Here's an email from USA Today Editor-in-Chief David Callaway that doesn't end in his customary "cheers" sign-off.
It seems newsroom staffers object to their longer, more labor-intensive enterprise stories being published only in the new USAT weekend editions now being inserted in four small Gannett dailies as part of the Butterfly Project test. That means some of their best work no longer appears in the regular national print edition with its 1.7 million print circulation. The combined weekend circulation for the four dailies is only around 600,000.
The kerfuffle was disclosed yesterday in Callaway's email to senior editors, where he endorsed an earlier note from Executive Editor David Colton to reporters and other newsroom staffers defending the Saturday and Sunday editions.
"Well said, David," Callaway wrote to his editing team, telling them: "Please stomp out any sort of whining about this or send the person to me and I will. All these great stories go on the Web and mobile as well, where the audience is five times the size. We are moving way too fast to have anyone on our staff who still doesn't understand this."
High-profile project
In his memo, Colton wrote: "These are closely-watched products, by the industry, by media critics and by our colleagues at USCP" -- a reference to the 81-title U.S. Community Publishing newspaper division.
He conceded "weekend content does soak up a lot of stories and packages, leaving Mondays and even later in the week hurting for print content."
But, he added, "treating Saturday and Sunday like major editions . . . will help us in the short run and for sure in the long run, when the Sunday USA Today may very well be treated as our platinum product."
The Callaway-Colton emails spotlight the tension in the newsroom as Gannett's struggling flagship undergoes another turnaround meant to stem losses in advertising and circulation. Callaway came to USAT under Larry Kramer, who was hired as publisher in spring 2012. As outsiders, they've challenged many longtime employees -- some dating to the paper's 1982 launch -- to get with the digital times, and work more productively and cooperatively with other Gannett divisions.
Under previous publishers, USAT often operated quite apart from the rest of the company. It's housed alongside Corporate at the Crystal Palace headquarters in suburban Washington, complete with a gymnasium, cafeteria and other amenities that employees at the community dailies can only dream about. That's led to grumbling in the field that USAT employees are underworked and overly pampered -- a perception that will only be advanced by the current fuss over contributing to the Butterfly Project.
In that initiative started early this month, USAT is producing a daily standalone edition of national and foreign news for newspapers in Indianapolis; Fort Myers, Fla.; Appleton, Wisc., and Rochester, N.Y. The papers also added some local content as well, increasing page count with the USAT section by 50 to 70 pages a week.
Butterfly is a major bet on print newspapers when the industry has been losing advertisers and readers to the Internet and other digital products. Yet, even as Callaway and Colton touted the value of the new print editions, the paper today once more claimed it is the nation's top-circulating newspaper by including free tablet and smartphone app users.
For USAT, Butterfly gives the paper a weekend presence for the first time in its 31-year-history, creating another vehicle for ad sales and potentially adding millions of weekend and weekday circulation should the project be extended to other Gannett titles.
For the community papers, the USAT section is meant to add bulk and a well-known brand name after years of cutbacks in news have driven away readers and advertisers.
Butterfly already a 'go'?
Colton's note for the first time suggests the USAT Butterfly Project edition is likely to be added to yet more community dailies between December and March. Readers have told me earlier that about three dozen of the biggest 81 may get the USAT section if the test is successful.
Colton wrote: "Editors and publishers from 30+ Gannett sites will be here this Monday/Tuesday to discuss possible expansion of the Butterfly project. Having strong work to show them from this weekend’s editions will be a great look-what-you’ll-be-getting 'sell.'"
Combined, those more than 30 sites have Sunday circulation of 3.5 million -- underscoring Colton's prediction that Sunday's USAT could become the paper's "platinum product." Weekdays, those sites report a combined print circulation of 2.3 million.
Indeed, in a memo today, Kramer said USAT plans to count the new Butterfly editions in its next circulation report in the spring.
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| Callaway |
The kerfuffle was disclosed yesterday in Callaway's email to senior editors, where he endorsed an earlier note from Executive Editor David Colton to reporters and other newsroom staffers defending the Saturday and Sunday editions.
"Well said, David," Callaway wrote to his editing team, telling them: "Please stomp out any sort of whining about this or send the person to me and I will. All these great stories go on the Web and mobile as well, where the audience is five times the size. We are moving way too fast to have anyone on our staff who still doesn't understand this."
High-profile project
In his memo, Colton wrote: "These are closely-watched products, by the industry, by media critics and by our colleagues at USCP" -- a reference to the 81-title U.S. Community Publishing newspaper division.
He conceded "weekend content does soak up a lot of stories and packages, leaving Mondays and even later in the week hurting for print content."
But, he added, "treating Saturday and Sunday like major editions . . . will help us in the short run and for sure in the long run, when the Sunday USA Today may very well be treated as our platinum product."
 |
| Kramer |
Under previous publishers, USAT often operated quite apart from the rest of the company. It's housed alongside Corporate at the Crystal Palace headquarters in suburban Washington, complete with a gymnasium, cafeteria and other amenities that employees at the community dailies can only dream about. That's led to grumbling in the field that USAT employees are underworked and overly pampered -- a perception that will only be advanced by the current fuss over contributing to the Butterfly Project.
In that initiative started early this month, USAT is producing a daily standalone edition of national and foreign news for newspapers in Indianapolis; Fort Myers, Fla.; Appleton, Wisc., and Rochester, N.Y. The papers also added some local content as well, increasing page count with the USAT section by 50 to 70 pages a week.
Butterfly is a major bet on print newspapers when the industry has been losing advertisers and readers to the Internet and other digital products. Yet, even as Callaway and Colton touted the value of the new print editions, the paper today once more claimed it is the nation's top-circulating newspaper by including free tablet and smartphone app users.
For USAT, Butterfly gives the paper a weekend presence for the first time in its 31-year-history, creating another vehicle for ad sales and potentially adding millions of weekend and weekday circulation should the project be extended to other Gannett titles.
For the community papers, the USAT section is meant to add bulk and a well-known brand name after years of cutbacks in news have driven away readers and advertisers.
Butterfly already a 'go'?
Colton's note for the first time suggests the USAT Butterfly Project edition is likely to be added to yet more community dailies between December and March. Readers have told me earlier that about three dozen of the biggest 81 may get the USAT section if the test is successful.
Colton wrote: "Editors and publishers from 30+ Gannett sites will be here this Monday/Tuesday to discuss possible expansion of the Butterfly project. Having strong work to show them from this weekend’s editions will be a great look-what-you’ll-be-getting 'sell.'"
Combined, those more than 30 sites have Sunday circulation of 3.5 million -- underscoring Colton's prediction that Sunday's USAT could become the paper's "platinum product." Weekdays, those sites report a combined print circulation of 2.3 million.
Indeed, in a memo today, Kramer said USAT plans to count the new Butterfly editions in its next circulation report in the spring.
Nice little window on the USAT culture. First they are concerned about industry watchers, THEN media critics, and finally colleagues from the division that funded their start and kept them afloat year after year. Oh, and no where do they consider their readers!
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DeleteGym, cafeteria and other amenities? Are you completely nuts? No one uses the gym except the Gannett execs. It's empty. We're too busy.The cafeteria is an overpriced weirdness trap of tofu blocks at $0.44 an oz., and the "other amenities" are... what? A parking space in Tysons Corner? A view of the sewage pond from the elevator? Learning Urdu from the IT contractors using the coffee canister room as a phone booth? Working at USAT stopped being any different than any other Gannett property on the day when Craig "I'm with stupid" Moon and Ken "I'm stupid" Paulson drove up in their bus.
ReplyDeletePeople aren't unhappy about the Butterfly Fiasco because they dislike their stories being in the metros. They resent having to work six days a week and create more copy without being paid a dime more in a newsroom that has seen most of its talent flee, and a click-counting cabal of Wall Street/Broadway/nincompoops who think Top 5 lists are journalism take power at a news organization they gave the best years of their lives over to.
Callaway doesn't even know what an enterprise story looks like, unless it was typed in a miniskirt. This site has always missed the story at USAT, never a peep when anything real happened there for the last six years. You are missing it again. Get a clue.
These morons drove away/bought/literally worked to death much of the writing talent at USAT and now they are aggrieved that the remaining talented people don't want to work 60 hours a week for them. Hire some fucking writers, Dave, instead of illiterates. You might find complaints dropping, you bonus-counting carpetbagger crony fake.
well said
DeleteDave's finally showing who he really is. Now if he could only stomph out the rejects and toadies he's promoted since he arrived.
ReplyDeleteWhen the GM of one of the test market butterfly papers says there is no alternative if this doesn't result in increased circulation and revenue. The budget for increased expenditures in ink and paper will only work through early '14 unless incoming $$$ goes up.
ReplyDeleteThis is happening at USCP sites as well, including mine, where any sort of dissent or "negativity" come with kindergarten teacher like reprimands and belittling from editors. Meanwhile our local news section, the bread and butter of the operation, has now two counties which each had their own zoned section, shoved into one section. Local news, including the process stories which are hated by editors, chart high in metrics, but covering these news 101 type of articles gets frowned upon by the deep thinkers. (Don't worry you can pick-it-up after the fact by asking a public official to vomit all the details up for you-is the advice we get) The butterfly is moulting, people. But don't worry. The next round of layoffs after the last dismal quarter is sure to claim some of the glass office dwelling deep thinkers who came up with this and the failed content evolution and who treat their staff like they're rowers in a Roman Slave galley.
ReplyDeleteIt's the same reality in advertising departments around the company. Get rid of the nay-sayers and everyone else drink the kool-aid that we'll grow print revenue if we all become "world class".
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Delete1.7 million print circulation -- how many of those are from papers that people actually paid cash money for? hmmmm.
ReplyDeleteI'll note that some of the copy editing and design work for the butterfly project is being done at design hubs, not in the USAT newsroom. Corporate so far has not authorized hiring to cover that work for the project; instead, it's taking resources from the hubs, which are under additional pressure as designers depart for greener pastures and aren't replaced. Perhaps USAT will get to hire some positions when it's clear all 30-something papers will get the butterfly sections -- or perhaps not.
ReplyDeletewho gives a shit about design hubs, all they did was eliminate positions at our dailies. They are in a fast free fall, can barely handle the work load they have know
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ReplyDeletecallaway is pretty much a jerk to anyone over 40. if you're a young babe, you're money, though.
ReplyDeleteMr. Cheers needs to flatten out his overpaid, underworked management team, which is not on board with his grandiose plans. stomph away, big guy.
ReplyDeleteExpanding Usat into Sundays at some sites just sounds like a plan to delay the inevitable. Readers certainly aren't looking to get national Usat news on their local Sundays; this is just a way to artificially pump up Usat circ in the standings and get some short term attention and ad dollars. And it's certainly taking a long time. Back in '08 at least there were Content One talks which were designed to merge national and local. I can't imagine this 'new' idea becoming any sort of grand solution. On one hand, they're trying...on the other hand, they're laying waste to lots of staff and history in doing so, and in all likelihood toward a lost cause.
ReplyDeleteIt's the latest in a long line of saviors of the company, going all the way back to News 2000. Perhaps one of these "great ideas" will work -- someday.
DeleteOlder, experienced reporters at my site are being criticized by a young inexperienced editor who chides them for negativity, noting the younger staff is embracing the new changes. Maybe it's because anyone who's been in the business for more than a decade has heard this song before - "circulation/revenue is down, contentis to blame and here is our bold new plan to save it." I estimate I have heard 20 of these brave new bold plans at GCI papers and non Gannett papers, so forgive me if I don't break out the party hats and streamers. Before the "eat the old" crowd chimes in, I have totally embraced digital and social media because it is the future. What I haven't embraced is the management mandated Kool Aid drinking from people in glass offices who are unwilling to take suggestions from the front line troops. How did Content Evolution work out? I'm still waiting for that big turn around...
ReplyDeletePray, canst thou enumerate all these constructive suggestions from the front line troops that would have reversed the fate of the newspaper profession had they not fallen on deaf ears?
DeleteEven with the benefit of hindsight, I doubt any suggestion would have reversed the decline we're seeing today because so much of it is driven by new technologies that have atomized the industry's chief source of revenue: advertising.
DeleteHowever, suggestions from the field might have slowed the rate of decline. Then and now, those included reversing cuts in news production, advertising sales staffing, and customer service.
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DeleteManaging by memo never works unless you are a complete autocrat. Typical for Gannett leadership, though I must say.
ReplyDelete"Stomp out" opposition? This is what your Editor in Chief thinks of you, USA Today staffers. You are mere dust to be stomped out, not human beings or even widgets.
ReplyDeleteGet everyone in your whole newsroom together and confront this piece of garbage for treating you like something to be stomped on.
Won't ever happen. Any effort for concerted resistance will collapse like a house of cards as soon as the time for action comes.
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