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.)
Thursday, March 07, 2013
38 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)
Bonjour.
ReplyDeleteAnother day listening to the lame management that don't make any sense.
ReplyDeleteToday,which Gannett VP will get even richer?
ReplyDeleteToday,the Gannett masses still worry if they will be employed and we will hear of another exec cashing in and laughing all the way to the bank.
What a despicable corporation! Time for everyone to leave before they are pushed out as any common bag of trash.
If the future is digital and hyperlocal why did The Daily Voice which had dozens of sites in Westchester (NY), Fairfield (Conn.) and Massachusetts, shut down the Massachusetts sites and have massive layoffs this week???
ReplyDeleteThe Deal Chicken sales team will be selling DMS products within 6 months?! Just what we need. Another sales rep calling on the same accounts for digital.
ReplyDeleteEnough about the Blue Balls memo. How long ago was that? It was silly but lighten up and quit acting like it was a big deal. No one in the company filed a complaint, so how about you layoff rejects and retired complainers getting on with your lives and not worry about one stupid memo.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, for this company, the Blue Balls Memo is the only thing they have put out in the past year that is memorable. Speaks volumes.
DeleteThe lack of any formal complaints doesn’t lessen Banikarim’s highly unprofessional and inappropriate act @10:30 AM, nor should Gannett’s public silence over it be confirmed as approval of it.
DeleteUnfortunately, its silence was likely a lame, less than courageous strategy to deal with something that should have been dealt with head-on, more so given Banikarim’s pay grade.
Competent leaders outside Gannett wouldn’t have done the same (especially those who read it) and for good reason as publicly ignoring it, in effect, condones more of it.
Too bad.
Haha....ok 10:30am, how about you just not read this blog and you won't have to worry about seeing any more posts about Blue Balls Banikarim.
DeleteHow about you get on with YOUR life and your wonderful job at your wonderfully innovative company with esteemed visionary senior leadership and high employee engagement and morale.
I am neither a layoff reject or a retired complainer. I am however a saddened employee who can not believe what has become of the number one media company. Readers and advertisers spit at us.
DeleteC'mon folks, let's all sing:
DeleteThis girl is on fire!
"The point of the upfront is to tell our story; 25% of our revenue comes from digital,” said Murcko.
ReplyDelete"We don't clearly fit in any category," chimed in Banikarim
Those Upfront statements appear to be anything but, all of which suggests that playing “Girl on Fire” was a somewhat subliminal reference to their “pants” given the “story” they told as unwind print bundles alone and that 25% in digital revenue is hardly pure.
Moreover, even if it is pure, to suggest a company deriving 75% of its revenues (which have been in steep decline) from traditional media; i.e. television and print, “doesn’t fit into any category” is absurd at best, showing little respect for the intelligence of those in attendance.
Newspaper category....check
DeleteTelevision category....check
Digital category....check
Out of Home category.....check
Hmmm, seems like we fit into MANY categories.
4:01 - here are some other categories Gannett fits into:
DeleteOld....check
Non-innovative...check
Demotivating...check
Career ruining...check
Disillusioned....check
Wannabes...check
One of the top 10 worst places to work..check
Slow...check
Has beens...check
Short-term thinkers...check
Does not deliver on promises...check
Extremely risk averse...check
The list goes on and on and on....
Read Banikarim’s quote again 4:01 PM and then honestly defend how a company that gets well MORE than 75% of its revenues from print and television (else you think digital ad revenues wouldn’t shrink without their aid) does not still “clearly fit in any category”?
DeleteYou can’t.
Nor would anyone with even a modicum of intellectual honesty further defend such a statement when pressed as while Gannet’s aspirations of what it wants to be may be a bit clearer, its revenue sources clearly define what Banikarim disingenuously attempts to deny.
To which, adds another thing about this industry she doesn’t know….that Gannett built its empire on trust with its customers. However, to be fair, she did come from an entity that cares more about fulfilling its own agenda, than in reporting unbiased truths.
given the current price of GCI stock I say, "Go Maryam, Go Mary, Go Gracia!" Loooooooove it!
ReplyDeleteTheir price isn't up because of them and everyone knows it. You should thank the market Gods. What goes up, will certainly come back down and it will be so painful in Q3 and Q4. You should sell now.
Delete11:45 is correct. It will get very, very ugly-to the point we'll come back, laugh and say, we told you so!!
DeleteWhen the market was high in the mid 2000's, Gannett was in the 90's. Have we lowered the standards so much that we are now happy around 20?
While the entire market is back to record highs, Gannett remains 75% below it's high. Is that really something to brag about?
Tom Beusse of USA TODAY SPORTS was at Gannett's upfront presentation in NY this week. Let's tick off his accomplishments...
ReplyDeleteHumiliated and demoralized his own staff by making them reapply for their jobs, then openly making fun of their concerns in meetings.
Fired dozens of senior editors and reporters, including some of the best and biggest producers on the whole paper, gave them the cheapest severance package you could imagine, then set them adrift in the worst job market since the Great Depression.
Afterwards, he and new boss Larry Kramer didn't even have the decency to thank these people for their service. Or to admit it was a salary dump pure and simple. Instead, they blathered corporate-speak about how it was all done to make SPORTS "better." Sure.
Now everybody in NEWS, MONEY, LIFE, etc figure its only a matter of time before Gannett pulls the same crap on them. After all, if Gannett did it to the people behind USA TODAY's most-read, most profitable section, why won't it do it to them?
So morale around the whole paper is shot. Everybody's looking for an exit strategy. Can you blame them? Gannett has shown it has zero loyalty to the people who built USA TODAY. So why should they be loyal to Gannett?
Then Tom and Dave Morgan build a whole vanity web site around sportswriter Joe Posnanski -- the celebrated "Sports on Earth" -- that's supposed to challenge Bill Simmons and ESPN's Grantland.
What does good old Joe do?. He takes "Sports on Earth's" money, finishes his Joe Paterno apologia on their dime, gives them nothing and takes off for NBC in 6 months.
Now SEO is nothing but Will Leitch phoning it in with bad TV reviews and catty columns about Darren Rovell that could be written by a high schooler. He'll be the next to leave skid marks -- if anybody wants him any more.
I wonder if Tom talked about all these "accomplishments" while he and "Girl on Fire" Banikarim were chowing down on shrimp and lobster with the company's remaining advertisers? Somehow I doubt it.
You have an amazing spin on things. People on this blog say the senior editors at USAT are awful. A couple were let go and the company is insensitive and stupid. Tell us how many reporters were actually let go during the reorg. Tell us exactly because you make it sound like it was an enormous figure. So please share with us how many. Tell us what the employee count in sports was the day before the restructure and what it is today. And finally tell us how much money the Sports section actually generated for Gannett. You say it was the most profitable. NOT! But go ahead. You seem to be in the know. I totally regret what happend to my colleagues but I am not making stuff up out of whole cloth to satisfy my own agenda.
DeleteQuit your bitching, you old worthless fired marketing and sports people. That Beusse boy is on fire.
DeleteDitto for Gannett sites in Louisiana.
ReplyDeleteAww, isn't that sweet that 11:36 is standing up for his/her poor, misunderstood bosses.
ReplyDeleteAdmit it: You're probably one of the leftover editors who hung on to your own job by brown-nosing and knifing your colleagues in the back. And swallowing all the journalism principles you once stood for while watching a bunch of cheap, wet-behind-the-ear hires and simpering bloggers make a mockery of the SPORTS section and the web site.
You sound like you have Stockholm Syndrome. But don't worry. Your loyalty will be rewarded comrade. Your time will come.
When all the talk fails to materialize into real profits, they will axe you in a second if there's a choice between your job and their cushy bonuses.
Then maybe you'll wake up. But I wouldn't bet on it. You sound too far gone. Have some self-respect.
Oh snap!! I'm as happy as can be. I don't spend every waking hour hating people/company. Try it. You may feel better
DeleteThat's right, Maryam. You are on fire!
DeleteWhat a despicable corporation! Time for everyone to leave before they are pushed out as any common bag of trash.
ReplyDeletePresswire
Stevie, Stevie, Stevie what happened? They didn't let you go to the Olympics?
DeleteDid you see the photos of the people who came to the NY event? All old school white guys who used to advertise in USA Today and now don't spend a dime. These old boys are too far removed from the real decision makers....the 20-somethings in media buying who were at lunch with Google and Facebook and YouTube spending millions.
ReplyDeleteAge has nothing to do with creativity — or passion for that matter ("passion" meaning the word pre-Gannett rah-rah crap). Indeed, I could pick out just as many useless 20-somethings at my work as I could the 50-somethings. The constant that distinguishes people in any industry is innovation, not how many or how few years one has lived. But in Gannett, it's assumed — even encouraged — that if one has some years under one's belt, one's only future is a glue factory. Remember when companies actually wanted the most experienced people? And all the incentives that were offered to those people to stay? Of course not.
DeleteAgree that age has nothing to do with creativity. But the fact is that the media buyers are very, very young -- 20-somethings. They are NOT buying Gannett and they are buying Google, Yahoo, YouTube, Facebook, etc. If they weren't at the NY Event then it was mostly a big waste of time.
DeleteMedia buyers are young but the biggest BUYERS of all products are BABY BOOMERS, just by sheer numbers. Newspapers have abandoned them with fluff.
DeleteJon Steinberg, President-COO of BuzzFeed at the 2013 Media Summit New York:
ReplyDelete“The issue now is that the banner ad is a terrible product,” Steinberg said. “People don't acknowledge that because lots of people use banner ads. But it hasn't evolved after 15 years. A welcome-screen ad that you have to click through to get to content? That's a terrible thing.”
http://www.btobonline.com/article/20130306/MEDIABUSINESS04/303069991/at-media-summit-improving-ad-performance-through-collaboration
That's Gannett !!!
DeleteThe ads I hate the most are those popups and popunders on newspaper websites. They're like saying, "Go away."
ReplyDeleteAlso, the 30-second pre-roll ads on videos that last just 30 seconds themselves. Another turnoff.
Gannett, of course, does both.
So let me understand this: Many of you are reading about this issue on a Blog, Jim makes most of his money from online advertising and yet most of you feel digital is a farce and print is where the money is? Really people? It's hard enough you hate the company you work for but then you dispute the future of digital? Geez Jim I'd love to know the demographics of your audience. I'm 56 but I'd wager the audience is older than that based on these posts.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteWent to the News-Press website to find a story about it being down for a couple of hours. Here's the whole thing:
ReplyDelete"The news-press.com website after technical prevented access to it from approximately 6:30 p.m. until 8:30 p.m."
One sentence, and they couldn't get it right? Good God.
The "technical issue" with the Saxotech/Publicus system affected multiple sites last night. Meanwhile, the front-end system used by the Louisiana papers (and apparently ONLY the Louisiana papers) is on life support. NewsGate is starting to look good.
ReplyDelete