Memo: Government Media orders Q4 furloughs; 'conditions have worsened in the past month'

CEO Elaine Howard sent the following memo to employees at Gannett Government Media Corp. today, according to a reader who forwarded a copy to me this afternoon. The Government Media subsidiary publishes titles including Army Times, Military Times and Federal Times.

COMPANY CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION

GGMC Staff,

The economic news facing our nation and our company is daunting, and market conditions are declining rapidly. We made it through the first half of the year with difficulty, but it seemed then that with belt-tightening and aggressive sales efforts, we would be able to pull through in the latter part of the year. Your efforts to curtail spending since early summer have certainly helped. But unfortunately, economic conditions have worsened in the past month and our own revenue projections have followed that trend.

We find ourselves today in the vortex of three dynamic forces:

• The ongoing migration of advertising from print to digital
• Global economic uncertainty affecting consumer manufacturers and suppliers, whose ad dollars are critical to our Military Times products
• And intensifying deficit reduction efforts which will seriously affect defense spending -- and advertising -- in the years ahead

All this is happening as we enter the fall, the critical months when we traditionally produce most of the company's annual revenue. As a result, we now project missing year-end revenue by 6.5% and profit goals by 24.5%.

Faced with this reality, I have no choice but to implement some very difficult contingency plans. These include:

• A one-week furlough for all employees in the fourth quarter, which runs from October through December. Under US labor law, non-exempt, or hourly, employees will be able to take furloughs in increments of a single day, but exempt employees will have to take their furloughs all at once. Your manager will work with you on scheduling your furlough and discuss with you how this will work.
• Further budget cuts for 2012.

Please review the attachments to find answers to some of your questions and to see what steps need to be taken to prepare for your furlough. If you have further questions or need further guidance, please see your manager.

I deeply regret having to make these decisions, which we understand will have a serious impact on your own personal economies. We hope that by making this decision now, you will have more time to plan for this hardship and bear with us, as you have in the past, in this difficult time. I remain bullish on the company's future and assure you I am working hard to identify new sources of revenue to offset these losses.

Related: The referenced attachments are a furlough Q&A, and a nine-page guide to furlough preparation.

Experts on 9/11: commemoration vs. exploitation

[How much is too much? Snapshot of USAT anniversary page, above]

Newspapers, television networks, magazines and others planning special coverage of Sept. 11's 10th anniversary have weighed issues like how much American audiences can stomach, and how much such a solemn occasion should be viewed as a business opportunity, The New York Times says in a story today.

"There’s no precedent for something like this,” New York magazine Publisher Lawrence Burstein told the NYT.

He initially did not expect to sell many ads in the 10th anniversary issue. But to his surprise, he found advertiser demand was strong, with the magazine experiencing a 46% increase in the number of ad pages in the Sept. 5-12 double issue, compared with the Sept. 13 issue last year.

How much anniversary news coverage is too much? And, USA Today asks in a story, is it harmful to our psyches to wallow in sadness?

"There's no doubt the anniversary is going to stimulate memories and anxieties," says Sharon Brennan, a psychologist in New York City. "Some people will probably embed themselves in the media and it will be almost like an addiction reliving this. Others will take a more a dosed approach."

Reflecting 1950s U.S.
As the nation prepares for the anniversary, Gannett's Army Times says, a look at how Americans marked the same milestone for Pearl Harbor shows that the way people commemorate events sometimes says more about their own times than a bygone era.

Related: history of Army Times and Gannett Government Media division.

Too much? Too little? Just right? How do you grade your 9/11 coverage? Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.

Army Times, Defense News, other sites hacked

Gannett has disclosed that hackers breached Army Times and nearly a dozen other GCI sites devoted to government news, accessing names, e-mail addresses, passwords and other personal information of an untold number of users.

The Los Angeles Times has the story this morning; I'm working from my iPhone now, so can't post much.

As jobless rates rise, Gannett regions feel it

[County rates: 12,000 GCI workers, heavy Gannett Blog traffic]

Rising unemployment pinches consumer sales, spurring retailers to cut ad spending -- and further weakening Gannett's revenues: We're feeling the squeeze companywide, new government and New York Times data show, especially in five regions comprising nearly half this blog's readers.

The five include areas nailed extra hard in the real estate collapse (Arizona, Florida) and manufacturing meltdowns (Michigan, New York-New Jersey), the NYT data show. Indeed, workforce contraction was in full force last month, the Labor Department said yesterday: The U.S. jobless rate rose to a 25-year high, 8.1%, as employers cut another 651,000 jobs.

Florida's Lee County, home to The News-Press of Fort Myers, lost 20,600 jobs in January vs. a year before -- more than any other Florida county. Lee's jobless rate: 11.5% vs. 6.4% a year ago.

Five regions, 12K workers
Starting with No. 1, New York-New Jersey, the regions comprised 47% of Gannett Blog's 1.3 million visits over the past 12 months, a new Google Analytics report says. Combined, the regions employ perhaps 12,000 GCI workers, or 30% of the 41,500 worldwide.

Top regions sending most traffic to Gannett Blog:

1. New York / New Jersey
Papers: 12; TV stations: one; regional employees: 3,500
Notes: The New Jersey and Central New York groups are possible candidates for further consolidation.

2. Virginia / D.C.
Papers: 10; TV stations: one; employees: 1,500 to 2,000. Notes: Corporate, USA Today based in McLean, Va. Army Times Publishing Co. in Springfield, Va., publishes nine titles. Notes: Tension between Corporate and the field is rising over Chairman Craig Dubow (left) and his team's strategy: Since he became CEO in July 2005, Gannett's stock has plunged 97% vs. 87% for the New York Times Co., and 43% in the S&P 500 index, Google Finance says.

3. Florida
Papers: four; TV stations: three; employees: 1,200
Notes: In addition to the News-Press, Fort Myers is the South Group's headquarters, under Publisher Carol Hudler. The city has become the real estate bust's poster child.

4. Arizona
Papers: two; TV stations: two; employees: 2,400
Notes: The Arizona Republic circulates 363,000 weekday copies, second only to USA Today's 2.3 million. KPNX-TV is Phoenix's NBC affiliate. The city rivals McLean, Va., as Gannett's single-biggest worksite.

5. Michigan
Papers: five; TV stations: one; employees: 2,500
Notes: Detroit is home to another big worksite in the Detroit Media Partnership, the Gannett-controlled joint agency publishing the money-losing Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News.

Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write gannettblog[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the green sidebar, upper right.

[Image: today's Arizona Republic, Newseum]

Soldier's story: Hidden cost of 15 minutes' fame

[Army medic Joseph Dwyer: Did this photo figure in his death?]

Former Gannett Army Times photographer Warren Zinn wonders whether his high-profile photo of an Army medic rescuing a 4-year-old Iraqi boy contributed to that soldier's untimely death in June. The 2003 photo was "splashed across newspapers worldwide," bringing the soldier instant fame, Zinn writes in yesterday's Washington Post. "And for years, I'd proudly displayed the front page of USA Today featuring the photo. It was a tremendous accomplishment for me; I was only 25 when I took it. Now, though, the picture was suffused with a different meaning. Joseph Dwyer was dead of a substance overdose at 31."

Zinn's piece recalls one I wrote for USA Today with Charisse Jones -- a story prompted by the suicide of a surveyor credited with finding nine trapped Pennsylvania coal miners in 2002. Bob Long's death, we wrote, illustrated a disturbing trend that emerged after tragedies including the Oklahoma City bombing, Sept. 11, and the 1987 rescue (inset, left) of baby Jessica McClure from a Texas well shaft. "Some of those intimately involved in storied rescue efforts -- men and women lauded as heroes -- have committed suicide,'' our story said. "Experts, citing causes from post-traumatic stress to the destructive power of sudden fame, worry more such deaths will follow."

Related: Death on the CNN curve -- the aftermath of McClure's rescue

Noteworthy: Army Times is part of Gannett's Army Times Publishing Co. in Springfield, Va.

A journalist's responsibility?
A public school official killed himself as I was researching his possible financial misdeeds, when I was an investigative reporter at The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Ky. I did not feel responsible for his death. Would you?

Your thoughts, in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, use this link from a non-work computer; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the green sidebar, upper right.