Can't find the right spot for your comment? Post it here, in this open forum. Real Time Comments: parked here, 24/7. (Earlier editions.)
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
43 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."
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Last night in this thread, Anonymous@8:52 asked: "Who does one turn to when HR breaks confidentiality?"
ReplyDeleteI answered their question as follows, but I'm repeating this here for anyone who might have missed it:
Consider calling the Gannett ethics hotline. That number is 1-800-234-4206, according to this document about Gannett's Ethics Policy.
For employees in the U.K., it is 0-808-234-8157.
In that document, it says: "There is no need to identify yourself, if you prefer not to do so, when reporting a suspected violation. All reports will be treated in confidence except as necessary to conduct investigations."
Our h.r. "business partner" regularly shares what she hears at directors' meetings. Never forget they are not there to help you, they are there to protect the company.
DeleteOf course they are there for the company - they are after all paid by the company. However, when something occurs that is against company policy, and everyone looks the other way, then someone calls them out, but fears retaliation, confidentiality should be respected. In this instance, it was not in the best interest of the company to break confidentiality. It was a h.r. "Business partner's" lack of policy knowledge.
DeleteThanks for the warning 2 years ago Jersey papers, Tony Simmons has now destroyed Kentucky too.
ReplyDeleteHe also destroyed the Journal News.
Deletesoooo true!
DeleteTold everyone above him what they wanted to hear and danced and spined things around when he was not able to deliver
I am amazed the APP website works like garbage, videos don't load, old articles from 2 to 3 days ago are still in the "rotation". And to top it off, newsroom, excuse me, content provider employees are told performance reviews will be based on how well articles and videos do on social media and interacting with readers on social media. That's going to be hard to do when you can't even find the article or video you wrote on line. If I were a reader, excuse me, content consumer, why would I bother to subscribe to something that doesn't work properly or is shamefully out of date? Be warned, USCP employees, it's headed your way.
ReplyDeleteHas anyone received their W-2 form yet?
ReplyDeleteTried accessing it through the online service in the office. Wasn't ready as of Monday.
Deleteprinted mine out a week ago
DeletePrinted mine earlier this week.
DeletePrinted mine with ease 10 days ago.
DeleteIf you can't baffle 'em with bullets (the Lo-Hud way), try seducing 'em with S&M . . . Of COURSE it's the NY Post.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/cannibal_cop_xxx_hibit_kHCSJZ5dNQ9dgAIVnwQwNL?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Newsletter_Tracking&utm_campaign=%2Anew%2A%20Newsletter%20%28eagle%29%202013-01-30
The demise of print continues. Notice the decline in sales of People.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-30/time-inc-said-to-eliminate-about-6-of-workforce.html
Magazine sales have little effect on Gannett.
DeletePeople's 19% decline in single-copy sales is kind of shocking.
Deletetoo much competition for fluff these days. better stuff free on web. plus it's pricey on newsstand.
Delete@1:26 . . . 15 years ago, Amazon mostly sold books. Best Buy's competition (Circuit City) was imploding. Best Buy WAS king of the hill.
DeleteToday, Best Buy is on that slippery slope. How does the market view Best Buy vs Amazon? Believe it or not, Amazon's revenue is only 20% higher than Best Buy. So the stock value can't be too far apart, can it?
The market values Best Buy at $5.4 billion, or about 10% more than the value of Gannett. Both are leaders - DOMINANT - in their fields. Amazon's market cap is $120 billion, or more than TEN TIMES the value of Gannett and Best Buy combined.
Let's consider one more thing. Amazon has this neat product called a Kindle. You can buy one cheaper than an iPad or cell phone. You can also buy books (and get a lot of PD reading for free) for your Kindle.
BUT . . . you can also buy magazine subscriptions for your Kindle. You can read your newspaper on your Kindle. The Arizona Republic has a standalone product for tablets in addition to the electronic version of your paper.
Consider how cell phones are sold. Generally, you get the phone free or at reduced cost when signing up for a "delivery" plan. Suppose your local paper decided to give away Kindles in return for a two- or three-year subscription to the paper. Wouldn't be too hard for Gannett or any other group to work a deal with Amazon or Apple to provide discounted hardware products to newspaper subs. That might not be a stake through the heart of print, but it could well be the shark bite that accelerates the bleeding.
ANY print decline is a canary in the coal mine for ALL print product. Steve Jobs nailed it years ago.
Steve Jobs at MacWorld Expo, on the new Kindle circa 2008: "It doesn't matter how good or bad the product is; the fact is that people don't read anymore. Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year."
Forty percent is less than half. A minority. It's more accurate to say that a minority of people don't read anymore. Personally I've already read two books this year...both on Kindle.
DeleteEven at its most trivial, REAL journalism is fascinating.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.omaha.com/article/20130129/NEWS/701299893/1694#hansen-the-great-omaha-manhole-fireball-photo-mystery
To 11:59 post from yesterday. Evan Ray could bring back Single Copy Drivers to improve service and reduce thefts. It would also speed up home delivery service. That was a choice he made to go to outside distributors and use Home delivery carriers to sometimes do both racks and their home delivery routes. Would also decrease Paper thefts if they were brought back. I don't think he and the Regional managers will do it because that would be like admitting they made a mistake in getting rid of them.
ReplyDeleteI know my local paper was one of the last Papers to transition to the Private distributor model for single copy because the Single Copy Drivers did such a wonderful job at the Desert Sun.
DeleteEvan Ray wouldn't be fit to lead a 1 car funeral procession-let alone try to figure out how to deliver millions of papers efficiently. Delivery services may be cheaper, but they also lead a revenue losses as home delivery subscribers dump due to service. In retail outlets, the Gannett paper may be one of 6-7 dropped off by the same person, giving no incentive to make the paper visible or prevent sellouts.
DeleteIn areas with a Gannett daily, go ahead and merge USAT and the daily and try to pick up some of the other pubs with lower volumes. In areas without a Gannett daily, USAT routes should be left alone instead of going to a competitor, as the competitor does anything possible to make their own product more attractive.
If you are a Wendy's manager, you don't give the keys to McDonalds to run my restaurant and wish them luck, Gannett should not do the same with paper delivery.
Florida Today still uses "regular" carriers for both Home Del. and Single copy. A delivery "service" cannot possibly better than individual carriers who's livelihood depends on the service they give.
DeleteOur carrier force does fine. It's the paper that's killing our sales...high price for less and less content, and now even more they are pushing USA Today in their A section which people don't want. They want their local paper back.
I was a DM AT Florida Today and I must say that the Single Copy carriers were 1st class people that take great pride in their job.No delivery service could ever come close to being as good as the Single Copy carriers that deliver Florida Today.
DeleteSingle copy carriers are rapidly becoming a way of life gone with the wind. Cheaper to have home delivery people do it.
DeleteI remember years ago you couldn't pry a single copy route loose with a bazooka. They stayed in the family. Provided a pretty good living. Sundays were like a family reunion - you'd get brothers and sisters and cousins to help deliver.
What's happened to single copy is no different than what's happened to the newspaper industry at large. Information is evolving today the way transportation evolved a century ago. And those who cannot or will not change are likely to end up as footnotes. See electric cars of the 1890s, Tucker and Nash autos, and 8-track tapes for examples.
3:31 They still use Single Copy drivers that drive Florida Today trucks for Single Copy deliveries? I thought that was gone at all the Gannett owned Newspapers. We got a delivery service a few years ago where a contracted vendor delivers the Papers from the Press site to the Delivery services site. There they are picked up by Contractors that work for the delivery service. Using their own vehicles they deliver to the Racks and Stores. Takes longer and the drivers don't care about sales.
DeleteCarriers (independant contractors)still use their own vehicles. A transport co. picks up the papers at the plant and delivers them to distribution centers. Other carriers get them straight out of the plant.
DeleteDelivery services might be cheaper but they'll never be as good...but then again this is Gannett we're talking about. The dollar sign supplanted service and a great product a while ago.
To 1/30 6:59PM Home delivery carriers that deliver to racks also have to do home deliveries first because they have a deadline to meet. If they do not get the paper to their home by the time the subscriber feels like it should be, then they get an error costing the driver usually around $5 per paper when they get paid $0.10 per paper to deliver.
DeleteGannett has made a separate delivery service company to add another set of pockets to put money in between the printer and the carrier.
Evan Ray.
DeleteNow that's the joke.
Gannett's TV side follows its newspaper brethren in sleazy tactics. WKYC in Cleveland put together a sales pitch using data allegedly stolen from radio ratings service Arbitron. That company is now suing WKYC in a federal court.
ReplyDeletehate to be an "i told you so" but last week i said when stock hits $20 sell ! i did and very happy now that its sliding back down !
ReplyDeleteI also sold all of my company match stock at just over $20 a share. Good call.
ReplyDeleteA Gannett retiree down in Fla. the Lakeland Ledger badgered me for months to take the paper starting in Sept. and I relented in Dec. before we got down here. $13.50 a month. Paper is there by 5:30 am and it is a GOOD, no, it is a GREAT paper, and a BIG paper each day. How refreshing it is compared to the hometown Gannett paper up north which costs $22 a month and has nothing, nothing at 8 pages on some days. I hate to go home.
ReplyDeleteIt would be nice to see more positive comments like this. All is not lost in this industry. If you aren't getting what you want out of your current paper go find another. There are some out there doing a great job.
DeleteThere may or may not be "some out there doing a great job", but there are NONE who've figured out how to make the economics work, so the gloating is at best premature.
DeleteInteresting…
ReplyDeleteRing accused of burglarizing the homes of vacationing L.A. Times subscribers
Detectives said one of the suspects obtained lists of subscribers who had submitted“vacation holds” to a vendor that distributes newspapers for The Times. Officials said they have identified 25 victims but believe there are more than 100.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2013/01/ring-accused-burglarizing-homes-times-subscribers.html
Only God can help Florida Today.
ReplyDeleteI subscribe to the e-replica for the Courier-Journal. I'm in newspapers (not a Gannett employee), and I got a notice saying I needed to reconfirm my card number since it expires next month.
ReplyDeleteOpened up my notice and was surprised to see I was reading the Lansing State Journal instead.
Come on, Gannett. You can't even get the name of the paper right in a RENEWAL NOTICE??
Same thing happened to me with the Appleton and Green Bay papers. Guess all the merging of services out of state doesn't work, but what does Gannett care. I cancelled them both.
DeleteThey're going to merge themselves into oblivion. Especially after they laid off all the copy editors when they went to the design hubs. No one really edits the local or wire copy; it just gets slapped onto the pages. And it shows.
DeleteHR confidentiality, what a joke, at least at TJN. I vividly recall an incident in 2010 when a newsroom manager was being viciously harassed by then ME CR and went to HR to get the abuse on record. By the time she got back to her desk the head of HR at the time had CR on the phone filling her in on everything that was said. The manager was laid off just weeks later.
ReplyDeleteEven God knows that FLORIDA TODAY is not worth saving!
ReplyDelete