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Thursday, February 21, 2013
52 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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Bom dia.
ReplyDeleteKentucky fans are pissed at a cartoon in the Louisville Courier Journal today of an X ray of the star player's leg injury with the caption "This reads NIT". Here's a college kid with a serious injury, and the Courier Journal makes fun of it. Lexington TV stations have gotten hold of the photo, Kentucky fans in Louisville (which ironically outnumber the hometown Cardinal fans), have lit up the phone lines to the Courier Journal all day.
ReplyDeleteFrom the editorial dismissal last weekend, the age discrimination lawsuit, and Simmons destroying circulation, this paper has more damage control to perform now. Maybe their next step will be to list everyone in KY that owns a gun, but that's the majority of the population anyway.
Lighten up. It's clever and it sells newspapers. And no, I don't work in Louisville.
DeleteOnto Part 3 already. Don't new parts usually start in the morning?
ReplyDeleteJim may be in Portugal. It's morning there already.
DeleteGenerally, I add new open-topic threads when the number of comments gets above 40 or so.
DeleteHow many employees will lose their jobs when Cincinnati shuts it's presses off March 10th?
ReplyDeleteAbout 60 in press/pre-press.
DeleteCome on after all the union dues these folks have paid over the years the Union would never let this happen!
DeleteHa ha ha ha.
DeleteWill the publisher’s car still be fueled and cared for by those who remain to distribute the paper or has she finally taken on that task, including getting her own groceries and meals herself?
DeleteThe paper I worked at was sold by Gannett in 2007, so I can't speak to what it is like to work for them today. However, I can tell you that the damage done by the current owners is indescribable. It makes me appreciate all the more the opportunities I was awarded by Gannett.
ReplyDeleteI am full. I am done. GCI is sucking the life from me. Any suggestions of marketing/communications headhunters to use? Am willing to relocate as I have moved multiple times for for GCI over the years. HELP!
ReplyDeleteYou could always transfer to Indy. They are hiring Marketing people like it is going out of style.
DeleteWhat? Don't tell her/him that! The Indy market hates the Gannett paper. Won't any better off I am afraid.
DeleteThe New York Times, because of bias and corrupt reporting, announced the sale The Boston Globe, The Worcester Telegram & Gazette, and other New England assets.
ReplyDeleteHuh?
DeleteNYT paid ONE BILLION DOLLARS for The Globe about 20 years ago. If they're lucky they'll get $100 million today - AND still be on the hook for pensions.
They want to sell out now before that 10% of a billion becomes 5%.
Actually, it was $1.1 billion. And not too many years ago, the best offer they got was $35 million.
DeleteThe $35 million couldn't have represented much more than the value of the land under the Globe building. The other part of that package was $59 million in pension liabilities, something no buyer will want.
ReplyDeleteThe offer for $35 million plus $59 million, by the way, came from a member of the family that sold the Globe to the Times for $1.1 billion. That family was very, very smart to sell as long as it dumped the NYT stock it got in the deal as quickly as possible.
Gotta hand it to the family-run papers. Most of 'em sold at the right time.
DeleteBoston Globe: $1.1 billion
Central Newspapers: $2.6 billion
Wall Street Journal: $5 billion
(LA) Times-Mirror: $6.3 billion
You have to wonder what the holdouts at the OCR think. They only extracted a billion. A few years later their print was essentially worthless.
The Bingham family sold their two Louisville papers to Gannett in 1986 for $306 million. At the time, the morning Courier-Journal had a circulation of 171,000, and the afternoon Louisville Times was 129,000. Sunday's C-J was 322,000.
DeleteHow much more would they have gotten if they had held out? We'll never know. But it's an intriguing idea.
Here's another example of a USA Today story that mirrors a style often seen on financial news site Marketwatch, where David Callaway worked before he became USAT's top editor.
ReplyDeleteThe again, it looks an awful like something from BuzzFeed. Either way, it's a problem because it doesn't make USAT distinguishable from the competition.
DeleteTop 10 lists are what you get online now. Log into Yahoo! and you get 10 fashion faux pas at (name your event) . . . CNBC has 6 stocks Cramer says you HAVE to have (or dump) NOW!
DeleteWhy write well-reasoned paragraphs when you can go stream of consciousness and dress it up by putting a number in front.
USA TODAY SPORTS is a joke now. There's no original reporting, no scoops, no true news broken by the staff who now work on an hourly basis. It's all aggregation and Chris Chase spewing one silly item after another. Wake me up when they actually break something. Instead, they're trying to out-Yahoo Yahoo and out-Deadspin Deadspin. Good luck with that.
DeleteThe real shame is all the editors in SPORTS know exactly what's happening. But they're too scared to speak up after all the layoffs and furloughs. The new geniuses in SPORTS completely broke the staff's spirit by humiliating them in meetings and forcing them to draw up their resume and interview for jobs in the new, supposedly "better" SPORTS.
Pretty soon everybody's going to figure out the new geniuses don't have a clue. They'll either get what they deserve -- or move on to "save" some other company with their overrated online expertise. They'll leave behind nothing but wreckage.
NYT paid $1.1 billion for Boston Globe in 1993? Gannett paid more than twice that in cash for the Indy Star and Arizona Republic (Central Newspapers) in 2000. From the Gannett press release 6-28-2000:
ReplyDeleteARLINGTON, Va./PHOENIX, Az. - Gannett Co., Inc. and Central Newspapers, Inc. announced today that they have entered into a definitive agreement for Gannett's acquisition of Central Newspapers, Inc. for an approximate cash purchase price of $2.6 billion.
How much is that worth today?
Here in Phoenix there was an email sent to a select few about changes coming in September. Those changes beings several DCs closing and consolidating into more centralized location. A combing of smaller carrier routes into single routes. This means fewer carriers and with less routes say good bye to some DMs, assistants, product handlers, and area area management. Anyone have more info?
ReplyDeleteI don't have any info on AZ, but it's not surprising. My neighborhood used to have a walking route carrier with probably 75 or 80% of the homes subscribing just a couple years ago, and we now have a motor route and from what I can see just one house left of about 15 in the neighborhood that gets a paper delivered. I really expect the print daily to be gone soon, maybe to three days a week or so.
DeleteSomeone made essentially the same post about Phoenix last week and got slagged pretty well for it. Anyone else want to corroborate?
DeleteBTW . . . it's not just small routes being consolidated. DMs are being "encouraged" to combine or tweak larger routes that may not need to be altered, to create room at the remaining distribution centers. One might conjecture that Area Managers have an "incentive" to get 'er done.
Larger routes equals more unhappy customers as carriers will miss more deliveries but no one cares about the customer at Gannett.
DeleteWe had three carriers drop routes this week in one area, all homes. Reason being because subscribers canceling. This is even before all our winter visitors return home which takes a big bite in some areas. If some distribution centers are closing ours might be one. We barely had over 14,000 draw for Thursday, while another had closer to 35,000.
DeleteWhile all the geeks fixate on the Boston Globe, blogger Staci D. Kramer delivers a scoop on a development that's more significant:
ReplyDeleteAnd another grand plan by major publishers bites the dust. Tribune, Gannett, the New York Times Co. and Hearst have shut down quadrantOne effective immediately. The agency was an attempt to scale local for national display advertising, harnessing the power of the four owners and others.
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DeleteThe shrinking print run in Phoenix is a death note. Two DCs had under 15,000 papers for each one Thursday edition. The republic is loosing subscribers everyday. One complaint I heard was that why should they pay when La Voz and others are given away for free? I wonder if the good ole boy net work here will let certain people keep their jobs during the up coming cuts? Gannet needs to send out of town people to audit jobs to be some what objective in who is actually contributing in the work place. The rumor of dropping Monday and Tuesday edition is floating around again.
ReplyDeleteYou have nothing to offer. Better be careful about wishing for an audit, chief.
DeleteWhat do you suggest I offer? I gave some real troubling circ numbers and one thing they can do, an audit. I guess you rather stick your head in the sand and pretend things are going fine. Rearranging deck chairs is not going to help. Gannett needs to do a serious check of operations and make real common sense decisions. I rather be told up front if troubles coming or if I'm getting fired. The standard of hearing that things are going ok, then out of left field more layoffs are coming is getting tiresome. The one new thing Gannett can try is to be honest with its employees about the status of the company.
DeleteThe only people that will ever call for an "audit" are buyers looking for due diligence. Otherwise, friends and friends of friends will stay, and the people on the periphery will struggle to keep their jobs.
DeleteAnd then there's always a few that don't seem to have any connection. That are clueless or totally uninterested in the job. And yet they stay and collect a good-size check. A head-scratcher.
Kate M. in Shreveport helping "refine" passion topics. What next?
ReplyDeletePassion Topics are so-o 2011
DeleteWhew. Today was a doozy. Denial - over.
ReplyDeleteDid the remaining McLean staff for USAT prepress get pink slipped?
ReplyDeleteThere have been a lot of looming rumors about their impending doom. Someone had mentioned the overman fiascos and how that has affected the future of that group.
ReplyDeleteI heard about that. It's unfortunate that those behavioral issues have put a spotlight on the entire group. Who knows what will happen to some of those folks, if they should lose their jobs. It also seems like some of them have feared this for years, but chose to approach it in an unhealthy manner and that is what everyone refers to as the fiascos. So sad, that those actions have also affected so many other people. The folks that are left there never really had any training beyond the job, so in that way, they have created their own destiny. However, I still feel bad for those that are merely affected.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the story about the USAT Prepress team? Did they get rid of Overman? She was there 20+ years, i was for 15 before seeing the writing on the wall and bolting in 2004.
ReplyDeleteIncorrect, according to Overman's LinkedIn page.
DeleteI'm not sure what is going to happen to them. However, the story is that there have been severe behavioral and performance problems. The rumor is that there were workplace crimes committed and a couple people already served time while working during the day and staying in a facility at night. I don't feel sorry for them, and I am actually looking forward to the day that I no longer have worry about potentially crossing paths with them.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteShreveport is a disaster on every count. Gannett needs to clean house and start over.
ReplyDeleteJust to clarify, this "Overman" is not part of Shreveport. It looks like she works in McLean at the Crystal Palace.
ReplyDelete12:20,
ReplyDeleteShe used to tell everyone that she started with the company in 1982 when USA TODAY was first established. But, now her LinkedIn profile is different from what she preached before. Go figure.
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ReplyDelete4:32 - We have all been through challenges in life and the majority of us are from poor families. Life obstacles should not be used as excuses for corruption. Although it's wonderful that she did earn her GED late in life to meet the basic high-school requirement for the job. Keep in mind she was already in a position because she lied that she had the qualifications. Consider the amount of deception involved here, and the impact it has on honest people that have played by the rules. THERE ARE PEOPLE LOSING THEIR JOBS that have played by the rules, and WORKED HARD TO EARN their positions. It's dysfunctional to truly feel sympathy for a person that simply did not even do the most basic work to meet the minimum requirements and just deceived her way to a better job. Who can really explain this situation to the people being laid off this week, who took an honest an noble path in life.
ReplyDelete