Friday, September 02, 2011

Aug. 29-Sept. 4 | Your News & Comments: Part 5

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29 comments:

  1. why is it that the ignorant lead and the knowledgeable follow? shouldn't it be the other way around?

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  2. Can someone please give me a link to the Federal wage laws. I called my state labor department about Gannett's unethical practices concerning overtime and they told me to contact a federal office. I would like to get a copy of the overtime laws to hand to my supervisor when I am told they cannot pay me overtime and I have to falsify my time sheet.

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  3. Here, let me google that for you:

    http://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime_pay.htm

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  4. Things are looking up at USA Today. Stay classy, Tysons.

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  5. Really? Is that why the dismantling of the verticals has begun?

    Word is that Vertical sales people are being moved to advertising instead of being kept aligned with the verticals themselves.

    Confusing but long overdue

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  6. 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 abusive posters, and recommend you do, too.

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  7. @ 3:50 and 3:59 (9/1) Gannett sold its 1/2 million + cable subscribers to Cox back in 1999 for $2.7 billion:

    http://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/28/business/cox-is-in-deal-with-gannett-for-cable-tv-subscribers.html

    I believe that may have provided some of the cash to complete the Newsquest deal.

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  8. I don't know if the dismantling post has any truth to it, but doesn't a vertical by definition have to have a sales staff so that it can "go deep"?

    I'll admit that I'm not quite sure what "go deep" means. However, we sure heard that phrase a lot every time we tried to pin them down on what exactly a vertical is and why it's different from regular news.

    Apparently a vertical has no qualms about blurred lines with marketing and advertising and in fact is set up for just that. Unless I'm not understanding this correctly.

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  9. Damn! 12:50 PM is on to us!

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  10. The only way things could look up at USAT is the firing of Hillkirk, Czarniak, Teeuven, Stephens, Ullman, the entire AOL mafia that oversees verticals and Hunke. Oh, and getting rid of incompetents on the business side and ad teams. Is that too much to ask?

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  11. Motiff, Rudd (i dont inhale) Davis and others can certainly be added to that list, IMHO.

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  12. Don't forget Susan Weiss! Though she has been so marginalized, it's easy to leave her off the list of USA Today's worst managers. Those of us in Life have suffered her aristocratic indifference so long it would still be nice to see her removed with the rest of the so called leaders who have wrecked this newspaper.

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  13. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. employment growth ground to a halt in August, reviving recession fears and piling pressure on both President Barack Obama and the Federal Reserve to provide more stimulus to aid the frail economy.
    And you think folks will rush out to buy newspapers???

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  16. Heard there was a shake-up this week in USAT Sports. Heard there were hirings, too. Anyone know the details?

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  18. To follow up on a comment I read about the digital specialists team. What purpose do they serve? Shouldn't every sales rep be savvy in our digital world?

    Turn digital people into regular sale reps instead of having double dipping all over the place. That would help our financial issues.

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  19. Criticizing Susan Weiss? That's crackers. She built LIFE hire-by-hire into a section that won awards and challenged other lifestyle sections back when NEWS was cheering Jack Kelly and quaking under Hal. Do you really think she has been happy to see all those people walking? If you want to tell Weiss a problem, walk into her office in the morning or evening, and she'll hear you out and then tell you straight if she can do anything about it, or not. Just like she always has. Would you rather a ME who pops up at 6:05 pm with a bunch of inane questions and clueless demands on your copy? It's not because of her or the other editors that Gannett has turned USAT into a shell of a paper just like all its other properties. And it's hunke et al hiring AOL rejects instead of new reporters (what, 2 new ones vs. the dozen gone last few months), not the editors. Try to think straight, just for the novelty.

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  25. Folks at USAT:

    Many of you -- perhaps all -- will disagree with my decision to remove most of the Susan Weiss-related comments that had been posted in this thread late this evening. But it was overkill.

    I've tried to leave behind a few representative ones. Beyond these, I hope you will agree this discussion would be better continued around a real water cooler.

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  26. I didn't see the deleted comments, but I agree: There's no purpose served in tearing down Susan Weiss. As one poster pointed out, she did build up the Life section, and while arguably her attitude was one of benign neglect, she did get out of our way and let us do our jobs.

    What is revealing about this animosity is that no one cared one way or the other about Susan's perceived disengagement when things were going well. Now that things have been shot to hell, thanks to Hunke's Horrific Transformation, the knives are coming out.

    Sheath them, folks, and just keep bailing. Susan can't do anything to help us or hinder us at this point. A belated mutiny isn't going to save us: We're doomed to hit the rocks, with almost no hope of course correction.

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  27. Why is there such little criticism of other editors ? Certainly, they do far more damage with the head in the sand approach.

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  28. People look to the blog for the water cooler talk, Jim. Everyone is too scared to have an honest discussion about inept managers at the office. I understand your consideration to remove the overkill comments, but again, they are selective. They weren't offensive, didnt involve name calling and I've seen you leave far worse up regarding other managers. You would do everyone a favor to encourage open discussion here, while keeping standards about offensive language and bashing each other with name calling in place. Thank you.

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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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