Thursday, February 28, 2013

Feb. 25-March 3 | Your News & Comments: Part 3

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46 comments:

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    1. Hey dude the company suck up that bullied the advertiser on Mondays post. He came back and identified himself. How about you fess up. Where are you from? Corporate or Gannett Local?

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    3. @6:51: The advertiser gave more identifying detail, the anonymous “company suck up” that bullied them - like YOU, remain anonymous which is highly comical given what you both demand.

      Moreover, in all seriousness, people would have to be fools to identify themselves in posts questioning their employer, especially at Gannett, as it’s well known for quashing dissent, challenges to it.

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    4. Liking 10:03's take. Gannett is huge on suppression. Nearly every meeting I went to where I raised some problematic issue was dismissed with "we'll discuss that later." Eventually I just stopped going to the meetings. Tellingly, although they were mandatory, no one said anything about my absence.

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    5. I was told at the meeting notifying me of my job loss by GPS that it was to be kept confidential. They didn't want the public to be aware of the changes that took place at the local paper. The public didn't find out until after it happened and by then the damage had already been done to service. The media in the area never reported on it as if they all agreed to keep it quiet.

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    6. Don't kid yourself. After years of job losses, nobody cares about one or two positions getting cut even if you shouted it naked from the top of city hall.

      Especially on the production side, one of the invisibles - not like you're canning a favorite writer.

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    7. It was more than one or two the production side more like thirty at my site alone and I am sure it wasn't the only site.

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  2. Aside from whatever problems NewsGate has, the one shining light is Stacey Martin's emails to let us know there is somebody, somewhere working on the issue, and there's a timeline to resolution. She communicates, and I hope she knows it's appreciated.

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    1. Nothing against Stacey, but she really has no choice but to share that information when the whole system's crashed, does she? I'm certain Gannett would insist on being secretive about Newsgate crashes if it could.

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    2. Not so much that - but how long do we have to hit refresh buttons when our email goes down, when do we ever hear a suggested downtime on the Wave2 crashes? At best we might get an eventual email saying those systems are up - well after word of mouth or experimentation has let us know.

      Stacey does a good job - just see the last note we got on today's planned downtime. Succinct, proactive, clear.

      I wish some of our corporate "A message from..." emails would be as useful.

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  3. I feel bad for her. Whoever is responsible for Newsgate and Presto should be forced to use the systems for three months. Then shown the door. Payne and Gelman seem like prime targets, but they are above it all and don't give a damn.

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    1. So were all the sites down for two hours? Newsgate was tops on my list of things I didn't miss about Gannett after getting laid off.

      And I agree about Stacey. It would be easy to bash her regarding the system, but she was good about keeping us informed.

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    2. I'm less interested in Stacey keeping us informed and more interested in her seeing to it the problems are fixed. Newsgate hasn't worked well since the inception, and the stress on the system from this new upgrade is the worst yet. Normally, after an upgrade there will be some bugs, and each day some of those are fixed. In this case, each day the system has worked worse than the day before. If there is a repeat of last night's follies tonight, heads should roll.

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    3. Louisville missed first edition by an hour and a half. Missed Indiana edition completely. It was combined with late metro, which was over an hour late to press.
      This with Indiana high school basketball tourneys in play.
      BUT, they got USAT out first 'cause those 18,000 papers are much more important than our local rag.
      Ran a very small apology bottom of P1, blaming computer programs.

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    4. That's why the community hates the C-J.

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    5. USAT has to be the first out of Louisville since golden boy Tony Simmons ditched the only USAT circulation DM in Kentucky that knew how to do anything. Without meeting his partnership deadlines, those 18,000 papers sit undelivered. He dug himself a hole anytime a situation like this happens. Now he has no single copy managers at all, the strong potential of no delivery during late trucks, and nobody to retrieve abandoned boxes, repair boxes, perform customer service, audits, or ensure delivery. A company like Gannett should have the 30-35K a year to keep positions like this. They could start by getting rid of big dollar salaries like Simmons and let the people who really do the work for Gannett keep their jobs.

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    6. Louisville GPS makes local news

      http://thevillevoice.com/2013/02/28/the-inside-scoop-on-your-late-newspapers/#respond

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  4. Breaking: Groupon (GRPN) down 30% after missing revenue forecast:
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-27/groupon-sales-miss-estimates-as-demand-wanes-for-daily-coupons.html
    Selling for $4.30/share, down from the IPO at $20.

    No word from Gracia on when the Friggin' Chicken spinoff will be announced.

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    1. Was wondering about how Deal Chicken is going. They have been quiet lately. Groupons margins are down I imagine the Chickens are too.

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    2. Deal Chicken sales reps have been jumping ship. Can't be good.

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  5. USA Today actually wrote a story about White House attacks on Bob Woodward for criticizing it.

    Now, that’s the type of balls readers want shown, though the story quickly went limp as it watered down and/or failed to cite facts Woodward used like Obama’s sequester authorship – an act he denied, his failure to deploy a Naval carrier group, etc.

    Regardless, it’s a start, one it needs to expand as too many sources fill in gaps that USA Today readers go elsewhere to fill. Obama’s “tumbling downward” phrase, one he used last night to backpedal on his failed “sky is falling” tactic to gin up anti-sequester support is another one USA Today has apparently yet to report. Too bad.


    http://www.usatoday.com/story/theoval/2013/02/28/obama-woodward-white-house/1953105/

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  6. I don't know if Stacey Martin is just the face behind CCI or the system performance issues truly fall on her shoulders, but someone's head needs to roll for the regular major system outages they've been unable to fix.

    Without fail, every time there's a program upgrade, there is a major shutdown just around the corner. Between Saturday night and Wednesday night, there were 2 major outages in the last 5 days that affected performance across the board.

    I work at a Design Studio, and they told one of our papers last night that they need to plan on limiting the amount of editing they do to stories to help with the system slowdown. If they are that completely out of touch with what this job is, God help us all ...

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    1. Evidently this operation is just as screwed up as it always has been. It was EXPECTED that any upgrade in systems would leave us dead in the water in the matter of hours. And these were "consolidation" measures. Laughable if not for the resulting stress. We'd have workstations on our intranet that suddenly could not see each other, certain tasks instead of being openly accessed suddenly at one or two desks, creating lots of delays. The best part was the department manager strolling through (a rare sight), invariably coming up to me though everyone else was idle (since I had the audacity to put my feet up and stretch my tendons to get some circulation back while we waited), and demanding to know "Why aren't you working!" Clueless. I'd reply. "The upgrade. I think there's still some coffee left." He'd waddle off back to his office.

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    2. If you have time to lean, you have time to clean.

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    3. If you have time to stretch your tendons, you have time not to get leg cramps. 12:29 here. This wasn't a matter of being lazy, although I am not surprised by that being the first assumption rather than conceiving of any valid possibility other than insinuating an employee to be some slovenly slacker by default. Typical. In fact, our work stations and work areas were quite orderly and we cleaned them daily. Jeesh.

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    4. When you say "we," I assume you mean "not you." You were busy relaxing.

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  7. Only 6% Rate News Media As Very Trustworthy.

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    1. The same survey showed only 10% even turn to newspapers for news.

      It's a hole some will never dig out, though those that stick to presenting all the facts, including limiting their "opinions" to editorial pages will continue to do far better.

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    2. Six percent of what? When? Source? Which?

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    3. It's a Rasmussen Poll 3:20 PM...link below.

      Of Likely U.S. Voters…
      56% rate news reported by media as at least somewhat trustworthy, but that includes just six percent who think it is Very Trustworthy.

      42% don’t trust the news media, with 12% who believe the news it reports is Not At All Trustworthy.

      Sources of News….
      56% TV (32% cable, 24% traditional newscasts)
      25% Internet
      10% NEWSPAPERS
      7% Radio
      3% White House/DNC Talking Points Memos (Sorry, couldn’t resist)

      http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/february_2013/only_6_rate_news_media_as_very_trustworthy

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    4. Professional journalists have no one but themselves to blame for the public's low regard.

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  8. Lansing State Journal buildling up for sale


    http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20130228/BUSINESS/302280026/LSJ-put-downtown-building-up-sale-seek-new-offices

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  9. Furloughs 2Q anyone know if there will be

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  10. http://cincinnati.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=46151910

    Well, this is nice. You can buy a reproduced front page of the announcement that Enquirer reporter Barry Horstman had collapsed and died in the newsroom (after a four-decade career). I'm sure Barry's family will appreciate the chance to purchase these pages (if they can afford them, that is)



    Reprints

    QTY Price Reprints Example
    $16.99 12x12 Glossy Print -- Tabloid Reprint
    $16.99 12x12 Matte Print -- Tabloid Reprint
    $18.99 12x12 Lustre Print -- Tabloid Reprint
    $19.99 13x22 Glossy Print -- Broadsheet Reprint
    $17.99 13x22 Matte Print -- Broadsheet Reprint
    $24.99 13x22 Lustre Print -- Broadsheet Reprint
    $44.99 Framed 13x22 Matte Finish Reprint

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    1. OMG What's next?

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    2. I cannot imagine anything tackier. The colleagues of Horstman, a wonderful journalist and human being, should be pissed and let their feelings be known to management. Should not be surprised with Wasburn and Buchanan running that place. Sad, sad, sad.

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    3. They offer a reprint of all pages in the paper, it's not like they are specifically offering or promoting that page.

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  11. Another day away from Gannett,yee haa!
    Now employed again and loving life again!My wife can't believe the difference.
    Don't wait for the layoffs !!!

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    1. I'm confused. I thought you left Gannett three years ago and started your own wildly successful business. So successful that you have enough time to post the same crap every day here. We're you lying to everyone the whole time?

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    2. So many people were laid off or wrongly let go that poster 8:22 could be one in a thousand, pal. Put your head back in the sand.

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    3. Don't know what you are talking about,but you must be one of those low self esteem,couldn't possibly work anyplace but Gannett,loyal to the end employees.
      So,please just keeping working away and hating your life and wondering when you will be unemployed.
      But it doesn't mean others are doing the same.

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    4. Not fooling anyone, 9:05/8:22. So you were lying the whole time. Good to know.

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    5. 9:01, you're obviously new to the blog. You'll figure it out soon enough.

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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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