Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Wednesday | March 4 | Your News & Comments
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86 comments:
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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Another super-friendly reminder:
ReplyDeleteI've recently launched Jersey Confidential, a special forum for New Jersey-specific news and comments. To get there, just click on the link in the blue sidebar, to your right.
Comments posted here that are specific to New Jersey may be removed by yours truly, then reposted in the new forum.
Another day, another 25 percent drop in GCI stock? Dubow and the rest: wake up. Our company is dying. So instead of sitting in your Crystal Towers office counting your stock options, were is the business plan that will save us?
ReplyDeleteLet's be nice to non-Gannett folk, shall we? Former LSJ employee, want things to work out. This isn't an all-inclusive blog, is it? If stock keeps dropping and it's over, then who watches the watchmen?
ReplyDeleteI'm not just worried about Gannett. I'm worried about the entire economy.
ReplyDeleteI quit my Gannett job to relocate with my husband who had to in order to keep his automotive job.
In the past 13 weeks, he has been furloughed AT LEAST 6 WEEKS! (I've lost count.) He is "company" and is told more weeks off are coming.
We are going, going, gone thru our savings and hoping that if his plant closes that there will be a severance package.
I have only found part-time employment (but loving that I NEVER "take it home with me.")
Just sayin' that even tho things are bad "everywhere" and nothing is certain anymore, I'm SO glad I'm out of Gannett. It was a very depressing, frustrating company to work for. I loved (and miss) my co-workers. Miss the excitement of the business. In my little part-time position I thought I'd be treated like my pitiful hourly wage. But the management there is actually very understanding, positive and even enjoyable to be around. They WANT me to succeed, they want me to be a happy employee!
Although things aren't exactly as I desire, for now things are fine. I will get another part-time job to keep food on the table. I'm tired of hearing analyst say we be out of the worst in a few months, others saying it'll be 2012. I just don't give much weight to any of it. I wonder if it is better that millions will be in the same sinking boat, or if it would be better to be alone.
Charge for online -- readers may be able to get national and world news elsewhere, but not the depth and breadth of local news. It would be an overnight game-changer, and likely save the company.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't a couple of dart-throwing monkeys do a better job of running GCI? I know you could get a bunch of bananas at WalMart for one share of stock.
ReplyDeleteOK people lets get one thing straight! I enjoy that Gannett, the goliath, is finally seeing its demise and I am sure that alot of mistreated employees feel the same. The old addage "What comes around goes around", is true. But lets get down to facts. The economy is jetting down so lets not write the newspapers off and say they are all going to shut-down. To the contrary they will not! Why? because as the times get tougher the people out there cannot afford the internet and also cannot afford to get computers updated nor literate. Right now we are experienceing a staus quo of history where the giants of monopolies are going to collapse and we will all go back to privately owned newspapers in our major cities. Yes even if they look like "Pennysavers " in the begginning. They will eventually grow. We have and are witnessing a golden age when conglomerates of giant newspapers will have to be broken up and indiviually sold to the common business people of each cities. Yes, some will collapse but the ones that survive will prosper. Until all the youger people and current mid aged people can afford the internet and computer neccesities......... there will not be the "proverbial tombstones" of newspapers! So please will every "chicken little " please grab their socks and enjoy the roller coaster ride of the corporations that have raped us for the past eight years! This will be fun to watch unless the paper you work for is a paper that doens't make money. Then you will be the local pennysaver? I hope not, but hail to the collapse of Gannett!!!! Anyone that is someone that has worked over 15 years or more realizes their demoralizing and thiefery tactics!! Off wit their bloody heads.............crooks!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteKai Ryssdal specifically mentioned GCI's stock price on last night's Marketplace on NPR - in the same breath talking about the automakers tanking February sales.
ReplyDeleteThe second quarter layoffs and furloughs are going to be worse than December. No special knowledge, other than I've never seen ad & page counts as low as they have been the last two months - and i've been doing this since 1984.
If page count is down, a whole lot of people just aren't needed, unfortunately.
I wish Lord Thomson still owned my future.
ReplyDeleteHer 3:29 am, I don't buy your comment about peope not affording the internet. Because there's LOTS of wifi hotspots that are FREE.
ReplyDeleteI'm using one right now to post this.
3/04/2009 3:29 AM
ReplyDeleteYou might be close to the mark, the paper I am at can make it without Gannett, but it may not get a chance, the overhead is way too high, so I will wait for it to fold and I will come in with some rebuilt Goss Community 4 highs or DGM 4 highs and do better then the aging 70's vintage double wide and it will be way way under the cost to operate (electric and printed waste alone will be a fraction of the current cost) hire the newsroom back and ad reps and give the community back their newspaper with their local coverage,just like the old days, and let the employees have some say!!
7:39
ReplyDeleteYou are right. I also think if someone is choosing between $15-20 per month for a paper or $30 a month for internet, the better value is the latter. I can see folks dropping cable, since there are many tv/video options available on the net.
My over-under on today's stock price drop is 17 percent. Any takers?
ReplyDelete6:47 a.m. never thought we'd be saying that, huh? Wow.
ReplyDeleteI love Kai Ryssdal!
ReplyDeleteAnd if I had no money left for newspapers, cable or Internet, I'd still send NPR money.
3/4/09 3:29 AM
ReplyDeleteI think it's funny that you think somehow local ownership is better than corporate ownership. I cringe at the thought of any of my local market's business folk owning the newspaper. I can just imagine the type of journalism they'd be willing to pay for.
At least with Gannett, no one in the community owned the paper. We don't have the fear of pissing off a publisher's friend or our owner's other business operations.
I don't think the Nirvana everyone is asking for exists anywhere.
Local newspapers worked when it did because you had local newspaper families running them. Hopefully people who, for generations, believed in the value of journalism.
That just doesn't exist in most markets anymore.
Gannett 6.875% Bonds trading at 61 CENTS on the Dollar > Yield 23+%.
ReplyDeleteThe Debt Load (in the context of declining revenues and faster declining profits) is what is CRUSHING the Stock. Debt is Superior to equity on the Capital Structure.
With the U.S. Governments geometrically growning Deficit sucking in every dollar on the planet with the gravitational force of a BLACK HOLE, even companies with great credit are having difficulty financing debt; GANNETT is DOOMED !!!
I'm ordering seeds for food from www.survivalgardenseeds.com .
From MediaPost:
ReplyDeleteBelo Corp., a publicly traded television company, said after a cash dividend of $0.075 for each outstanding share of Series A common stock and Series B common stock is paid on June 5, to shareholders of record on May 15, 2009, it will suspend future dividend payments indefinitely.
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This is the daily paper I subscribe to since moving out of the Gannett circulation area. The size of the paper remains gratifying, even though I know hundreds of journalists have been laid off from the company.
"Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteCharge for online -- readers may be able to get national and world news elsewhere, but not the depth and breadth of local news. It would be an overnight game-changer, and likely save the company.
3/04/2009 2:10 AM"
You're kidding, right? In order to successfully charge for what's on the web, you have to put something on the web that people perceive as worth paying for. What percentage of your content fits that description, and for what percentage of your current audience? My guess, based on what I've seen from GCI sites and papers, is that you won't make enough in the typical market to cover four editorial staffers' salary and benefits.
Figure out what tour market wants, produce that well, and then talk about charging. Don't just throw the usual garbage up there and expect people to pay for it.
"Don't just throw the usual garbage up there and expect people to pay for it."
ReplyDeleteThere's also another part to this. Early on, prior to cars.com, careerbuilder, and the other niche products gannett either partnered with, absorbed or purchased outright, the independent CV3 sites were huge and contained lots of classified listings of all types. This was another reason to go to your local newspaper's website - classified listings and lots of 'em.
Now, with the advent of Ebay/Yahoo/Craigslist/etc.. classifieds are a shadow of what they used to be.
It always used to bother me how we would try to sell our classified listings, touting the power of the paper, but then eagerly farm out our online ads to the cars.coms, etc...
If we really believed in the power of local news attracting local advertising, we should have built our own infastructure up over time. We could have been craigslist. The cars.coms would have come knocking on our doors for content if we had just believed everything we were telling our advertisers.
Yes, there are a multitude of other reasons for the decline in advertising as well, but we also didn't believe in ourselves and instead ran after money wherever we thought we could find it. We weren't players in the new online era, we were played - it's no wonder why our advertisers had a hard time believing in us when we sold ourselves short every single time.
The shame of it is, we had talented people in all the right places in order to pull this off. Corporate just never believed we could compete without taking the easy way out time after time.
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/ss/fromcomments/111364.php
ReplyDeleteInteresting development.
I’m sure I will get flamed after this post with the usual calls of being an idiot, being management, drinking the cool aid and all the other lame crap.
ReplyDeleteI think that many of the people that post here need to get over themselves; the pity party wisecracks are really pathetic.
My site, the Press and Sun Bulletin in Binghamton would seem to be one of the shining stars of GCI compared to what many here say about their own sites. No, things aren’t perfect, but being a worker bee myself, I think that we have a good management team.
Yes there have been cuts and some people, past and present, do not like the publisher, Sherman Bodner, but, he has to follow his marching orders like other people. I doubt its fun to have corporate up your ass every day.
I respect and personally like all of our management team, they all have their bad days, and we all do. They are real people with families and bills just like the rest of us.
I recognize that this economic disaster calls for unpleasant changes and unpopular choices but that is the reality of the situation. Look around you. Even if I am next I would not be so bitter as to wish the same on the people that I have worked with.
I for one do not want GCI to go down because I love what I do and I like the people I work with. To those that wish its demise, I say you are so selfish it is disgusting, and I hope the karma comes back to you in life. You are a waste of skin and you make me sick.
Given the price of GCI stock, it looks like there are two options awaiting the company -- takeover or bankruptcy.
ReplyDeleteTakeover seems out of the questions, unless....
You are Carlos Slim and just sunk a bunch of money into the New York Times.
So, you're a billionaire with a chunk of change invested in THE paper of the U.S.
Might be time to act strategically. Purchase GCI (for chump change), shut all the papers down -- selling off assets, keep USA Today and Presto! you now made the Times a more lucrative information source. Not too mention a great way to take control of the U.S. new industry.
2:10am I agree they need to charge for local online content. But bfore they can start charging corporated needs to let each site control it owns business. LOCAL CONTROL IS KEY,
ReplyDelete9:15 a.m.: Know why you still like working at Binghamton? Because you still have a job there. My job, indeed my entire department, in Elmira was eliminated so it could be consolidated at your site.
ReplyDeleteNo, I'm not asking you to feel guilty about that. But I do want you to understand that we don't all have it as good as you do right now. So yeah, there's a little bitterness.
While this blog concentrates on newspapers, the carnage that is happening to GCI stock reflects also what is happening to TV. Look at the proliferation of streaming videos on the Web, and you see that TV both local and national have lost control of their content, and people can watch their favorite TV programs on their computers either ad-free, or with ads put up by the computer site. This is not only revenue lost to GCI, but crucially, it is also viewers who are no longer watching GCI TV. The revenue declines reflect this, as well. No longer do local TV stations have any monopoly left over either programs fed to them by their networks, or content. Viewers also have an alternative to the lousy local news programs, and no longer have to watch these historic money-maker. No wonder GCI is gutting local news programs.
ReplyDeleteInteresting reading 9:14am of Tucson Citizen. Sounds like Gannett is being spiteful toward Lee Enterprises because it couldn't get its hands on the Arizona Daily Star. Also sounds like Gannett wants to keep its hooks into the operation via the JOA. Odd way to "sell" a newspaper Gannett.
ReplyDelete8:40 a.m.
ReplyDeleteHere here! Gannett bought the chain of suburban weeklies for which I work several years ago, and editorially, it's been an improvement. Small papers tend to be owned by former sales reps, so you know where their loyalties lie. It was all about promoting the business community, not telling news. And it hurt the papers; they'd hire people with "local connections" that would bring PR and ads to the paper. That's OK to an extent, but heaven forbid you offended an advertiser. There was virtually no wall between advertising and journalism. Now there is a wall, although maybe a crumbling one.
As an addition to this argument about free vs. paid news on the Web, consider this: How much news that you read online was produced by someone who did the work for free? People producing this stuff need to put food on their tables. Assuming physical newspapers eventually become dinosaurs and everything moves to the Web, unless there is a way for advertising to eventually foot 100 % of the bill, free news on the Web will eventually be a thing of the past. It is unsustainable. Blogs are one thing. But professionally researched news takes time and resources. Who's going to do that for free? Heck, if we didn't send Jim cash, THIS site would be history. So all you people demanding free news online would be wise to consider that.
ReplyDelete9:04 AM, your ideas are exactly mine that I shared with bosses over the years and with APP's Tom Donovan at a "meet the publisher" breakfast last fall.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, I suggested to Donovan that advertisers have certain needs that have yet to be met and are still ripe for online innovation, and I suggested one of my ideas that Gannett is in good position to capitalize on as creator.
He laid off me off, along with at least one or two other employees who offered good suggestions at that breakfast.
So I'll save my ideas for, perhaps, some other company. Just food for thought.
I have a question for everyone: How many times in your Gannett career (or editorial career elsewhere) have you raised a good issue (good headline, good catch in or angle for a story) and been greeted by "That's great!" or a simple "OK, that's good" without the rigamarole of "Well, that doesn't address X, Y or Z," or the even more annoyingly nebulous "Weeeeelllll ... " or the conversation-ending "That doesn't work/That doesn't work for me/We don't do that/You don't want to do that"? Just curious ...
ReplyDeleteSigned,
A vet who tries to keep laughing at these things
"I think that many of the people that post here need to get over themselves; the pity party wisecracks are really pathetic."
ReplyDeleteThat's all most of them have to offer. That's because they are pathetic.
We're talking about an untrainable work force with few skills that takes pride in having few skills. The only place they can feel valuable is here.
It's good to hear that some of the GCI properties are still producing reasonably good papers and that employees are happy.
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering if that's mostly at the smaller shops where the staff is more like a family.
At my mid-sized daily, the quality has diminished drastically over the last three years. It used to be a decent paper under Gannett but it has been so thoroughly gutted that there are typos all over the front page, and well-reported, in-depth pieces are a rarity. The small daily I used to work for was better at nearly all of the fundamentals.
It's really too bad because I wish only the best to the people I work with. Unfortunately, my site has become a difficult place to work for anyone who takes his/her career seriously.
Not whining, just making observations. As for having few skills ... Well, I don't think it's going to be difficult at all for me to transition to another career. The only thing slowing me is the economy because hiring has stalled in all but a handful of fields.
All of this is too bad because I really enjoyed this work when the company seemes at least somewhat committed to it. Now, I don't see much difference between journalism and any other job. It's all about the money now, so I'm going to go make some!
From Binghamton to Elmira...I know.....and I am sorry about it....I understand why you feel the way you do....but I cannot say I KNOW how it feels, as you pointed out, I still have a job.
ReplyDeleteMy main point was that I wouldnt wish it on everyone like many people here do..wanting GCI to die.
There is no way people are going to pay for online news. For an online site to make it they are going to have to make it with the advertising dollars.
ReplyDelete11:32
ReplyDelete10:27 here. I hope advertising can do it alone. I'm just not sure that's possible. Some type of resolution is necessary. If not, there will be no news in papers or online at all. It's only a matter of how long that will take to come to pass. Be warned.
Speaking of paying for online news, remember to send Jim as much as you can afford to keep this blog afloat. I'm sure Jim will even accept Gannett shares, which are pretty painless to give away these days.
ReplyDeleteI have a question for the crowd. Has there been any word from any source that layoffs or more furloughs are coming our way soon?
ReplyDelete"NEW JERSEY CONFIDENTIAL ROCKS"
ReplyDeleteI love all the talk about local, local, local -- esp. for the web sites... When's the last time you actually sought out a local city council or school board story online. Would you pay for that privilege?
ReplyDeleteOne thing we always never pursued to the end in our planning meetings where the top editors said print is for baby boomers and older, web is for 18-40:
If all we're doing is posting the same things that we print, why would we expect a big online audience.
Hence, communities like moms, pets, metromix and whatever else we can dream up.
The only big overlap I ever see with online views and print single-copy boosts are certain big news stories, like Obama's election, and the odd sex, crime and bad traffic-accident reports.
11:54 a.m. - We have heard NOTHING at our site. And that has to make us more nervous than when we were hearing the chatter. Paranoia aside, this silence speaks volumes. Prepare yourself. We are.
ReplyDeleteMore thoughts on the “closing” (or sale) of the Tucson Citizen...
ReplyDeleteYou have an afternoon newspaper with low circulation (19K) located in a veritable backwater called Tucson. Gannett can still make money off this paper even after its doors are shut because of the wording in the Joint Operating Agreement with the Arizona Daily Star. Does Gannett stand to make more money now with no newsroom overhead? Humm? From a business standpoint it seems the “right” thing to do. However, as terms of the possible sale of the Citizen come to light, it is obvious that Gannett has “conditions” that may (intentionally?) make it unattractive to any potential buyer. Again, Humm?
So, what is Gannett up to here? Keeping their finger in the Tucson pie in the hopes that Lee Enterprises (owner of the Daily Star) might stumble and have to sell out? Gannett plays a waiting game while being in an inert status in the Tucson market? Plausible.
Another bonus of Gannett “closing” the Citizen, a losing afternoon paper, is that it may have been intended as a pawn, a sacrifice so-to-speak, meant to send a none-to-subtle message to the rest of Gannett’s employees that THIS COULD HAPPEN TO YOU! if you don’t work harder, smarter, for less money and benefits, etc., etc. Couple this with the indifference shown by Gannett to Tucson Citizen employees by announcing the “closing” in conjunction with an executive’s golf game.
Anyone care to comment?
Circulation is down all over. Even when the economy picks up, there's no indication that people will go "Yippie, now I can get the newspaper again" The people who read newspapers the most are old and dying. The ones who don't are learning to get news elsewhere - if they're even interested and a lot of indication is that they're only interested in news that tells them what they want to hear.
ReplyDeleteNewspapers have to lower their margins to get advertisers to stay, those advertisers won't be putting up with newspapers 40% margins anymore with so many other avenues available. For a lot of advertisers, newspapers was just something that they felt they had to do, this economy is showing them it isn't. Less margins means less commission for the sales staff, the best of whom will leave for better money.
Fewer subscribers and readers, advertisers using other venues, debt coming due, stock plummeting, laying off or firing the best people...
Gannett is a sinking ship.
I have to agree that the silence seems deafening. Seems Jim's former reliable sources were either laid off or silenced. Flame away, but I'd feel better if they'd announce second quarter furloughs. I would much rather lose another week's pay (while collecting UE), than get laid off or do the work of 5 more people who do get laid off. I would even volunteer to take another week if it would save jobs.
ReplyDeleteIt's been 90+ days since I left the company. No pension info has arrived. Today I fired off emails to local HR. Jim or someone, can you re-post the phone number for calling corporate or whomever higher-up about receiving pension info? Are others from the December layoffs experiencing similiar delays? The 401(k) info came about when it was expected.
ReplyDelete9:04
ReplyDeleteYou know cars.com is owned by a group of Newspaper companies, including Gannett, right?
You also understand that 98% of the listings on Craigslist are up there for free, right?
Just want to make sure I understand your point. We could have created a bunch of local sites with no national footprint to compete against a national website that's not interested in making money?
You work for corporate?
@12:44, I got my pension check recently (I also left in December). Here's what I would do:
ReplyDelete1. CALL, don't e-mail, your HR department. If you still live in the area, tell them YOU'LL COME BY AND PICK UP THE DOCUMENTS BY HAND. Don't wait for some hopelessly overburdened HR person to get around to mailing them.
2. Fill them out immediately and pay attention to them! If you have a spouse, you'll need to submit a *notarized* document from your spouse saying he/she is waving all rights to that pension. Without this, they can't cut a check of any kind, not even an IRA rollover check made out to your broker.
3. Send them back by registered mail so you have a record of delivery.
4. Wait five weeks and follow up as necessary.
I worked for Gannett for 10 years, and finally got sick and tired of the constant wearing down effect of the corporate excutives showing up in the private jet to wear us down and squeeze the last nickle out to help support USAToday and the opulent lifestyles of the chosen few at the expense of the great unwashed.
ReplyDeleteAfter a few years of "Work smarter, not harder," it just beat me down to the point that it just wasn't worth it anymore.
All that being said, the future health of all newspapers, not only Gannett is dark. It's just like trying to sell a 45 RPM record in an iPod world. It can't be done.
Let's face it, the corporate office and local HRs already know who they are laying off so why not provide the pension information packets to our local HRs by the date they are supposedly forcing the layoffs? HR hands out the packets along with our pink slips. Makes perfect sense, however, like a previous anonymous post that made suggestions at breakfast and was later laid off, GCI doesn't think ahead for it's workers. Only what will bring in the dollars, which by the way, isn't happening either.
ReplyDelete8:40..."Local newspapers worked when it did because you had local newspaper families running them. Hopefully people who, for generations, believed in the value of journalism. That just doesn't exist in most markets anymore."
ReplyDeleteI'm seriously considering starting an online/print publication for my small town that since December has totally disappeared from my former paper, at least news of any substance or timeliness. I'm tired of people complaining to me about it.
The saddest thing is, this is one of the most well-educated, affluent and high-density readership areas within the paper's circulation and no one at the top seems to care. But I do, and hopefully can make a go of it.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteI also have not received my Pension info.
ReplyDeleteMarch 3rd was 90 days since I left the company with the 'voluntary' layoff. I had worked 15 years with the company. The message I got from the HR department yesterday was:
-----
"Sorry you have not received this (Pension Info) yet. I know that corporate usually likes to turn them around sooner. I will let you know as soon as I hear from them."
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So, all I can do now is wait, or are you saying that they already have the paperwork in the HR department and you can just 'go pick it up in person and complete it'?
Does anyone know how much time - legally - they have to get the money to you, or can it be 'whenever'?
Re 8:40 a.m., who said at least at a Gannett site you don't have to fear pissing off the publisher's friends:
ReplyDeleteWhere do you work??? At least three times a week I'd get a message from our publisher "suggesting" a business story or a particular angle to a business story or a VERY specific source for a business story -- all based on WHO WAS ADVERTISING. I can't count the number of times that we did specific stories on a businesss or business leader JUST BECAUSE they were friends with the pub.
There is no shame anymore in a publisher interfering with editorial. Hell, once a month an ad rep would ask me for our budget for the business journal. Eventually I just cut to the chase each month and emailed it to him.
They weren't ashamed, but I was. I just wanted to keep my job. Didn't work.
Re pension:
ReplyDeleteWorkers terminating at the APP with more than 10 years of service might want to email APPpensions@live.com. The old Trouble Shooter has been getting relevant information about our prior pensions that Don and Jules gave Gannett to administer and is offering to keep everyone it pertains to informed.
It was not my experience that I could go into HR and be handed the information, but local HR did have to mail calculations to corporate HR before corporate HR would mail the packet. I used email to set a specific deadline for my local HR to send the data to corporate. I like to have accurate written record of how things transpire. It's the outdated, silly old journalist in me, I guess.
cc: Jersey confidential
Anon at 12:44 here. I did get a prompt email response from local HR. I should get more word next week, when a supervisor on furlough returns. I do agree it's been too long (and HR agreed, too), but I did not feel blown off by local HR.
ReplyDelete3/04/2009 12:45 PM
ReplyDeleteMy point was this: news alone will not an audience make. We have no national footprint because we didn't invest in ourselves and never even saw (or perhaps believed in) the potential, even though we had the architecture setup already (ie: an online presence fed by local paid-for classifieds in every state).
We should have blown craigslist off the map. The potential was there, but no one was driving the bus.
Dearest Readers-- It had seemed to be a very good idea when Jimmy Boy segregated the NJ news from all the rest of Gannett. It is now incredibly sad and boring to read the news and comments from the rest of Gannett without the input of the NJ Group. My son, the eminent psychiatrist, Luther Roane von Beaverbottom, commented that it is quite apparent that NJ employees at one given NJ newspaper apparently don't like employees at the other papers in NJ. The Jersey Confidential may turn into a merely chaotic and hateful location.
ReplyDeleteMuch as it makes me blush, no one ever covered the CN's second page article yesterday concerning a man who was masturbating on his front porch. Above that was the reporting of three more public urinators. Given the current decision, that "news" would only have been printed on the NJ site. All of Gannett needs to learn about this cutting edge reporting in the Garden State!
From OHIO:
ReplyDeleteThe News-Messenger building at Fremont was evacuated Monday after a furnace fan malfunctioned, sending smoke through the ducts and into various department.
The fire department responded with several trucks. Little damage.
But you can't find a graf on the incident in the News-Messenger either Tuesday or today.
The publisher forbid it. Why? She never made it clear. Reporters and editors just growled among themselves, fearing that they might be on the next Gannett "hit list" if they spoke up.
Hope other Ohio Gannett employees might decide to participate in the blog with either good or bad news from their respective shops.
From that beaver at 2:17, "Dearest Readers-- It had seemed to be a very good idea when Jimmy Boy segregated the NJ news from all the rest of Gannett. It is now incredibly sad and boring to read the news and comments from the rest of Gannett without the input of the NJ Group."
ReplyDeleteWTF?!
Jim it's still a very good idea! Keep the "chaos and hate" separate and I'll keep reading this blog.
I'm a Jersey Confidential reader who doesn't see this "chaos and hate" between NJ Group papers. If someone is posting such, so what? Everyone is entitled to an opinion. Ignore it if you don't agree with it, I say.
ReplyDeleteI think breaking out subsets of interests, as Jim does with breakout blog posts, is a good idea for organization's sake. I don't feel banished. Bravo, Jim.
@3:29
ReplyDeleteIt's exactly this kind of arrongant dismissal of locals that has fueled the crisis in newspapers.
When corporations took over and shipped in people from other places, a sense of history and context was lost. We got idiot children right out of college who only wanted to write about how boring the community was. We got editors who refused to live in the communities they supposedly covered.
And you wonder why no one wants to pay for a condescending, shallow publication?
There is honor in good community journalism and I resent the implication that it must be shady. Your corporate buddies are the evil doers.
I can't wait for all of you to get fired! Dickey is coming with the axe and he is coming after you!
ReplyDeleteEnjoy your furloughs! You job is next!
I hear period 2 ad results were another catastrophe, down from January and off 24 percent from last year.
ReplyDeletePoor Circ people.
ReplyDeleteI just heard that all the single copy sales people were let go last week. Outsourced to Iowa.
Way to go.
RGJ..A local paper produce in India, and sold by Iowans. The public has noticed the piss poor customer service. I supposed it will get even worse.
Anyone know about a report that Springfield moved people out of its online office (not the newsroom portion. Sales, I guess) and returned them to the regular sales staff? Not sure what they means. Maybe someone there can explain.
ReplyDeleteTo: 03/03/2009 9:59 AM
ReplyDeleteAre your sure you don't work in Westchester? You seem to know just what ails us. :-) Actually, that's not funny; it's sad.
Ketan Gandhi to the Rescue!!!
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of the RTC.
ReplyDeleteNow that Gannett has demonstrated how successful this is, shouldn't it be looked at as an outsourcing test?
I mean, now that the concept is proven, can't this work be done anywhere? India? Bangladesh? China? Let's really save some money.
2:38,
ReplyDeleteWould a malfunctioning fan be news at any other company for the Fremont paper?
If so, I feel sorry for your readers.
Sorry, that should have been: Would a malfunctioning fan at any other company be news... etc.
ReplyDeleteHey, 6:31:
ReplyDeleteGlad to see the publisher or one of the higher-ups associated with The News-Messenger in Fremont, Ohio, reads this blog. Hopefully, this blog will become a learning experience for you. Evacuation of employees after smoke filtered into the office building -- even after Gannett had basically "evacuated" it long ago via layoffs and firings -- certainly merits a police/fire column item. At least in this small town. But the publisher said such an item was a "no-no." That's the part that makes no sense to anyone in the building. And yes, you should feel sorry for our readers. They pay a premium price for an inferior product, all because of newsroom short-staffing.
Yes I bet that the Asbury Park Press would print that one.LOL-NOT!
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry Jim,but I got to say, how can Gannett write stories about other companies doing bad things to there employees and call it news?. What does Gannett call it when it happens in Ohio,or NJ.I guess its only news on the outside!
ReplyDeleteI disagree with an earlier blogger today who said that the NJ papers hate each other. That is not true at all. We are all in the same sinking boat and all that we have in common is our discontent about Gannett and the NJ group management because we're all (equally) viewed as dispensible and unimportant. Until recently, we all had one major horrible thing in common...Bob Collins, that nasty, pompous, selfish, arrogant, self-serving, miserable person who, thank the Lord, is long gone. Hopefully Collins is suffering greatly because of the dramatic fall in the value of Gannett stock. He's getting what he deserves.
ReplyDeleteLooks like somebody aspires to be Gannett ---
ReplyDeleteBy KATHY MATHESON
Associated Press Writer
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The Connecticut attorney general's office objected Wednesday to a plan by Journal Register Co. to pay its top executives up to $1.7 million in bonuses even as the newspaper publisher seeks Chapter 11 protection from creditors.
“We say that it illegally detracts from money owed to creditors like the state of Connecticut,” Attorney General Richard Blumenthal told The Associated Press.
Journal Register owes $21.5 million in corporate income tax as well as other unpaid taxes, including sales taxes, he said.
Giving out bonuses partly for helping the company lay off hundreds of employees and close publications would violate federal bankruptcy law and “add insult to injury” in the midst of the current economic crisis, Assistant Attorney General Denise Mondell wrote in a motion filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York.
The bonus plan would apply to 31 “key employees” who could receive an average of $15,700 each if 450 positions are cut by March 31, according to the company's motion for “incentive pay” filed with the court.
Further bonuses totaling about $1.2 million would be available if the employees met other goals including eliminating publications and reaching certain financial targets.
The proposal must still be approved by a judge.
Journal Register, owner of the New Haven (Conn.) Register and other newspapers in Connecticut, Pennsylvania and other states, already has sold two Connecticut dailies and closed several weeklies, including the Hershey (Pa.) Chronicle, although a full list was unavailable.
WIAA files lawsuit against Post-Crescent, Gannett, Wisconsin Newspaper Association
ReplyDeletehttp://www.postcrescent.com/article/20090304/APC0101/90304187/1979
Looks like Wisconsin is going to war.
For once I hope Gannett wins.
word: whomb
No, I'm in Maryland now. But even when I worked in a small market in Ohio, about the size of Fremont, we'd never have written a brief about evacuation caused by smoke, unless it affected a couple hundred people or shut down a road or something BIG. We were too busy chasing down real news instead of whining about our publisher not letting us write a brief about ourselves. Or do you guys write columns about the great vending-machine chicken salad sandwiches you had for lunch?
ReplyDeleteIs that WIAA lawsuit a first, or are there any pending in other states, anyone know?
ReplyDelete4:29 We only have one online sales rep now and she was moved from her position to work with the key accounts with their online. She is not allowed to work with the other sales reps. They have never hired another online sales rep since the other one left and then we also have an online person who works completely for Gannett.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. Wouldn't it be wonderful to take our years of experience and start from the ground up. Things will get worse before they get bettter — and people will still want the local news. I'm on your bandwagon!
ReplyDeleteRight now we are experienceing a staus quo of history where the giants of monopolies are going to collapse and we will all go back to privately owned newspapers in our major cities. Yes even if they look like "Pennysavers " in the begginning
Please enlighten us to the new skills you plan to take to your new place of employment. I have moved forward while still working for Gannett to learn new skills with a chance at a new career. I suggest you do the same and encourage others to do so, rather than putting people down for being scared and worried about their jobs. You are contributing to the problem. Please keep your negative comments to yourself. People on this blog need to be feel good about themselves and how they can change their lives.
ReplyDeleteWe're talking about an untrainable work force with few skills that takes pride in having few skills. The only place they can feel valuable is here.
Sorry, 8:47p, I think your position is among the many reasons newspapers are failing.
ReplyDeleteIn a town of 17k, a full fire department response to a commercial building alarm would have every fire truck and emergency vehicle responding.
That is a heck of a lot of sirens, traffic disruption etc.
When I worked in radio news in a town about that same size, we would report EVERY fire response within a few minutes.
It was not as much as what the alarm was as it was what it wasn't --- my house, my neighbor's house, my kid's school etc.
That's called information people NEED and in a smaller town it's called NEWS.
That doesn't mean it's front page or bylined story, but an explanation of what the sirens you heard were about, why a commercial building was evacuated, etc. is important.
It's called NEWS and used to be printed in the NEWSpaper
Just like the single mom that got evacuated from APP in NJ Her and her coworkers should be told the news.People are not stupid,they want to be informed.I thought that's what News Papers were there for information.If its only a small incident,it doesnt matter people are inquisitive and there is a need to know and a right to know.Take that away,and people don't see a need for a paper anymore,so sad.
ReplyDelete8:33: Kathy Matheson is a former APP reporter. Go NJ!
ReplyDelete3.35 pm do you even know what the hell you are talking about? Me at 3.29 was standing up for local papers ...........where the hell is your comprehensive skills? Go figure you are working for gannett!Doens't feel good to be attacked heh? Funny thing we are both on the same sides, dummy!
ReplyDeleteTo 10:13: Same thing was tried in Louisiana. Media outlets won that one.
ReplyDelete