Wednesday, September 04, 2013

Sept. 2-8 | Your News & Comments: Part 2

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30 comments:

  1. Charles Everett9/04/2013 9:16 AM

    The joint venture that owns Cars.com is seriously thinking about selling Apartments.com. Gannett is a partner in the joint venture. Penny-wise or pound-foolish?

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  3. USAT going to $2 soon?

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    1. Source? Reasoning? Credibility? Anything beyond "I hate Gannett!"? Let us know.

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    2. Sept. 30 and people have stopped buying it already!

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    3. I agree with 2:51 PM. Gannettblog is a great tool for those of us not in the secret loop that is GCI. As such it is easily a great tool for spreading bullshit (and there is no doubt Corporate exploits the latter with their bootlickers in order to discredit the blog if for nothing more but fun). As one who uses Gannettblog, let's keep it on the side of the first purpose, and please post sources.

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    4. Actually, Publisher Larry Kramer has been talking about this, off and on, in the USAT newsroom for the last 5 months. I was there one evening when he mentioned it while he and a group of us were looking on a screen at the front page for the next edition. The intention no big secret. The question is whether Larry will actually pull the $2 trigger next month.

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    5. And why should we believe this? Source, other than you? Also, where is this Sept. 30 date coming from? A source? The sky? Let us know.

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    6. Hey, 7:59 pm, I don't care if you believe me or not. The discussion about this isn't a secret. I'd post my name but I don't need the weirdos here trying to bust my chops on the Web. As I said, the intention to raise the price is well known among those of us working there. The question: Will the decision be made?

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    7. I'm a carrier and our paper had us give stores a memo telling them about the price hike.
      Good enough source for you?

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    8. Like I said 2:51, USAT rag going to $2

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  4. Florida had the carriers put out signs advertising some insert special for Wed. beginning this week. Had a front page ad for it......and guess what? No insert!

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  6. The last editor standing at the Tucson Citizen is leaving to take another job, and Gannett doesn't have a plan for a successor? Really?

    At least the virtually invisible Kate Marymont miraculously appears to respond to a local reporter's questions. Where has she been hiding during the company's layoffs?

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    1. http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/report/090413_evans_itb/evans-leaving-citizen-inside-tucson-business/

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    2. Editor of The Times in Shreveport resigned two weeks ago. Haven't heard of Gannett's plan for this paper. But of course it no longer is one of the papers the company gives a crap about any longer.

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  7. Hats off to Scott Ferrell to take on the task most people probably didn't want.

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  8. What is Scott doing?

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    1. Interim Executive Editor Shreveport according to the Sunday paper I got,delivered on Monday

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    2. That's great (I think) for Scott. Great guy who has toiled for years in Shreveport as a sports reporter and sports editor. He has put up with a ton of crap from Gannett through the years, working lots of 6- and 7-day weeks. I hope he got a huge raise for taking on this chore.

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    3. Scott is one of the bright spots at The Times in Shreveport - super guy

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  9. A former Wilmington News Journal reporter detailed her layoff last week on her personal blog: http://figureoneblog.wordpress.com/2013/09/04/out-with-the-old/

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    1. great blog, once again Gannett lost a great reporter. Just shows time and time again they have no clue how to report the news. Best of luck to you. There have to be many other places that will appreciate and welcome your knowledge and experience. Gannett only cares about their stock holders and their bottom line. Consider it a blessing you are free from them. Now you can be the reporter you always wanted to be. and actually report and not have the chains of Gannett around your neck. They don't care about people or reporting. They care about their executives pay and what is good for their bottom line. Never, ever think it was you, cauae it wasn't. You were just a number that corporate decided that needed to be eliminated. You will be fine. Carry on. It is obvious people took notice to the great work you did. People with character, people who care. David Ledford sold his soul and I also think he may be bipolar, so please do not take any of this seriously. The man is out of his mind. He needs serious medication.

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    2. Nice piece, but also a reminder that even great journalists need copy editors, as evidenced by this statement: "Newspapers at one time were a beacon of pubic service."

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  10. ok Ellen, time to go home. Your sad lonely life in retirement is drawing to a close. You eliminated 28 of the best people Wilmington had, one with cancer. So your work as the devil is over. Get your old sorry ass out of Wilmington and go back to your sad retired life in Florida. No one wants you here, they all just kiss your ass because they are scared they are on your next list of layoffs. Sorry, but I'm not scared of your or any of your Gannett friends and I won't kiss your ass. I feel bad for you that you are so old and so lonely the only thing that gave your life meaning was to come out of retirement and lay off people who are fighting cancer. There is a place for people like you and right now I'm thinking Syria might be a great retirement place for you. People like you deserve what you get. I hope someday when you are older then you are you also lose your health benefits when you are fighting a life illness. I believe in Karma and all you have sewn will come back to you one day. Best of luck to you,

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    1. *sown

      Ellen didn't sow the seeds that resulted in those layoffs, it's the weak revenue and/or cost performance of the people at that site that created the conditions that eventually resulted in the need for workforce adjustment. Pull your own weight.

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    2. I don't get the reasoning behind calling out the person who had cancer, or just lost a husband to cancer, or just had a baby, etc as those people being somehow hurt more by a job elimination.

      There also seems to be some misconception that keeping people around when you don't have revenue to support them - like we should run a charity because it would be nicer.

      If we hadn't made these cuts over the last few years, we would have run up a huge amount of debt and that would have resulted in the wholesale closure of sites at some point.

      Set aside the emotion and look at the issue logically. There is plenty to be upset about on some methods - Dubow's payoff is a huge one - but had we not eliminated individual positions as the recession wore on, we would have had to eliminate entire operations.

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  11. Yes 12:21. So brave you post anonymously.

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    1. Yes, scary isn't it, that we actually put a person to a number, sorry to upset your corporate. I know it has disrupted your good feeling about these layoffs. I don't give a crap about whether you ran up debt. How about cutting your middle management, your VIPS and your corporate executives pay to save the people who actually do the real work. We are so close to closure or sales of so many sites and you think we don't see what is coming. You really do think we are idiots don't you that we don't know you are going to spin off the local newspapers to a separate division and then sell or eliminate them. How freakin stupid do you think we are. This was discussed years ago. Your main goal is to go all digital and eliminate the print editions but you can't do it now because 60% of your revenue is from print and your digital is lagging behind. So tell me, Gannett, what is your future now?

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    2. Yes, I follow the Gannett VP plan of hiding behind everything and not telling their employees anything until they decide to lay them off. Cut me a freaking break. Lies, deceit, and you are questioning me because I hide behind the same shield that corporate does. Good luck with that buddy.

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