, his "analysis" is pretty lame. But hey, he's got airtime to fill. We can all relate.
Is the font size getting bigger this week at all Gannett papers?
ReplyDeleteMore than calling Gannett a buy, he said the company has turned itself around without cutting content jobs.
ReplyDeleteIf Cramer called it a buy, then we're doomed.
ReplyDeleteCramer hated Gannett for a long time. He missed a huge run up, and now he likes the company?
ReplyDeleteCramer's calls are like the weather.
Deletehttp://www.newarkadvocate.com/article/20121216/NEWS01/312160038?gcheck=1&nclick_check=1
ReplyDeleteGannett's Newark property hires high school kids to put together the Community page. Think of all the money saved on stupid things such as background and context and getting things right!
Michael, Bob and Gracia -- I know this is at the end of a long string and you might not see this note, but I've got to share a request on the behalf of plenty of folks here in Cincinnati: How much longer can you let this situation involving MB and her protege editor continue before you make a change? I have never posted here before, but I am weary of hearing the frustrations of my friends and tired of the arrogant, out-of-touch management style that has stifled this once-proud organization. The Enquirer may never have been a journalistic powerhouse (although it had some high moments under the watch of Larry Beaupre and occasionally during Ward Bushee's reign) but it certainly was not the laughingstock that it has become. Carolyn has no idea how to lead. Her top editors, even the newly arrived ones, are frustrated and looking to hit the eject button. Key reporters also are pusuing new options in the new year. Many of us are doing our best because we believe in this profession and we are loyal to this great city. But incompetence rules the day in the two most important leadership positions, and the Enquirer's reputation continues to be diminished. You're the East Group president, the USCP news division president and the CEO of Gannett. Are you paying attention to this simmering mess and reading what so many are saying on this blog? They're not exaggerating. Success must be measured beyond the bottom line of the P&L. How much longer can you let this continue?
ReplyDeleteI know you're feeling the pain in Cincinnati because that's where you live and what you know, but if you're reading this blog the same problem is inherent at many Gannett papers, not just The Enquirer. Gracia does not care. Corporate Gannett will not change. You can either accept it or move on.
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