Monday, March 12, 2012

March 12-18 | Your News & Comments: Part 1

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30 comments:

  1. Tom Callinan3/12/2012 2:08 AM

    Jim: I have moved on from 30+ years with Gannett and journalism in general to a new life. I do check your blog and appreciate your work. You rightly hold top executives accountable for their decisions - and compensation. But I have been troubled reading attacks on one employee, social media's Jodie Gersh for her trip to SXSW. In my experience she has been a pioneer and leader to help us understand and embrace the new digital world. People like that need to be at places like SXSW. If they would not be, how relevant would this company be going forward? Just wanted to weigh in on that...now will return to my post-Gannett (blissful) life. TC

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  2. Tom (if it's really you):

    It's a big mistake to post here with your name. You'll see why in the next few hours.

    Don't give credibility to Jim or the leering horde here. As much as they think they are somehow doing good, they always manage to offset any speck of progress with the mud-slinging that you are about to experience.

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  3. I agree with Tom that Gannett needs pioneers. I think it just hurts when so many have lost their job, furloughs ate at their income, little or no raises, a culture of fear. Jodi is just a person to attack because it appears she is still having fun and Gannett is possibly paying for some of it. It is not her fault but the sad thing is Jodi is just Gannett window dressing to make the Upper management feel they are part of the digital age. If she is smart she will get out and go to a real innovative company. But let's not be haters.

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  4. Any word on how many are accepting their EROP offers at your site?

    For those of you that got offers, has your manager had a "mid-point" meeting with you to see if you have any questions about the offer?

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  5. This is what I'm talking about!

    http://finance.yahoo.com/news/usa-today-sports-media-group-131600753.html

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  6. The Cincinnati Enquirer seems to have no further use for editorials. Yesterday it forsook the cover of its Sunday Opinion section in favor of the first installment of a suburban profile series that would be more appropriate in the Home and Garden section. The first installment reads as if it were written by the suburb's city manager herself. ("In Wyoming, it seems, the homes are a little bit bigger; the students are a little bit smarter and now even the water tastes better." Aaaagh! The writer, freshly imported from Phoenix, forgot to mention that the men are stronger and the women are better looking. He goes on, "It is a gorgeous community. The lawns are lovely, the hills are rolling and many houses are historic." Noooooo!) The Sunday editorial section is a newspaper best vehicle to lead the discussion on matters of high public concern. The Enquirer's lone editorial writer must have been on furlough. Instead of two or three editorials, the Enquirer solicits four "guest columns" from community leaders on the subject of child abuse. I guess since the Enquirer no longer edits and lays out its content and is about to farm out printing to Columbus, it's going to outsource its editorial function to the public. Among big-city newspapers, the Enquirer is a leader in this abdication of function.

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  7. Got to love bringing in a write from Phoenix to profile a community like Wyoming which is a wealthy, fairly complex place and having wax like that. Pretty sad. Should have put someone who knows the area.
    And seriously, the Enquirer stopped paying any attention to its editorial pages when the above mentioned Tom Callinan retired. Everything done there now is done for expediency.

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  8. What was the top editor meeting Saturday morning in Appleton about?

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  9. It was about an hour.

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  10. hey 721, apparently the only 'LEERING HORDER' is you. Its been almost 12 hours and nobody has made a negative comment,except you ofcourse!

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  11. Why did Maryam Banikarim pay for a consultant to "teach her staff" how to use social media when Jodi Gersh could have done it with a single day of instruction and no cost to the company whatsoever.

    This company finds more ways to waste money.

    Gracia, might want to instruct your execs how to use inside resources.

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  12. Re. the Cincinnati Enquirer community profiles series: Looks like recent Phoenix transplants Laura Trujillo and her husband, writer John Faherty are looking for a house in Cincinnati.

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  13. Appleton probably discovered that between buyouts and "I quits", they don't have enough folks to put out a paper/website unless they only cover events that occur in the parking lot across the street or do features on the AT & T workers who stand outside their building no matter what the weather to smoke their cigarettes.

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  14. In a previous thread somebody mentioned no annual raises. I'm at Florida Today and actually received a 4.9 percent increase last week.

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  15. From yesterdays Blog question, Who is Travis Komidar. He is the new GM of the Rochester Printing facility. He came from Lafayette In. Was in charge of putting in the first berliner Press in the US. Very share guy, knows his stuff.

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  16. Pesky managers and their pets here will never learn to leave good workers alone. The Gannett method of management is to drive out the best workers. I put in a good days work for low wages and still they need to complain and nit pick about small things that are inconsequential to the well being of the paper.

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  17. I'm out of the loop. Who quit in Appleton?

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  18. 4:45 p.m. - One of the news side pagination/copy editor folks last week.

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  19. In a web story on LoHud.com about Iona College's men's basketball making the NCAA tourney, the Journal News ran a file photo with the story of Iona Prep, which is a high school team, Yikes!

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  20. GANNETT-- WHAT A JOKE!!!HA HA
    Life is too short to work THERE!

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  21. Gannett had a sizable appetite for its own stock at more than $40 a share and almost none at around $10 a share. Whether this was a prudent way to save cash as it looked like the economy was about to implode, or a classic example of buying high and panicking low, is up for debate. In general, it doesn't appear management has been the most astute buyer of its own stock.

    http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/03/12/what-gannett-does-with-its-cash/

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  22. Absolutely agree with 11:58 AM and 12:05 PM’s observations…

    The Cincinnati Enquirer’s increasing failure to publish its own opinion piece/s, especially on Sunday, is pathetic for a newspaper of its scale (one of Gannett’s largest).

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  23. This may have already been posted. Robin Pence is now with Choice Hotels as VP of Public Relations .

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    Replies
    1. Did she get canned from gci?

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  24. TC: Most of us embrace digital as another form of journalism. If it keeps GCI alive while I'm still here in Cincy that's OK too. It's just a shame that your successor doesn't get the low morale on her staff and if she does, it's pretty clear she doesn't care. With talk of making us all reapply for our jobs to keep them, why shouldn't we question GCI's spending on beer bashes and tweets? You once told many of us that the furloughs that hit us so hard in the wallet were just another time for you to go to Paris. Obviously you don't have a clue about a lot of things.

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  25. Looking through the classifieds at our site it is encouraging to see more and more jobs being posted. You would not believe how many people at my site are actively looking for jobs! There's starting to be some hope, people - keep those heads up!

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  26. So when are the next round of layoffs coming, after April 3?

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  27. Do any of the Gannett papers still have a real estate section ?

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    Replies
    1. Fort Myers prints Homefinder on Sat and Real Estate on Sun.

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  28. Here's a comment to Gannett top brass: Dig into those deep pockets and buy some GCI stock with your own cash. Sure, you have lots of GCI. But none you paid for yourself. You think the company will become a growth company? Put your money where your mouth is.

    A few directors have done just that. Martore? Nope. Hunke? Nope. Banikarim? Nope. Beusse? Nope.

    Come on, big shots! You're being paid lots of money. Time to eat your own cooking.

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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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