Friday, October 04, 2013

Sept. 30-Oct. 6 | Your News & Comments: Part 3

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31 comments:

  1. Layoffs at DealChicken! Stay tuned...

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    1. Are there still deal chicken employees?

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    2. About 6 months ago they laid off basically all of the "area managers" aka processors across all sites.

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    3. Yesterday they laid off pretty much the remainder. Any operations employees not in McLean (and some in McLean making a certain amount) were dropped. Cited cost-cutting. Senior management who make several times the salary remain intact. Looks to be about 10-12 people laid off in total.

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    4. Another sign of a faltering digital strategy.

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    5. any details available for DealChicken layoffs?

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  2. Starbucks and McDonald’s will soon be the new offices for roughly 20 community reporters at The Arizona Republic.
    Top Republic editors met with reporters from the Mesa, Scottsdale and Phoenix community sections Thursday to tell the reporters they were getting laptops. They would become “mobile reporters” without any traditional desk in an office, according to multiple reporters who wished to remain anonymous.
    Because Starbucks and McDonald’s have free Wi-Fi, those were the two places editors suggested reporters take advantage of as they work out in the field.
    Some reporters said they could work from home, but others said they were being asked not to work from home and instead be out in the field as much as possible. Reporters are being asked to take home their files, and keep them in their car or at home.
    The move is expected to save money and be the next step in the Republic’s digital coverage, sources say.
    Calls to Randy Lovely, The Arizona Republic’s senior vice president of news and audience development, and Christina Leonard, the Phoenix editor, were not immediately returned Thursday morning.
    Editor's note: Hayley Ringle worked at The Arizona Republic as a reporter from June 2010 to January of this year.
    Some sources said they were “stunned” by the news and weren’t sure how it will pan out. Others said having the freedom to work from home is nice.
    One reporter said they were concerned about feeling “isolated” from the other reporters.
    In April, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors bought the Mesa Republic building for $850,000 to expand its East Valley complex, according to a Republic article.
    The Republic was in negotiations for a new Mesa office space, and staff was supposed to move out of that building within a few months of the sale into a new office in Mesa, according to the article.
    Sources now say the Mesa office will close soon, possibly this month.
    The Glendale office reporters are also planned to work mobile in the future. However, because the West Valley staff just moved into a new office at Westgate earlier this year, and are in the middle of a short-term lease, they are not part of the mobile movement for the time being.
    Sources say the Scottsdale office could close as soon as the first quarter of 2014.
    The Phoenix community reporters, who work at the downtown high-rise building, are also being asked to go mobile. Mesa editors reportedly are moving downtown, sources say.
    The Republic is opening a new Tempe office as a place to gather for meetings, but there won’t be permanent desks for reporters, sources say. Advertising staff from the Mesa office will move to this new Tempe office.
    A committee will be formed to meet regularly and make recommendations on how the mobile offices are working, according to sources.
    The Republic laid off close to 30 employees in August and have made several changes to the paper.
    In the past several years the paper has seen layoffs and buy outs of more than 100 employees and furloughs for reporters.

    http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2013/10/03/arizona-republic-editors-to-reporters.html?ana=e_du_pub&s=article_du&ed=2013-10-03&page=all

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  3. http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/local/options-public-charter-school-complaint/609/

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  4. The Arizona Republic sends reporters to work out of McDonalds and Starbucks to save on office space and "spins" it as making the reporters mobile. Their editors will be sitting in downtown Phoenix, 20 miles from the former office in Mesa. Mesa, by the way, isn't small. It has 440,000 residents.

    http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2013/10/03/arizona-republic-editors-to-reporters.html

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    1. When I first read about this, I had two thoughts:

      1. Sounds like the original concept for mojos, pioneered in 2006 for the Information Center rollout at The News-Press in Fort Myers, Fla.

      There, however, I don't think the reporters were denied a physical desk in an office. That leads me to:

      2. This could be the first step toward declaring reporters as 1099 contract workers, where they would be freelancers instead of W-2 qualified employees getting benefits such as health insurance and paid vacations.

      For that to happen, though, the reporters would have to provide their own laptops and other such work-related equipment.

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    2. Oh the horror! Reporters being forced to interact with the public. What's next? Will they be forced to actually speak to the public?

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    3. I agree with the idea that this could lead to word herders being declared 1099 contract workers. Likewise, Gannett can't be far behind the Chicago Sun Times on the race to mediocrity. Lay off the photographers and replace them with the USATSI freelancers. In some of the larger markets (Phoenix, Indy) this would be very easy because there are already lots of freelance photographers. It would be harder in some of the smaller markets but to G it's all within reach.

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  5. Is this what's going to happen to the Louisiana papers once they become Regional papers?

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  6. Jim did you earn $4000 in the third quarter?

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  7. Yikes. Thanks for reminding me to update that figure.

    Answer: No. Here's what I made:
    * Advertising: $1,609
    * Reader donations: $908

    Total: $2,517

    And, once more, I'm grateful for every dollar my readers gave.

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  8. Charles Everett10/04/2013 8:55 AM

    Cincinnati.com breaks a big local story this morning -- Reds manager Dusty Baker has been fired -- and the article looks like it wasn't edited. So many errors in spelling and grammar, an effort so embarrassing I won't even link to it.

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    1. The Enquirer did not break it; AP did. Enquirer was playing catchup.

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    2. Um, why wouldn't you link to it or post a sample? Fail. Everett Fail -- the Mount Everest of fail!!

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  9. The third quarter financials will be released in less than two weeks. Has anyone heard about how continuing downward revenue will be handled this time?

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  10. In other DealChicken news, those remaining yesterday was told of "DealChickazon" (unofficial name), which will be an aggregator of DealChicken, LivingSocial, Groupon, etc. other daily deal sites. Some e-mail sends will be local, but for the most part DealChicken has given up on the local model and will become a Huffington Post of daily deals.

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  11. USA TODAY finally lives up to its $2 price tag with a 50-page paper today!

    Until you open up the front section... and realize 10 pages in a row are for Samsung's products. Five double trucks of advertising.

    Yeah, I know that was likely a pretty good ad buy, but still...

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    1. Advertisers apparently haven't gotten the memo yet. They don't seem to know USAT is a dying brand. I don't care how many blue dots or other idiotic things they do, the people who run USAT are on life support, and it shows each and every day in the product -- print and online. Why the hell would Samsung invest those kind of ad dollar on an antiquated media source that is littered with errors, bad design and ridiculous news judgment?

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    2. People like you are among the reasons print is losing ground. There are plenty of people who want the paper but it/they just keep turning their backs. See the USAT price raise, ridiculous as it is, people still fork over the 2 bucks. If print is a dead issue then people should be not buying it, especially with circumstances like this. How many digital enterprises have to go silent before it's realized it's a niche (sp?) and not the general desire of people to get their news?

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    3. If a company captured the entire market for digital content and print content...they would make more money off of selling the digital content (primarily due to decreased costs). In theory, digital is more profitable which is why these decisions are made. There is money in print, but they want to risk cutting some print resources and put the money in digital hoping to capture a large portion of the market.

      And the majority of consumers won't stop buying a product because of what you consider bad news judgement. The only people who care about these things are reporters. USA Today is just as credible as any other media outlet out there...meaning it's just entertainment. The idea of any reporting or media outlet being trustworthy died years ago.

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    4. Your scenario assumes that both markets, digital and print, are equal in dollar value, before deducting costs. That's not always the case.

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  12. Where I live I have my choice of buying two Gannett local papers - Rochester or Elmira and two Gatehouse papers - Corning and Hornell - USA Today, while twice the price, is the better read by far.

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  13. is Florida Today going to $2 also. Bought a paper at store for $2 guy said he got a memo stating to start charging that. anyway. saw $1 retail on page- brought back paper gave him the paper back and got my $2 back- went down the street to CVS and bought one for $1-is it going to start charging $2 also if so, say good bye! Not worth it!

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    1. Only the USAT is 2 dollars, NOT Florida Today. There hasn't been a memo for FT to go to 2 dollars, just for USAT. Whoever told the store guy is wrong USAT went up 9/30. I am a S/C carrier.

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  14. Im often a critic of the paper and particularly, the website, which appears staffed by junior underachievers. But the paper is pretty darn good today, i must say.

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    1. Ramping up for the local Butterfly markets, don't ya think?

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  15. Paper may be good but readers are balking at the $2 charge. Asked a store owner Friday morning how it was going (readers have a choice of two Detroit papers and the Port Huron paper all for $1 each). He said USAT readers decided to switch when he told them the cost and he had not sold any yet that morning.

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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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