Thursday, May 30, 2013

May 27-June 2 | Your News & Comments: Part 3

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36 comments:

  1. They are moving the desks around at my location again. Just wondering how that will increase revenue and improve quality of print. We don't have a sloppy looking office by any means in my opinion. Can anyone help me out with the ROI puzzle here?

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  2. Hmmm Dow is down, Google is down, Facebook is down, and GCI is up. I like that. I am happy! You happy?

    The Eternal Optomist

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  3. So with the new CEO at The Tennessean in Nashville, and the Departments that can be cut back or deleted totally Like the Tech services area with its Dead weight, Milking Gannett dry till retirement guy..Seems she had planned to get rid of just thees such wasteful people.. When will she open her eyes and see things like a Guy who work on phones and make's a nice pocket full monthly can simply contract it out like so much house cleaning and Maint..

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    2. Did that whole "move the desk" deal at my site. Over and over. Meantime every one, every one, is on the intra- and/or - Internet. Just just more pompous posturing to justify their position, the upper-level types. All it was. Proof in my allegation is how often it changed. We groaned. We wanted to have at least some faith that someone knew anything.

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  4. To those of you who work at a paper that made the switch to NewsGate3... does it EVER get easier? Does the stupid thing ever work right? Did it ever get to the point where something didn't go wrong every day?
    (Can you tell I'm fed up with this POS system?)

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    1. I'd like to say it gets easier, but I'd be lying. You get more used to the hinkyness of the system and learn how to do end runs around tasks that should take one step that now take 10, but that's about it.

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    2. The training was terrible, but it's actually quite a usable system if you have someone in your shop who can help tailor it to the specific needs and likes of your newsroom. There are some things it does very well and that save us a lot of time. Other things take more clicks than our super easy Mac system, but overall it does the job for content. Don't know anything about layout. But we had to spend some time figuring out good processes.

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

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  6. Furlough in Springfield, VA!

    Only high level managers are in furlough at Gannett Govt., Springfield, VA. Very hush, hush. Very few know about it. Will everybody else at GGMC have to take a week of furlough in 2013?

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  7. Cry baby?!?!?
    Listen buddy, this place ain't worth the salt in my tears anymore.

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  8. Don't care about Newsgate. It's all about posting videos. Stories and newsgate are so old school.

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  10. The Chicago Sun-Times laid off its photography staff today. Will rely on reporters and freelancers. Sign of the future for Gannett?

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  11. I came over to post the same thing Anon 11:58 a.m. posted earlier. This is beyond comprehension ...

    http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/05/30/187292393/chicago-sun-times-fires-its-photographers?ft=1&f=1001&sc=tw&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

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  12. Now that the dust has settled after the latest round of layoffs/buyouts at USA Today, what is the atmosphere like there? Do those who chose not to take the buyouts feel like they are on borrowed time? And how is all of these cutbacks in staff making USAT a more competitive product? Or is it?

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  13. Question: Is it OK for someone who is not one of the top editors to give input on your evaluation? Can they get anyone to do that?

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    1. Probably, so long as the person knows your work well, and is impartial. But it's been five years since I went through a performance review, so things may be different now.

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    2. Anyone with a legitimate question or concern about their performance reviews should direct them to their supervisor, or her/his superior, or HR.

      An employee who would post a serious employment question on an anonymous gossip site raises a red flag about an attitude problem or, at best, a lack of common sense.

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  14. Sun-Times management said:

    "Our audiences are consistently seeking more video content with their news. We have made great progress in meeting this demand and are focused on bolstering our reporting capabilities with video and other multimedia elements. The Chicago Sun-Times continues to evolve with our digitally savvy customers, and as a result, we have had to restructure the way we manage multimedia, including photography, across the network."

    Wow! Does the BS get any deeper than that?

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  15. Melinda Meers5/30/2013 7:25 PM

    Here is a wonderful story about the Des Moines newspapers by Michael Gartner. It's a reminder of what life used to be like in a newsroom.

    http://www.dmcityview.com/cover-story/2013/05/29/michael-gartners-memories-of-715-locust-street/

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    1. Yea back when there was no competition and you didn't care what readers wanted and you gave them what YOU wanted. As soon as they had a choice they said bye bye. Yep the good old days!

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  16. 7:04 p.m.: As the I-Phones move in, look for more and more photographers and their managers to be shipped out. It's that simple.

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  17. Who is the new Des Moines publisher?

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  18. The hold photo staff of the Sun-Times were let go

    http://gawker.com/sun-times-lays-off-its-photographers-on-slow-crawl-to-i-510490745

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    1. Posted more than 12 hours ago. It's no longer news the "hold" staff was let go.

      Try doing things in this order:

      (1) Read
      (2) Think
      (3) Post

      No need to do the third one before you do the first two.

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  19. Buffett and Co. owned 1.74M shares of Gannett as of their 3/31/13 filing, according to this story today:
    http://seekingalpha.com/article/1473411-less-known-buffett-and-munger-stock-holdings-part-1?source=yahoo

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  20. How stupid and low-brow has USA TODAY SPORTS become? The lead story on the SPORTS page is about Steve Nash of the Lakers "fighting" to keep his estranged wife and their three kids from moving closer to him in SoCal from Arizona?

    What's the point of this? Is it the National Enquirer? It's not even written by a staffer but picked up from Gannett's Arizona paper. Noticing more and more stories by AP and other papers; less and less from reporters since they have fewer and fewer writers but a never-changing class of mediocre, meddling editors.

    Stop trying to out-Deadspin and out-TMZ TMZ USA TODAY SPORTS. Not only do you stink at it, you're becoming a laughingstock. Gannett brought in the Beusse, Morgan & Co. and let them do anything to anybody. This is the end result Gannett. You got what you wanted Tiger. How does it taste?

    Oh, meanwhile, the people breaking their asses in SPORTS should forget about raises. That's going to pay the T&E bills of Will Leitch of Sports on Earth, who's traveling around America brown-nosing stars like a latter-day Rick Reilly. YOu can't make this crap up.

    Staffers at other USA TODAY sections take note. If they did it to the people who built SPORTS from nothing, they can do it to you.

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    1. You sound bitter. Sounds like you have a personal ax to grind.

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  21. Hey 2:19, I notice you don't disagree or argue with any of my points, just dismissed them.

    That's the standard PR spin for USA TODAY boot-lickers like you, isn't. Say they have a "personal" axe to grind.

    You can't argue anything positive because there's nothing to say. USA TODAY SPORTS is a sinking ship. Talent is fleeing, nobody wants to work there from the outside, everybody expects to be fired at any moment.

    The only ones safe are a few pet poodles like yourself who are guaranteed to arf when somebody tells the inconvenient truth on this blog.

    As for it being "personal," why shouldn't it be? Maybe you should ask ask the people that Beusse and Morgan drove out (for no reason other than they worked there before they came in) whether or not they took it personal.

    When their day comes, and yours, I bet you cry like a baby. You make me sick to my stomach with your ass-kissing.

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    1. You didn't present any facts or relevant points, aside from the bit about the article being the lead in Sports.

      The rest of your post was the standard bitching, mud-throwing, and accusations.

      You make me laugh with your whining and conspiracy theories. Keep on crying that you and your friends weren't chosen to stay.

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  22. It's true that USAT Sports is struggling. It hasn't sold a major sponsorship in its almost two years of existence other than its high school All-American program.

    Hence the round of layoffs two weeks ago.

    USAT Sports keeps throwing things at the wall - For The Win, Sports on Earth - hoping they stick, but they don't. The audience hasn't followed.

    Credit Morgan for hiring a talented team, but other than Bill Simmons and a few other big names, writers simply don't automatically bring an audience with them. Neither does breaking news.

    USA TODAY has broken some big stories under Morgan, but within five minutes ESPN has the same story. Then much better analysis within 30 minutes.

    That's why they're going for the TMZ approach. It's at least something slightly different than ESPN/Yahoo!, even if Deadspin does it better.

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