Tuesday, March 05, 2013

March 4-10 | Your News & Comments: Part 2

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39 comments:

  1. 40% of Hamilton Co. (Ohio) Workers Live Elsewhere

    According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, it’s one of the highest percentage of commuters in the nation, except it left out the obvious: the city of Cincinnati – that county’s core, sits on a river bordering Northern Kentucky. Yet, not a word about that fact, or how many cross it...just numbers of Ohio counties, some at least twenty miles away from downtown.

    Yeah, people will pay for news like that. Not.

    Content may still be King, but in Cincinnati and too many other Gannett papers, the “King” increasingly abdicates its thrown.


    http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20130305/NEWS010801/303050020/40-Hamilton-Co-workers-live-elsewhere

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    1. To do that story without including Kentucky is just shoddy journalism. Where are the editors? Where is the constructive thinking? Is any editor vetting this stuff? Thousands cross the bridges every day heading to jobs in Ohio. All you need to do is check out the traffic during the day's two rush hours and see cars and trucks backed up on I75 and I471. Nice work Carolyn. You've really brought some great standards to the Queen City.

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    2. It is a pretty pathetic omission of material information when one considers the simple fact that all Buchanan and Washburn need do is look out their windows to easily see it.

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    3. What else do you expect when a front page story Sunday is a 100% reprint of a global warming story from USA Today and another story/pic of Michelle Obama exercising with kids. Part of the issue is that everyone outside of a 10 mile radius of downtown knows global warming is a farce and couldn't care less about the media's fascination with the Obamas. It's hard to sell papers when you ignore those with the very dollars that it takes to purchase the product.

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    4. Writing stories about a forest that ignores roughly half the trees in it, trees in full-view of even the Enquirer’s own windows well explains why so many consumers read it increasingly less.

      No doubt, those who commute back and forth across the Ohio River would agree even more and that’s unfortunate. Something a smaller format with more color will do little to help.

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  2. Cherry Hill making no sense. Again.

    This headline promises SUBSCRIBER EXCLUSIVES. I clicked (without logging in) to see what would happen.

    Subscriber exclusives: Haddon Heights blaze demonstrates need for dedicated volunteer firemen, access your e-Newspaper and more

    And it's a blank page ... not even information on how to become a subscriber to access these supposed exclusives. Just a headline, ads and more links.

    And even better: It counts as one of your free views for the month.

    THAT is a fantastic way to get users to just go away.

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    1. This isn't needed for readers to go away. They're going/gone because the product is so bad, period. Their web site looks like the amateur hour or a local high school freshman project.

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  3. To 3/4...8:20 PM .....Not so at Florida Today. Delivery here is still with IC carriers, home delivery and single copy. Our decline here was started years ago when someone decided to pick up a bunch of racks. Then the first price raise with content being cut. Then a second price raise with more content gone. Then, more and more USA Today appearing in the local paper. People want the local stuff, not USA.

    Sundays held their own until the price doubled while the competition only went to 2 dollars...ours at 3. Lately the've tried putting 2 dollars at some stores but hasn't helped much, if at all. Waited too long. Also lately, ads and coupons are coming up missing.

    Digital here isn't killing the paper. It's those who are making the decisions....shooting themselves in the foot, then looking around to see who's doing the shooting!

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    1. Well then I was mislead on this blog when I asked someone if Florida Today used private distributor for it's single copy with trucks owned by Florida Today. Other papers went away from that in 2006 Nashville let go of it's drivers , In 2008 reported over 100 drivers lost there jobs at the Asbury Park Press that Paper has been in decline since. Not saying lack of content or price hikes haven't hurt circulation. I am only saying that missed deliveries and late deliveries have increased since those changes were made. I am also not singling out Florida Today I was referring to Gannett and the industry in general. Customers and potential customers got fed up with going out to get their paper and it not being in the driveway, or near the door. They call up to get a replacement and get one late in the day, the next day, or not at all. They may receive a credit. That credit means very little to a person who is paying for a newspaper and wants it. I don't care what the content is, it does no good to a potential customer that doesn't receive a paper or can't find one to buy at a store, or rack.

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    2. Should read: If Florida Today used a private distributor for it's single copy or used company owned trucks driven by employees of Florida Today. I was told that they now use an outside distributor.

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    3. I guess "they" are partially right. There is a company that picks up from the plant but they deliver to the 2 remaining Distribution Centers. Florida Today at one time, did have their own trucks/drivers for DC deliveries, etc., but that stopped many years ago.

      The papers still get delivered by Independent HD and SC carriers.

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    4. 3:18 that is what I thought. It is the same way at almost all newspapers today. When they got rid of all their drivers and trucks at most of these papers decreases in circulation only declined faster as customers got frustrated by the decline in service. Independent contractors and outside distribution companies can't provide the same high quality service customers had known.

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  4. Effective 3/4 corporate canceled the contract held with the USA Today customer contact call center. Those calls are now handled by the Greenville and Louisville COEs.

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  5. GCI is up, up up! Thank you Gracia

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    1. Whole stock market is up today. Gannett goes ex dividend tomorrow. eExpect it to be down after that. Unless the company is throwing money away buying it's own shares at this level.

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    2. Oh pish posh, this is great news! Don't be upset over good news. Who on earth wouldn't want their company to be successful? Certainly no one here.

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    3. When the market collapses from Q1 negative growth(2nd quarter in a row means recession again}, lower same store sales numbers, and consumer confidence tanks due to higher unemployment and unaffordable gas, Gannett will fall as fast as the rest of them.

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    4. Let's hear it for Gracia and Maryam! Great work! We're climbing up faster and faster.

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    5. They had about as much to do with our stock increase as I had with the Treaty of Versailles.

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    6. Man,you know things are tough when this kind of response happens from a few cents gain on stock price! I sold mine four years ago at $19.50, wow what an increase! Just over a buck in four years.Kind of like Obama's economy.

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  6. You naysayers may be correct about the market, but right now, right here, it is all good. Go Gracia!!!!

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    1. Short-term thinking...that's what got you where you are - 'right here, right now' which is really nowhere when you pull open the hood and really look into the engine.

      But, sure, keep on squeezing. Smart people know there is nothing left. Wall Street is just taking what it can get and your great short-term thinking company is serving it all up on a buffet style silver platter for them.

      Let's see what the short-term looks like in Q3 and Q4 when there is no olympics and no politics to lean on. You should all sell now because the market will not be kind to the old guard traditional newspaer companies in the 2nd half of this year.

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  7. Clifford named executive editor at Montgomery Advertiser

    New EE at Montgomery, formerly at Florida Today and Clarion Ledger. Any thoughts on this appointment?

    http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2013303050014

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  8. 4:14 Thanks Maryam for stopping by.

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    1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  9. Did anyone see the pile of money Blue Balls wasted on an attempt at a media upfront in New York yesterday? Were the geniuses at Sports involved or did they sit this one out too? Maybe they have all jumped ship to go over to Fox and their attempt to compete with ESPN.

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    1. By all accounts the upfront was a huge success. Over 500 participants, the majority of whom were perspective advertisers. Sorry it was so successful. I know that hurts.

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    2. So happy to hear the free meal was not wasted. 'Perspective advertisers', let the ad revenues start flowing in! Congrats on the HUGE success.

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    3. Perspective advertisers mean nothing. If the quick-e-mart is busy, there are more perspective buyers. That doesn't mean they sell any more papers. Advertising runs the same.

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  10. I know this sounds insane, but can someone on a Gannett pension return to work at a Gannett property?

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    1. Why would the pension prevent that? So the answer is why not?

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  11. From a facebook posting.
    A story in this morning's Cincinnati Enquirer quoted the coroner as saying the Enquirer employee who killed another woman and herself driving the wrong way on Cross County Highway on Feb 9 was drunk. No mention of the fact that the wrong-way driver had attended a party earlier in the evening -- in the Enquirer newsroom -- at which there was alcohol. Not part of the story?

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    1. If the story linked below is the one you’re referring too, then any reference to the Enquirer having a party has been scrubbed.

      Deleting it - if it did, won’t keep it from eventually coming to light as it’s hard to believe Cox’s heirs won’t sue Travillian’s estate, let alone hold the Enquirer blameless if it contributed to her death in anyway.

      http://news.cincinnati.com/comments/article/20130305/NEWS01/303050079/Coroner-Driver-fatal-wrong-way-crash-drunk

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  12. Not part of the story, unless she was over-served there. (Unlikely.) However, a good question for Gannett bosses is editor Carolyn Washburn's judgement in her public push for an Enquirer-sponsored scholarship fund honoring the wrong-way driver. Not too sensitive to friends and family of the other dead woman, or to the community.

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    1. Should be part of the story because that is apparently where her night of drinking began. You are right about the scholarship. The woman blew nearly .3 which is nearly four times the legal limit, plus she had a cocktail mix of other drugs in her system. That is not very sensitive at all, but then that's Washburn who can't seem to get anything right.

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    2. If Washburn, Buchanan haven’t run the idea of pushing a scholarship through legal channels, then they should given the allegation that the Enquirer has some potentially troubling exposure in this tragic event.

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    3. Just what we don't need, more bad karma in Cincinnati.

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  13. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  14. So happy to hear the free meal was not wasted. 'Perspective advertisers', let the ad revenues start flowing in! Congrats on the HUGE success.

    Presswire

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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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