Thursday, May 16, 2013

May 13-19 | Your News & Comments: Part 3

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39 comments:

  1. Richard Michem5/16/2013 10:01 AM

    Does anybody know if Frank Vega, was at any of the ego funerals for Little AL.

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    1. Does anybody know? Yes, it seems highly likely that somebody would know.

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    2. Apparently he was at the one in Florida and had a speaking role.

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

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  2. Add this to your Paywall chapter under the heading of "And they expect people to pay for this?"
    http://www.tallahassee.com/article/20130516/LIVING03/305160049/Ocheesee-Creamery-devoted-producing-all-natural-dairy-products

    A video about a local dairy (IOW, a FREE ad).
    Sooo, where's the milk video?
    No milking, not even a carton of the final product?

    I think that's udderly incompetent - they're trying to milk their paying subscribers, hah!

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  3. If the Acting IRS chief was already leaving in June and no one reads about that in Gannett stories citing Obama fired him, does it hurt Gannett’s credibility with its readers when they find out elsewhere?

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    1. Has Gannett published anything concerning the illegal phone taps at AP ?
      Talk about corrupt administration and Gannett tries to hide by non-reporting.
      And how about Bengazi,another scandal and another cover-up.
      You would think good journalists would have a hay day digging, and investigating these stories.
      Dos not appear that Gannett cares to find the truth.

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    2. They do what has been proven to work to increase profits: cut older employees.
      Show me where time-con$uming investigative reporting has led to higher profits - it doesn't.

      Too bad, but that's what you get when a journalism company is run by bean counters. Happened to Knight-Ridder after the myopic Tony Ridder took over from the Batten/Chapman era too. Only with worse consequences.

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  4. Why would Gannett cover IRS, AP phone scandal or Benghazi? They excel on coverage of American Idol and Dancing with the Stars.

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  5. I really hate the Gannett trend that has seen dumb party photos in the main position on home pages. It's passable in smaller markets where there's no longer enough staff to put up real news regularly (even though it's regrettable). But to see this stuff in larger markets, like Cincinnati, is seriously disappointing. It really makes the brand seem lightweight. And maybe these days, it is.

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  6. I see most of Gannett's digital sites today have their weather bugs messed up, not displaying info, and all of their access to the e-newspapers say "parameter incorrect." This didn't happen when there was more local control. Isn't this the second day of website malfunctions?

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    1. Been seeing "F˚" since yesterday - it's F'ed up!

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    2. We can hope this isn't a sign of what's to come this summer/fall when all the community news websites are relaunched under the redesign initiative that began two years ago.

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    3. Each design has gotten worse and locals aren't even allowed to improvise on their own anymore. But then it doesn't matter anymore, the way the content has been going.

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    4. Self-delusional comment of the day: "This didn't happen when there was more local control."

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    5. 5:02, your arrogance is typical. I was with a Gannett property a long time before "consolidation" and witnessed the difference first hand. Sure, we made mistakes -- but the person making the mistake was held accountable. Back then, one could lose their job for poor job performance rather than just being over a certain age.

      But when we made mistakes, inevitable, we owned them. Now there is no ownership; very very little local control -- the gaffes in almost every aspect (now nearly systemic) in Gannett's version of the now barely recognizable industry have only gotten worse. And your denying that fact is what's "delusional."

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    6. 7:10 PM - LOL. Never confuse skill with dumb luck. The reality is that all your fabulous business prowess back in the good ole days had little to do with your amazing local-yokel non-gaffitude, and everything to do with an unearned and ultimately unsustainable near-monopoly on local advertising.

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    8. @ 9:53: so bow that advertising is on the downward slide its "earned" and not the locals fault. Whew I can breathe now.....

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  7. A Green Bay TV station has been pushing its web as "always on, always free and now No. 1."
    Has the Press-Gazette, and other Wisconsin websites, fallen so far with the pay wall that a TV web is top in the market?

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    1. I wouldn't be surprised.

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    2. Yes, that is not unusual in many markets.

      Just go to compete.com or alexis.com to see how your newspaper website does compared to TV websites in your market.

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  8. Jim - I think you miss-wrote your first sentence. Surely you intended to type "is" rather than "isn't." You would be happy than a pig in shit if it is a sign of what's to come, especially when that day comes.

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    1. No; I don't wish any more misery on the company than it's already experienced.

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    3. "Liar, liar, pants on fire!!"

      Sure you do,Jim. That is the only reason for the existence of this blog.

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  9. Gannett's not the only one having website problems. I just saw this note on The New York Times' homepage:

    To Our Readers
    We are experiencing intermittent service interruptions on NYTimes.com. The site is not down. We’re working on the issue.

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  10. Must be due to the nefarious actions of some hackers or the Justice Dept is doing some snooping. :)

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  11. Damn solar flares.

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  12. Our Pre-press departments days are numbered. Look for more lay offs with in the month.

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    1. If 6:58 PM is serious, he/she's lucky one had a prepress department in 2013. My site pink-misted its prepress in 2010, losing all local focus to the "centers." Inexperienced, high-turnover folks in preference to the experienced people who knew their coworkers and their clients.

      And that "look for more layoffs" thing? I'm pretty sure it's the other way around. They look for us.

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  13. The diary story may not be a Mooolizter, but it's interesting enough, and written clearly enough, that plenty of Gannett editors would kill to put that on their front pages.

    The only problem is the writer buried the lead. The Vitamin A controversy surely should have been the start and crux of the story. That's where an editor should have come in -- as if there were any around.

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  14. To 8:51am 5/16 on the previous thread: You sound like a Gannett Digital empty suit. Any of the many workers who actually must use the software systems Gannett Digital has produced for handling and publishing stories, photos and other content are frustrated because the system is so difficult -- non-intuitive, non-working much of the time, with functions that don't do what they are designed to do, disappearing text and so on. Only someone who doesn't have to use it, such as yourself, could defend it.

    It's great that Gannett Digital can come up with Tony Award apps, more sports websites and so forth that, the promise goes, will produce income in the by and by. Hat tip to you for that.

    But, wouldn't it be nice if GD would devote a bit of its resources to making its core online publishing system usable? Every time staff points out to higher ups that the software system is incredibly inefficient, awkward, time wasting and clunky, and lacking in tools that have been routine in text processing tasks for decades, they are told Gannett Digital folks have a long list of fixes and are working through them. Slowly. Very, very slowly.

    To the C-Suite: How about asking your workers what tools they need to do the jobs expected of them, and then direct the GD leaders to fix the problems they have created.

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    2. By your way of thinking, perhaps. Not by mine.

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    3. 11:02, So being a Gannett manager is the key to happiness? I guess if your life's yardstick is grabbing bonuses and options for value created by the work of others, you will go far in the G tower.

      You've just outed yourself.

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  15. II dept makes all the system decision, they never ask or include the users. because IT knows best !!

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    1. of course IT gets the kickback and perks !

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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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