Broadcasting hires VP of business development

Corporate announced today that Joe Hurd has been named vice president of business development for the broadcasting division. Hurd comes from the 30,000-student web-based UniversityNow, where he was vice president of public policy and communications.

Hurd

Before UniversityNow, Hurd was senior director of trade policy and export promotion for the U.S. Department of Commerce in the Obama Administration. Hurd has also worked in senior business development and international sales/operations positions for AOL Time Warner, Friendster and VideoEgg, according to Corporate. In addition, he practiced corporate and securities law with the London-based Linklaters law firm. Hurd has been the managing partner of consulting firm Katama Group since 2003.

He has an impressive academic background, according to Corporate. Hurd has a bachelor of arts from Harvard, a masters in international affairs from Columbia, and a law degree, also from Harvard. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and board member of the American Swiss Foundation and Bullis Charter School.

Board elects HP exec Prophet as new member

Corporate said today the board of directors had elected Tony Prophet, chief of Hewlett-Packard's crucial $60 billion printer business, as its 10th member. Prophet, 54, replaces Arthur Harper, who retired in May. His election is effective tomorrow.

Prophet

The printer division is HP's biggest profit center, and Prophet has run it since 2006. Before HP, Prophet was senior vice president for operations at United Technologies' Carrier subsidiary, which had more than 30,000 employees.

In addition to bringing more technology expertise to the board, Prophet adds an intangible: He's African-American, as was Harper. Indeed, after Harper's retirement, the board appeared to have no racial minorities among its members. That was unusual, given Gannett's long-stated commitment to diversity in employment.

This appears to be Prophet's first corporate directorship. Last year, Corporate paid directors fees and benefits ranging from $108,820 (director Susan Ness) to $405,807 (John Louis). Those amounts were largely based on committee work and whether members chose to be paid in cash, stock, or a combination of the two.

Wilmington | McClatchy exec named publisher

Corporate just announced that it hired Susan Leath as publisher of The News Journal in Wilmington, Del. Leath has been publisher of McClatchy's Centre Daily Times in State College, Pa., since 2009.

Leath

She replaces Howard Griffin, who was promoted to vice president of national sales at Corporate in July. Ellen Leifeld, a long-time Gannett executive, had been interim publisher.

Based on circulation, Leath is making a big career leap. The Pennsylvania paper's weekday circulation is 17,802, and Sunday is 23,900. Wilmington's is 80,918 and Sunday's is 107,423, according to the March 31 AAM report. (Look up your circulation.)

Corporate being, well, Corporate, didn't provide Leath's age, and I don't see a story about her on the newspaper's website yet. She's at least 48 years old, according to this McClatchy press release.

[Updated at 6:24 p.m. ET.] Groan: The paper has now published a seven-paragraph story that fails Profile Writing 101. But we aren't surprised. This is, after all, the paper that kissed the ring of Delaware's royalty.

Earlier: The News Journal's transformative new content layers.

Louisville | Digital 'trailblazer' named top editor

[Updated at 6:31 p.m. ET.]  A new video at the top of the story shows Budde speaking to employees in the newsroom.

The Courier-Journal in Louisville just named Neil Budde, a former editor and reporter there, as the Kentucky paper's new top editor.

Budde (left) and Ivory

Budde, 57, replaces Bennie Ivory, who retired in July after 16 years leading the newsroom.

Budde has decades of experience in both print and online journalism, rising to be publisher of The Wall Street Journal Online after the site gained nearly 700,000 paid subscriptions, making it the largest paid subscription news site on the Internet, according to the C-J. Later, he was general manager and editor in chief of Yahoo News.

Budde left Dow Jones in 2002 to start a consulting business.

As executive editor, Budde will oversee the C-J’s print and digital news-gathering operations, the editorial page, as well as Gannett’s Louisville Design Studio, which designs and edits nearly two-dozen of the company's 80 other community dailies.

The C-J is one of Gannett's most-honored and biggest-circulating titles. It holds 10 Pulitzer Prizes, including two won after Gannett bought the paper from the Bingham family in 1986.

Weekday circulation is 131,208, and Sunday is 224,420, according to the March 31 AAM report. (Circulation database lookup.)

Remember when Gannett was big on diversity?

For decades, Gannett has been an industry leader in hiring more minorities, and showcasing diversity in its editorial content. Indeed, in the company's Annual Report to shareholders this year, Corporate wrote:

"A key initiative for the company is its leadership and diversity program that focuses on finding, developing and retaining the best and the brightest employees, as well as a diverse workforce that reflects the fabric of the communities Gannett serves."

But now more than ever, that role is threatened with the very recent departures of several high-profile editors -- plus the loss of the lone black member of the company's board of directors, leaving that powerful governing group looking whiter than ever.

Stovall

In Binghamton, N.Y., several readers tell me Executive Editor Calvin Stovall was among those exiting in a round of job cuts this week. (I've asked Stovall for a comment.) That followed the news African-American top editors in Shreveport, La., and Louisville, Ky., had also left their jobs. And their exits were preceded by that of the African-American editor in Montgomery, Ala., in January.

[Updated Sept. 19. In Binghamton, Neill Borowski replaced Stovall.]

In an e-mail yesterday, a reader told me: "It's become increasingly clear that Gannett's once-cherished values (namely diversity) have taken a back seat to the bottom line. That's fine, but let's hope these layoffs are met with a proportional dial down of Gannett's touting of its values."

Anything less would be hypocritical from a company where the 12 most senior executives look just as white as the board of directors.

In thousands of layoffs, what about age diversity?

Laid-off employees in 2011's The Company Men. (Watch the trailer.)

"By diversity, I mean not only racial, ethnic and gender diversity -- although that is vitally important -- but also diversity of thought, skill and ambition."

-- Craig Dubow, in his annual letter to shareholders for 2006, his first full year as CEO. At the end of that year, Gannett had nearly 50,000 employees. By the end of last year, total employment had plunged to less than 31,000 -- and it continues falling today.

Wisconsin | More layoffs reported today; GM is out

[Updated at 6:06 p.m. ET.] In a comment, a reader reports a total of 31 layoffs today across all 10 Wisconsin newspapers.

[Updated at 6:01 p.m. ET.] Another reader tells me there were seven layoffs in Green Bay.

My original post: A reader who told me about these layoffs said details were still scarce. The cuts were at Wisconsin's Green Bay Press-Gazette and the Appleton Post-Crescent.

At The Sheboygan Press, the general manager-executive editor, Nhia Yang, is leaving to become director of marketing at Lakeland College, the paper says. The Press' story does not say whether she will be replaced.

Louisville | Top editor Ivory retiring on Friday

Ivory

Bennie Ivory is one of Gannett's longest-serving editors at a single location, and one of its most-high profile minority newsroom chief executives. He's been editor of The Courier-Journal since 1997.

Ivory announced his retirement this morning, effective Friday. I'm not sure why he's giving such short notice, however.

The C-J is one of GCI's bigger dailies. Weekday circulation is 131,208, and Sunday is 224,420, according to the March 31 statement from the Alliance for Audited Media. (AAM circulation lookup database.)

In Belo deal, no 'swashbuckling' for these women

Martore, Shive, Magner, Harker and Nason

Gannett's acquisition of TV company Belo Corp. for $2.2 billion, including debt assumption, was a deal full of women, a rare occurrence in Corporate America and on Wall Street.

In a story today, The Wall Street Journal notes that CEO Gracia Martore’s counterpart at Belo was also a woman, Dunia Shive. So, too, were Martore’s fellow GCI leaders, Chairman Marjorie Magner and CFO Victoria Harker. Meanwhile, the media company turned to its long-time banker at J.P. Morgan, Jennifer Nason, global chairman of technology, media and telecom investment banking.

"There’s often a lot of swashbuckling in deals," Nason told the WSJ. "Here there was no nonsense, just a push to get it done, and do it right. We aren’t here to be masters of the universe."

Full slate of directors is re-elected to the board

In an outcome that was expected, Corporate said today that shareholders at the annual meeting this morning re-elected Chairman Marjorie Magner, CEO Gracia Martore, John Cody, Howard Elias, John Jeffry Louis, Scott McCune, Duncan McFarland, Susan Ness and Neal Shapiro. Each director receiving at least 96.6% of the votes cast, Corporate noted in a statement.

A year ago, the outcome was far different for McCune, who received only 67% of the vote. None of the other directors came close to losing that many votes, according to the tally.

Harper

Corporate previously disclosed that Arthur Harper, who may have been the board's lone minority member, had decided to not stand for re-election. No reason was given at the time, and it's unclear whether his seat will be left permanently vacant. (Photos of all the directors re-elected today.)

The directors were elected to serve one-year terms ending at Gannett's annual meeting in 2014.

Shareholders also approved, by 92.97% of the votes cast, an advisory resolution on the compensation of the company's named executive officers reported in the company's 2013 proxy statement. The so-called say-on-pay vote is a non-binding annual vote on executive compensation.

In its election outcome statement a year ago, Corporate had not provided percentages on the tally.

Montgomery | Martin is out; LaFuria is interim pub

Martin

Sam Martin had been publisher of The Montgomery Advertiser for three years, coming to the Alabama daily from The Boston Globe. Replacing him on an interim basis: Scott LaFuria, controller for the Advertiser and the Tallahassee Democrat, the paper said today in announcing Martin's departure.

It's worth noting that Martin was among a relative handful of minority publishers. And his exit follows that of another senior minority executive: Wanda Lloyd, who was the Advertiser's executive editor before retiring early this year.

Earlier: A less-diverse Gannett board of directors with Harper's retirement.

As director Harper exits, a less diverse board

After seven tumultuous years for Gannett, Arthur Harper is leaving the 10-member board of directors, effective with the annual shareholders’ meeting in May.

Harper

Corporate quietly disclosed his planned retirement last month, without giving a reason or saying whether he will be replaced. Harper, who is African-American, may well be Gannett's lone minority director at a time when corporate boards everywhere are pressed to diversify even more.

In a departure from recent practice, Corporate didn’t announce his retirement with a formal press release, as it did for Donna Shalala and Karen Hastie Williams, long-time directors who retired two years ago.

Instead, it reported Harper’s departure solely through a more under-the-radar 8-K filing on Feb. 26 to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Word for word, it says:

“On February 25, 2013, Arthur H. Harper informed the Board of Directors of Gannett Co., Inc. (the “Company”) that he plans to retire from the Company's Board of Directors at the end of his current term and will not stand for re-election at the Company's 2013 Annual Meeting. Mr. Harper has served as a Gannett director since March 2006 and we are grateful for his dedication to Gannett and its shareholders.”

I can only remember one other time when Corporate disclosed the departure of a senior officer in an 8-K, without an accompanying press release. That was in 2010, when Chief Digital Officer Chris Saridakis quit the company, frustrated with top management. It was not a happy parting.

Why his exit matters
The departure of any director is significant, because the board governs the entire company and its 31,000 employees. Directors hire the CEO and review the appointments of other executives, including the chief financial officer. They sign off on the strategic plan, and major decisions such the stock dividend policy.

They serve one-year terms and run for re-election at the spring annual meeting. Directors are paid an annual retainer plus other fees that generally bring their compensation into the lower six figures. Last year, Harper got $123,521 -- not especially high for a corporate director nationwide. (Table shows fees paid last year to all directors.)

Gannett provided many more details when Shalala and Williams retired in spring 2011. Shalala was 70, the mandatory retirement age, Corporate said in a press release at the time, and Williams, then 66, planned to “devote more time to her personal and other professional interests."

Harper, 57, is managing partner of GenNx360 Capital Partners, a private equity firm focused on business-to-business companies. Previously, he was president and CEO of General Electric’s Equipment Services division from 2001 to 2005.

He also is on the board of agricultural products giant Monsanto, where he was re-elected to another term on Jan. 31, indicating he's not leaving Corporate America entirely.

Cody elected immediately
The 8-K doesn’t say whether Harper's being replaced. In the Shalala and Williams press release, Corporate simultaneously announced John Cody had been elected to fill one of their seats. By that fall 2011, there would be two more new directors: Susan Ness and Gracia Martore, elected after she was promoted to CEO when Craig Dubow retired as chief executive and board chairman.

Williams

Williams is African-American. With her retirement, Harper looks like Gannett’s sole minority director. I’m basing that on the photographs accompanying the current directors’ bios -- a method that’s not foolproof. GCI doesn’t disclose the racial or ethnic background of individual directors.

There will be pressure inside and outside to replace Harper with another minority member, possibly before the May 7 annual meeting, amid fierce competition for qualified candidates.

For years, Corporate has made employment diversity a top goal -- including in the make-up of the board, where the Nominating and Public Responsibility Committee is responsible for finding new directors. Indeed, last week’s new proxy report to shareholders says Gannett’s charter “encourages the committee to work to maintain a board that reflects the diversity of the communities we serve.”

Harper, in addition to serving on the executive compensation committee, is chair of the Nominating and Public Responsibility Committee.

Boards mostly white
Across Corporate America, the average board has nine members, and they're overwhelmingly white. Last year, about 28% of boards of public companies had one racially or ethnically diverse director, according to a survey by the National Association of Corporate Directors. And only 13% had two.

Director searches are clubby affairs, the NACD said in a report last fall, relying on personal networking and word of mouth: "This strategy of recruiting within networks, while protecting the board from exposure to unfamiliar and seemingly riskier directors, has led to the unintentional exclusion of many viable director candidates. In short, corporate boards have failed to change with the times."

A review of Gannett’s directors going back to 1998 shows there have always been at least two minority board members. In several years, there were three, including in 2003, when there were only nine members overall.

Amid competition for candidates, some minority directors are stretched thin. At one point, Williams -- a GCI director since 1997 -- simultaneously sat on four other boards: Chubb Corp., Continental Airlines, SunTrust Banks, and WGL Holdings, the parent company of Washington Gas Light Co.

As Gannett's board has grown less diverse in recent years, so too has top management. Consider the 12 members of the Leadership Team led by Martore.

Home addresses revealed
Harper is leaving just as Gannett regains financial footing. But he’s also leaving after the directors received unusual and worrisome public scrutiny.

In early January, nearly two months before Harper’s retirement was disclosed, a website favoring gun ownership published what it claimed were the home addresses of all the board members, including Harper and Martore. The information was soon repeated on other websites -- all in retaliation for The Journal News’ publishing the names and addresses of handgun permit holders in Westchester and Rockland counties in suburban New York City.

The newspaper's handgun permit database, published online in December, ignited a national debate on press freedom and privacy rights.

But it came at a cost. Amid threats to employees' safety, the paper hired armed guards to protect the homes of its publisher and others. One month later, still facing withering criticism, the paper removed the database from its site.

How many minorities are on the board of directors?

Review these photos and bios of Gannett's 10-person board of directors and tell me the answer. I'm trying to unravel a minor mystery about changes underway to the board.

By the numbers | Freedom Forum diversity cuts

The financially troubled Freedom Forum foundation has canceled its Crazy Horse Journalism Workshop, an annual event meant to encourage Native Americans to enter journalism. Jack Marsh, president of the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute, told the Argus Leader in Sioux Falls, S.D.: "The responsible thing to do was not to proceed since we couldn’t balance our budget."

He continued: "Fundraising is a challenge, and it’s a fairly expensive workshop to put on because we covered all the expenses for the students and most of their teachers who serve as chaperones. We looked at ways we could reduce our costs, which we had planned to do, but we just couldn’t raise enough money to cover the full costs."

The Washington-based non-profit is the original Gannett Foundation. Budget woes have grown dramatically as spending surged in recent years for its Newseum, a museum about news history that recently laid off staff again.

Key numbers on spending for the Crazy Horse workshop, and on Freedom Forum executive compensation in 2011, the most recent year available:

$35,000

total cost for workshop

$525,000

wages and benefits for foundation founder Al Neuharth

$1.6 million

wages and benefits for foundation CEO James Duff

USAT | Ex-AOL executive named general manager; challenges include flagging advertising, circulation

USA Today disclosed today that it hired a former AOL Huffington Post Media Group executive, Derek Murphy, as general manager in charge of day-to-day operations. Murphy, who was GM of multicultural media at AOL, replaces Susie Ellwood, who resigned three months ago to become publisher of Cox Media's Austin American-Statesman.

Murphy

Murphy reports to Larry Kramer, who has been publisher of Gannett's best-known brand since May. USAT did not provide his age in its announcement or in a story on its website about his appointment.

USAT was vague about Murphy's specific responsibilities. Kramer was quoted as saying that his "role will be to manage the transition of USA Today to a digital-first enterprise. He will lead a dynamic senior leadership team to grow the USA Today brand."

Even before Kramer's arrival, however, several of USAT's traditional key functions were spun off to other Gannett executives or divisions -- including advertising sales and marketing, which are managed by Chief Marketing Officer Maryam Banikarim's office, and production and circulation, which are now part of Gannett Publishing Services. That leaves a relatively diminished portfolio anchored by editorial for Murphy and Kramer to manage in the struggling paper's current turnaround.

Advertising, circulation fall
USAT faces challenges on several fronts, starting with advertising revenue. Gannett's national advertising sales, which are a proxy for USAT's financial health, continue to decline, albeit at a smaller rate. In the fourth quarter, national ad revenue fell 6.4%, GCI disclosed last week. While that includes the entire company, USAT accounts for a disproportionate share.

The trend is improving. National fell 7.6% in the third quarter; 18.2% in the second quarter, as Kramer was coming on, and 14.5% in the first quarter.

Circulation is another weak spot. USAT's circulation fell 3.9% to 1.7 million during the six months ended Sept. 30, a period when its two national rivals reported gains. The New York Times' soared 40%, to 1.6 million, on the strength of digital subscriptions instituted with a paywall. The Wall Street Journal's jumped 9.4% to 2.3 million, also due to digital subscriptions.

Lone among Gannett's dailies, USAT does not charge for digital access, and it has not publicly disclosed any plans to do so. In September, the paper redesigned its website, digital and print editions.

A top minority exec
Murphy's educational background is unusual for a publishing executive, especially in newspapering: He holds a bachelor of science degree in engineering and management from Tufts University, according to today's announcement. It's unclear which type of engineering Murphy studied, however.

Murphy is African-American, and his appointment immediately makes him one of Gannett's highest-level minority executives when the company's management ranks have been growing less diverse at the most senior levels. Historically, GCI has led the newspaper industry in workforce diversity efforts.

At AOL, he led the "overall strategy, audience development, operational and business performance for the launch and management of several new multicultural websites and related content and advertising partnerships," today's announcement says. "Murphy joined Huffington Post in 2009 as senior vice president, business development, where he was responsible for structuring strategic partnerships to scale the business and deliver material growth in content offerings, brand presence, audience engagement and revenues."

Before that, he was vice president, business development and operations for CNN News Group, where he developed strategic content syndication, marketing and distribution partnerships for CNN digital and select CNN television network properties.

Big Al: two other women who could have run GCI

Neuharth

In his weekly USA Today column this morning, retired Chairman and CEO Al Neuharth identifies those two women, as he describes how Gannett's first female chief executive, Gracia Martore, "wowed" shareholders at Tuesday's annual meeting.

Earlier: How Neuharth's mother, Christina, shaped the company that became today's Gannett.

Survey finds another drop in minority staffing

Minorities accounted for 12.32% of U.S. newsroom employment, according to new figures in the annual survey by the American Society of News Editors. That's down from 12.79% in 2011, and is the fourth consecutive year of declines.

Overall newsroom employment fell also: to 40,600 vs. 41,600 in 2011.

Many Gannett newspapers participated in the survey, according to a table of individual responses by organization on this page.

Corporate recently said in a memo that it employs more than 5,000 journalists in its newsrooms. But I find that figure very hard to believe. The last time I saw a number on newsroom employment was as of December 2001, when the company said it had 5,614 journalists. Since 2001, GCI's overall employment has been cut 40%, to 31,000. If the figure in this memo is correct, this means newsroom employment has fallen only 11% during the same period.

Methodology
The newsroom employment census is based on a yearly response rate of 65%, according to ASNE.

"The data from newspapers that returned the survey are used to project the numbers for nonresponding newspapers in the same circulation range," the trade group says. "An ASNE follow-up test of nonresponding newspapers found their employment of minorities closely resembles newspapers in their circulation categories that respond to the survey."

In slain teen's case, long road to national attention

From a New York Times story this morning about the Feb. 26 shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla.: 

Martin

Notably, many of the national media figures who initially devoted time to the shooting are black, which some journalists and advocacy groups say attests to the need for diversity in newsrooms. The racial and ethnic makeup of newsrooms, where minorities tend to be underrepresented relative to the general population, has long been a source of tension for the news industry.

Cincy | A story that grows even more incredible

[Restaurant owner Rogers, in the original Feb. 11 Enquirer story]

Here's the headline I wrote in mid-February over my post about a Cincinnati Enquirer puff piece that's now left the Ohio newspaper embarrassed: "An incredible list of professional women."

As in, lacking credibility, because the "20 Professional Women to Watch in 2012" included no less than Carolyn Washburn herself, the Enquirer's top editor. The online story -- in the form of a photo gallery -- didn't say how the women were picked, creating the impression it was an arbitrary list built by a possibly overworked newsroom staffer with a diversity-in-news box that needed to be checkmarked.

Many of you now know this story's latest, miserable twist: The paper has effectively acknowledged that it didn't (apparently) dig very deep into the subjects' backgrounds. No. 14 on the list, restaurateur Liz Rogers, surrendered today to Butler County law enforcement authorities on a year-old arrest warrant for failing to attend a hearing over a $3,000 debt she owed to another business.

The case has brought widespread attention because Rogers, 42, recently got a taxpayer-funded grant and loan totaling $984,000 to open a second restaurant.

The original feature remains online. As I post this, it hasn't been updated to reflect Rogers' recent travails. Perhaps this has already been done: If I were woman No. 20, I'd make sure the rest of the women were run through a deeper background check to avoid any further embarrassment.

Today, the Enquirer illustrated its initial account with the same Rogers photo used for the original Professional Women to Watch story. But it doesn't directly mention her previous appearance in the paper.

However, a careful reading of the accompanying very jumbled cutline -- which has just been removed -- offers a hint:

"Women to Watch Liz Rogers Metro Friday February 3, 2012: Elizabeth Ò Liz Ò Rogers (cq) of West Chester at her MahoganyÕ s Bar and Grill restaurant Friday February 3, 2012 in Hamilton, Ohio. The Enquirer/ Joseph Fuqua II / Joseph Fuqua II/The Cincinnati Enquirer."

Oy. This story is just plain jinxed.

Earlier: A conservative lawmaker, an alleged stripper -- and an Enquirer story that got away.

Poughkeepsie | Attn: all journalists, dying for a job

Are you an aspiring reporter who wants to work the graveyard shift -- perhaps to the point where you'll need a grave yourself?

Well, the Poughkeepsie Journal has a job for you! Here's the posting's description:

"The overnight reporter provides content for all platforms with a focus on keeping www.PoughkeepsieJournal.com and its social media outlets fresh with the latest news and related multimedia content, tailored for use on each platform. This 'digital-first' mantra means consistently and effectively breaking stories, updating them, shooting video, using other multimedia tools, etc. It also includes producing watchdog, enterprise, narrative storytelling and conceptualizing digital offerings -- with a key emphasis on serving morning commuters with a complete diet of need-to-know information. This reporter must have deep knowledge of our key audiences and the region’s demographics as well as the ability to work independently. The reporter, who is non-exempt, works 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. Sunday through Thursday and reports to the Local Desk."

Isn't No. 10 obvious?
Whew! Just contemplating the following job requirements leaves me exhausted.

1. Writes breaking-news stories with an emphasis on online, keeping the website fresh with local and regional news.
2. Uses "impact voices" from “real people" in all stories to convey how news affects our readers.
3. Ensures a complete report for early-rising commuters by updating breaking information via the proper platform.
4. Checks in with law enforcement, transportation officials and other key overnight sources to ensure updates are frequent and timely.   
5. Spins ahead print stories for the web as needed while monitoring the wires for potential web updates and localizations, ensuring the carousels are freshened each hour at a minimum.
6. Shoots video, updates social media and ensures content is tailored to audiences on each platform in the format that is preferred by readers/users.  
7. Writes off-the-news enterprise pieces, analysis, features and profiles, using narrative storytelling frequently.
8. Ensures that high standards for accuracy, fairness, writing, ethical and legal issues are met.
9. Ensures stories are mainstreamed and diverse so they reflect the mid-Hudson Valley’s demographics.
10. Reads the Poughkeepsie Journal and poughkeepsiejournal.com every day and stays abreast of regional, state, national and international events.

[Image: Brenda Starr]