Monday, January 21, 2013

Jan. 21-27 | Your News & Comments: Part 1

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50 comments:

  1. How does the upcoming week look for you?

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    1. For the Newseum, not so good. Word out there is that Duff is not finish with 555 Penn scorch Earth policy and there will be more layoffs after Inauguration Day.

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    2. Here's why Freedom Forum and Newseum must cut spending like never before.

      CEO James Duff likely wants to limit the foundation's annual spending to an average 5% of the endowment's value. That would imply an annual budget of only $21 million, assuming the foundation's income-producing endowment of stocks and bonds grew at the rate of the overall market in 2012, rising to $425 million.

      Freedom Forum spent $30 million in 2011 on the museum alone, according to the latest figures available, plus another $25 million on the foundation's own salaries, consulting fees and other expenses -- a total of $55 million.

      The bottom line: To survive on Duff's imputed $21 million this year, Freedom Forum would need to slash spending by well more than half -- a total $34 million -- based on the 2011 figures.

      That's a very, very tall order.

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    3. Not looking forward to next week. Big layoffs expected with Gannett Publishing Services on Thursday. Everyone is aware but reality isn't always easy.

      Management maintains the suspense as though we enjoy the process. Why the secret with the new structure change announcing Speers, Savage, Mostaccioli and Roessner as over paid dvision heads? We know it is coming. Savage and Roesner did the work to get where they are but be sure to provide "spaghetti head" Mostaccioli with a calculator. One plus one does equal two on my fingers.

      Everyone knows that Mike Kane is new director in New York but no communication. Is that so Donohue can continue to hide those little secrets?

      I look forward to seeing what new VP position is severely needed and given to someone that we have never heard from before.

      That is next week with structure changes happening in the second week of February.

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    4. Michael Kane, president of the East Division? What does director refer to?

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    5. Coincidence with the name. This Mike Kane managed USCP subscription retention plans. He will oversee the New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey area for GPS as Sales and Distribution Director.

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    6. Will the layoffs be at the Asbury park press just moved people from the day shift and put them on the other 2 shifts and they said it is to save money and no layoffs are coming I don't believe that was wondering if anyone can confirm layoffs there

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  2. Editor of the Columbus Dispatch, which will start printing Gannett's Cincinnati Enquirer sometime around March, has a column today (1/20) that they're switching to narrower format on 1/28; also a video of the new look. Guess they must have worked out the press bugs that has delayed things by 6 months: http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/insight/2013/01/20/1-innovations-to-dispatch-will-impress.html

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  3. The Guardian takes a whack at USA Today over the Gallup polling debacle.


    "USA Today, with the highest print circulation in the United States, only added to Gallup's ability to spread bad data. Gallup made USA Today look bad, as the only major news organization to be associated with a pollster that had Romney winning in the final week of the campaign."

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/19/usa-today-drops-gallup-polls

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    1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  4. I expect furloughs to be announced this week. Have also heard there will be more efforts to find ways of getting rid of long-time employees but not through buyouts. Maybe pressure to leave? Wondering how many age discrimination lawsuits have been - or will be - filed.

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    1. First-quarter furloughs would have been announced by now -- in USCP, anyway.

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    2. They are for second quarter. Furloughs I mean.

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  5. Heh. Maybe this is what USA Today Publisher Larry Kramer meant when he said he wanted more pronounced voices.

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    1. Chris Chase was roundly criticized when he was doing his thing at Yahoo so I won't repeat what everyone already knows - read this if you need a sample.

      But in a larger picture, should I expect this to be a news article, or analysis, or commentary? It's fine to have all three in the paper and online, but shouldn't we have some sort of flag/header/marker to alert readers when we stray from objective reporting into sharing opinions?

      Everything I've read from Mike Lopresti has been very clear in making the distinction - granted, Chris is no Mike - but shouldn't we pretend to keep our opinions separate from our reporting by telling our readers which is which?

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    2. Kane taking over for Donohue was announced 2 weeks ago. He's already in the job based outside Philly.

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  6. From the VP'S mouth, Furloughs and layoffs in the GPS Div. this Black Thursday..only going to get better

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    1. Well, I think that most knew they were coming.
      Really, you would not be paying attention otherwise.
      Advertising revenue has been way down, you can see that just by going through your pages. Maybe there are some sites that are filling pages with money, but few and far between. If you don't know what Gannett does when revenue is down from year to year projections, you really don't want to think about it.
      They cut expenses. Namely, the only big expense left to cut, is employees.

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    2. It is the Gannett way. Layoff the quality workers and in a month hire more Managers.

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    3. Would love to know who the VP is who told you this to add some credibility to your claim.

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  7. I hung on as long as I could. After 30 years as a subscriber to the Shreveport Times, I called and cancelled my subscription. Even after being laid off, I was a faithful subscriber, but this past week of missed papers and then the epic press fail (see earlier posts) on Saturday I have decided to become a single-copy buyer as I am inclined. Regarding the new press, the problems they are having are not because the press was not brand new. They operators were not properly trained and when those who knew what they were doing left, those operating it were left with minimal training and a handbook written in German! Gannett didn't pay for support beyond two to three weeks after launch!

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  8. Get rid of Janett Hasson !
    She must go.

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  9. No one needs to make USAT look bad. The folks who have run that place in recent years are doing a great job all by themselves. Terrible hires. Terrible retention of quality people. Can't think of a worse place to work for anyone who puts integrity and ethics above a paycheck and a nice in-house fitness center.

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    1. I think current Gannett employees have lost most of their integrity and ethics long ago.
      This along with their self esteem and courage.

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    2. I think you're stupid, 3:36.

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    3. The current managers have in regard to post 3:36, what little they did have is gone. I have no respect for my direct reports any more. They all think it's a big joke

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    4. 3:44 You must be a manager, you have blinders on like all the rest of the clowns who run this company, or should have said try to run this company, they are doing a good job of running it into the ground thouigh

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  10. If GPS layoffs are coming I nominate Bob Campbell- that way you could keep 3 more GPS employees.

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    1. I nominate all The Vice Presidents of nothing, pulling in six figures for doing what? Know I no why our second in command Joe Biden and all the other VP's prior to him were always made fun off, they have no job duties and make a ton of money in case Obama mamma takes a bullett

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    2. Better check your history, 5:52 . . . here are some of the 47 VPs of the USA:

      John Adams
      Thomas Jefferson
      John Tyler
      Theodore Roosevelt
      Calvin Coolidge
      Harry Truman
      Richard Nixon
      Lyndon Johnson

      Like 'em or not, they were hardly inconsequential.

      As for Gannett VPs, that's the other end of the horse altogether.

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  11. Someone was asking to fess up your name about Furloughs. They are coming second quarter and you can refuse to believe it or not. I did not hear from my manager anything about layoffs or buyouts. Believe what you want,it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see where Gannett is headed. A lot of Gannetts buildings have been on the market for quite awhile.Consider your age and choose appropriately !

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  12. Usa Today has really tanked lately. Even the suckups realize the new leadership is feeble, disengaged and too lazy to turn over dead weight managers and reporters.

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    1. People used to admire me when I told them I work for the paper. Now they just feel sorry for me.

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    2. At least they are laughing at you.

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  13. The big announcement in Lafayette, LA. DESC is taking over recruitment in all markets. The local positions are being elimimated. "Give it to me local".....bah hum bug.

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  14. What's DESC? If it's in Lafayette, probably coming to the rest of the La. papers, too.

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    1. DESC is the call center for recruitment advertising in Indianapolis, Indiana.

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  15. I recently endured the hell of one of the Gannett circulation centers, this one in Louisville. After being on hold for 20 minutes I tried to go digital only since I will be away for some time and want a hold on print ( I was told a month ago that all was right and that it would be taken care of. Then the bill came in gouging me for something I did not want). I was given to a rude person who basically told me to stuff it. I was supposed to be read a disclaimer that you pay the big money for print and digital, which I was not. She did not try to sell me the digital only, making me feel that it was all my fault and maybe, just maybe I would get a refund. I still have no idea if I will. I do know that I was immediately cut off of digital. Who said Gannett is not efficient. Now I have no digital access even though I wanted it and was willing to pay for it. Now I feel liberated. Sad. But I fear I better get rid of the Gannett stock I have left. The inmates are running the asylum.

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    1. And this is one BIG flaw in the print+digital mandate that print subs have to endure. If you want to hold the print for awhile, you're either going to lose the digital, or still be charged for total access, aka "full price". Really going to piss off people whose primary experience as a consumer is "print".

      Or you can do what many have suggested to defeat the paywall, and just dump your cookies. Or course, most older print subs probably won't know how or want to do it. Let's face it: cookies can be a pain, but they do have value in making your life easier on the web.

      For example, I read a few articles in The NY Times every month. Love the Media Decoder. But am I going to pay $35 a month for it? Hell, no! Especially when they want extra for crosswords.

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    2. A very sad day for me yesterday. I experienced the same treatment at the call center as you did, 9:52. After suspending my subscription to travel for 3 months I still received a large bill even though I had no print copies delivered in my absence of course. A call to the center was met by a rude response and demand for payment for a digital product I do not want or need. Although I didn't initially want to do it I just cancelled my subscription altogether. 39 years of print subscription, tens of thousands of dollars spent on local ads in years past, personal acquaintance with staff, a deep appreciation of the role of the paper in community life... all defeated by this rigid, exclusive, poorly designed and execrably implemented paywall model. I don't know what world your executives inhabit but it is not one shared by your customers. So damned sad, Gannett. After you finish cannibalizing your capital assets, then what?

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    3. 6:20 did you not pay your gas, electric or cable bill? You don't subscribe to a newspaper anymore. Hello it's 2013

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    4. Yes but a gas, electric and cable is a wanted and needed item. This useless rag was not.

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    5. If you truly have a "deep appreciation of the role of the paper in community life", then as a reader you're simply going to have to pay more of the freight than you did in the good old days — when essentially you were a freeloader. The inexorable forces of creative destruction have rendered the old model moot.

      Now, if you don't really believe in the value of the "paper", that's your prerogative. But get off your high horse about the injustice of it all.

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    6. I also had a bad experience last year with a rude "customer unservice" rep in Louisville trying to get just digital, and decided to let everything expire in fall and just use private browsing to get around it. Even with my retiree rate the rag wasn't worth it anymore, but the print and digital access have continued since all payments expired in October. I'll just continue to take it free until their efficient machine catches up.

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    7. @8:27 . . . "a freeloader"?? Please. Subscribers paid what they were ASKED to pay. The powers that be figured a 3-1 mix where ads paid the freight was the optimum business model. And it WAS.

      The mix has been changed to increase the percentage readers pay. That doesn't make readers over the past few centuries "freeloaders".

      What readers today are complaining about is having to pay more for a diminished and increasingly inferior product.

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    8. This is 6:20 back. 12:59 says it well, and I agree. For me, the cost/benefit ratio of subscribing to the local paper changed a little more than a year ago as the quality of the content plummeted and the cost to me increased so dramatically. I continued to subscribe in print, however, because of residual guilt and the fact that I like paper as a medium. I took what I could from the content, and used the local ads. Too, paper is a light, portable, and reusable way to deliver information and that has its place, even in a digital world. I may be a smart phone, tablet, and PC user, but I am also an information omnivore and believe that many different platforms have a place in the spectrum of information delivery.

      The thing that tipped me over the edge and caused me to cancel my local paper, however, was a combination of the noticeably and increasingly poor content with the rudeness of the call center person demanding that I MUST continue to pay, even though I have not chosen to "activate my digital subscription" and am not currently receiving the print product. I do not consider myself to be a "freeloader" at all, merely an educated consumer. Ad purveyors wanted my eyeballs, but they have lost them now.

      To your last point, 8:27: My community needs many things, including information. If I want to give my money away however, it will go to a Food Bank or school, not a highly profitable corporation, as much as I may like and sympathize with the people who work there.

      My action is not to criticize the work of any of the reporters/editors/other staff left at my local paper; they are doing the best they can. It is to say to Gannett that the company is making a horrible decision to gut the integrity of their product if they truly want to continue to operate as a respected purveyor of information.

      JMO, of course.

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  16. To Jim
    What is in the works, you seem to have a grtasp on most situations, furloughs, layoffs, any going to happen

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  17. USAT Sports is a mess. The new geniuses in charge humiliated the staff, and destroyed morale, by making people who'd worked there for decades draw up their resumes and reapply for jobs in the "new" USAT SPORTS.

    They got rid of top performers and kept all of the kiss-asses, mediocrities and sycophants. Then they brought in a bunch of new hires who are trying out-TMZ TMZ with trashy stories designed to get page views.

    Sports on Earth is not in Grantland's league. Their TV coverage has gone downhill. They used to be No. 1 when Rudy Martzke was there. Not any more.

    Now it's Deitsch of SI. USAT'S not even in the running unless ESPN throws them a bone by giving them a press release in advance. Sad. Maybe things will turn around for the better over there. But not at this rate.

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  18. Content is simply awful. Too much tude, not enough facts or reporting or some editorial oversight. Beusse!

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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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