Hattiesburg | After 70 years, reader says goodbye

In an e-mail yesterday, Hattiesburg American reader Milton Waldoff told me the following:

This morning (Sunday, July 24, 2011) I did not get my local Sunday morning newspaper, the Hattiesburg American. This happens so very frequently, I'm on a first name basis with the Circulation Department -- so frequently that, earlier this week, I e-mailed the General Manager and was told delivery of the American is "contracted out!"

Her statement, as copied and pasted:

"Thanks so much for taking the time to email me with your concerns about the Hattiesburg American’s delivery. As General Manager, I am ultimately responsible for all operations here at the newspaper. I agree 100% that our delivery service is not what it should be. About three years ago, the Hattiesburg American made the decision to contract out the delivery of the newspaper. We now have contracts with three delivery Agents responsible for the delivery of the Hattiesburg American, The Clarion Ledger and the USA Today. This decision has been beneficial in many ways but has made it much harder for me to manage the delivery process. Please know that I am working diligently to improve our service."

Like thousands of other locals, I have elected to not renew my subscription when it expires in eight or so weeks. Being a life-long resident of Hattiesburg, Miss., I have read the paper all my life. As a child in the 1930's we -- my older sister and younger brother -- were required to read the American and be able to discuss items published in the American over dinner. My father came to Hattiesburg in 1924, my mother in 1925. They insisted on our being aware of what was happening. They insisted that we all get good educations, sending us out of state to universities, my brother to Europe. I have always looked forward to reading newspapers. When traveling, I always pick up USA Today, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and very often local papers. It is disgusting to me that over the past four or five years too often the American has not been delivered. And let me say, I live in the city limits in a middle-class subdivision on a lake with paved streets and street lights within 5 to 10 minutes from two universities.

For 70 years, our family owned and operated a business that regularly advertised in the American. Some years we were the single largest advertiser. The Newspaper Advertising Bureau (NAB) on a number of occasions selected Waldoff's advertising as some of the best in the United States, awarding us plaques, trophies, certificates at conferences in New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles. Currently I do consulting for retail stores nationally and purchase advertising for clients. Often, we use newspaper where the demographics, circulation and coverage merits.

Having said that, it is not surprising newspaper advertising sales are down on a local and national level for Gannett. I understand the dramatic impact the weak economy, Internet and television have had on the industry. Regardless, when the product cannot be delivered to those of us who want to receive their local paper, pay for their subscription in advance and still don't receive the paper -- the question is not what can be done to increase advertising sales, rather it is how soon before the paper stops publishing?

It will!

If I were a stockholder in Gannett, I'd bail out when the market opens tomorrow morning; there is no potential upside for a company that does not deliver its product to the consumer.

Goodbye Gannett!

Goodbye Hattiesburg American!

Respectfully,

Milton Waldoff
Waldoff Group
Hattiesburg, Miss.

[Image: recent screenshot from the American's homepage]

Jackson, Miss. | Leslie Hurst, and a wayward heart

Worried The Clarion-Ledger has lost touch with Jackson, Miss., Publisher Leslie Hurst established 10 strategic goals for her staff. Among them: "Reconnect with our readers, advertisers and our communities, demonstrating that we haven't lost our community heart."

Hurst

Indeed, only last week, Hurst directed her employees -- shaken by a new round of layoffs -- to seek consolation in a re-reading of those goals.

Her admonition to reconnect isn't new, of course. In December, when Corporate promoted her from Lafayette, La., she told the Jackson daily: "We need to know the people we serve and understand what is on their minds."

Yet, Hurst didn't arrive with a reputation for community outreach. "On one of her first days in Lafayette," a former employee there told The Independent Weekly, "she told us that she would not speak to the public, would not answer e-mails, and if called would not pick up the phone. She also will not answer voice mails."

Hurst has passed through a lot of communities. She's been president and publisher of seven Gannett newspapers -- two simultaneously -- in just 14 years. The cities and years she was appointed:

• 1996: Hattiesburg American in Mississippi 
• 2000: The Herald-Dispatch, Huntington, W. Va. 
• 2003: The Idaho Statesman, Boise 
• 2005: Lansing State Journal in Michigan 
• 2007: Daily Advertiser in Lafayette, and the Daily World in Opelousas, La. 
• 2010: Jackson

Hattiesburg | 6.5% pay cuts, instead of furloughs

That's according to a reader who says the cuts at Mississippi's Hattiesburg American are effective Feb. 7. Other U.S. newspapers may also have imposed wage reductions rather than furloughs.

The American's Monday-Saturday circulation is 12,876; Sunday is 16,082.

[Updated at 10:54 p.m. ET.] Following is the text of a memo General Manager Tracie Fowler sent today to employees:

Some of you may have heard that a division-wide furlough for Q1 has been announced today. The reason you have not received notice of this is that The Hattiesburg American is one of a few sites that have been asked to take an alternative route in conserving payroll expense. Let me explain:

With the exception of the short-term gains we saw in for the 18 months following Katrina, our top-line revenue has not grown for ten years. We remain one of the least profitable business units in the company, ranking 39th among 67 sites in profitability. Until we can reverse our top-line revenue trends, we must seek expense cuts that are more permanent than a furlough provides.

In other words, our cost reductions must reflect the fact that we need to lower our overall business expense, not just create a temporary way to add savings to meet a challenging quarter.

So instead of implementing a furlough, we will be reducing all employees' base pay by 6.5%, effective Monday, Feb. 7, 2010. You will not be required to take a furlough in addition to this. We recognize this payroll change will impact each of you very personally and do not take this action lightly.

However, it does allow us to lower our basic business costs in a way that helps secure our long-term viability as a franchise, as we work to grow our revenue.

I want to thank you for your personal sacrifice to assure our long-term profitability. We now must work on growing back revenue.

Tracie Fowler
General Manager
Hattiesburg American
825 North Main St.

Latest update: How furloughs helped spur $4 million in exec bonuses

Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.

Hattiesburg | Pay no attention to that asset sale!

Mississippi's Hattiesburg American tells readers in a new story that its building has been put up for sale, a move that's part of Gannett's strategy to sell real estate and buildings that have become too large for the shrinking businesses they house. The American's downsizing follows last year's shift of its printing and other production to GCI's Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss.

I've read several stories in GCI papers about moves like this, and they have a common theme: Publishers assuring readers that GCI remains just as committed to local communities as ever -- even as the company reduces staffing, news coverage, customer service and investment in capital.

Here's American General Manager Traci Fowler, making her pitch: "We remain firmly committed to the Pine Belt area and to maintaining a physical presence here. We're proud to be the top news and information source for Forrest and Lamar counties, and that will not change."

The story continues: "Fowler said Hattiesburg American employees will continue to be active in the community and the company's local sales team will continue to work closely with customers to provide creative solutions to help them grow their business. The local news staff will continue its strong government watchdog role and offer comprehensive coverage of local preps and college athletics, she added."

USAT shifts Mississippi printing; 15 jobs eliminated

Gannett's top-selling newspaper is moving its printing to Advance Publications' Mobile Press-Register from GCI's Hattiesburg American, effective Sept. 4 -- a move that will cost 15 jobs, the American reported today.

USA Today production Vice President Ken Kirkhart told the paper the printing contract with the Press-Register is for three years. He cited cost savings in shifting the work. "It has nothing at all to do with the people as why we're leaving," he said. "We're doing the same thing around the country. We looked at a lot of things to consolidate our press window."

USAT is at least the second Gannett paper to move production to Mobile. The Pensacola News Journal shifted its printing there in June 2009. That eliminated 84 full-time and part-time jobs.

The Newhouse family controls Advance.

The American itself moved its printing to Gannett's Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., in February 2009. That wiped out 38 jobs.

Earlier: Skippy Haik is out; Hattiesburg publisher job eliminated

Gannett confirms comment moderation switch

The company started outsourcing a key part of online comment moderation at its dozens of U.S. websites late last week, the Hattiesburg American disclosed today, confirming a Gannett Blog reader's report two weeks ago.

The Mississippi newspaper's note to readers follows an editorial last week in the Green Bay Press-Gazette in Wisconsin. Editors there said software company Pluck -- which already powers social media tools on GCI sites -- is now in charge of moderating comments that readers have flagged as abusive. That task had previously been handled on the local level by editors at Gannett sites.

"Under the new system," the Press-Gazette editors say, "Pluck staff will address abuse complaints within 30 minutes, and often much more quickly. Moderators will work independently, but will be able to reach out to local editors to weigh in on abuse reports that are less clear-cut than others."

Pluck will delete comments, or allow them to remain, based on the paper's "established guidelines." Those guides ask readers to "keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent."

Given the guidelines' rather broad terms, however, it's unclear how Pluck employees hundreds or thousands of miles away will know to independently gauge local community tastes. Moreover, the Press-Gazette and Hattiesburg American don't say whether those Pluck staffers are based in the United States -- or offshore, where foreign employees might not grasp some of the nuances of what readers in Wisconsin or Mississippi find acceptable.

Should comment moderation be outsourced -- or should it stay local? Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.

[Image: today's Press-Gazette, Newseum]

Hattiesburg | Woods, press pressure -- and Twitter

First it was the Asbury Park Press, where its hometown became ground zero for national press attention on MTV's Jersey Shore reality TV show. The Press waded into that locally-controversial subject last month. Then came the Poughkeepsie Journal's princess Snooki profile of one of the show's cast members.

Now, the big-story pressure is on Gannett's Hattiesburg American in Mississippi. Papers as respectable as The Washington Post and as far away as the U.K. are running with often-unconfirmed accounts that Tiger Woods (left) is being treated for sexual addiction at a well-regarded rehabilitation clinic in the small Mississippi city. Indeed, the increasingly-accurate National Enquirer tabloid is claiming photos of Woods outside the clinic, published on its sister website, Radar.

A just-checked Google News search on Tiger Woods and Hattiesburg turned up more than 1,300 articles. Plus, the Twitterati are all over the rumors. Tuesday, the American said in an editorial that it was loathe to intrude on the golfer's privacy, national press or not.

Related: Join nearly 700 readers following me on Twitter

Has your paper or TV station been "big footed" by the national media? How did you compete? Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.

Hattiesburg | Why newspaper didn't chase Woods

Gannett's Hattiesburg American newspaper got a tip last week that golfer Tiger Woods (left) was being treated at a sex-addition clinic in the Mississippi city. The paper was unable to confirm the information, editors say, and only covered the story when other media descended on the town. "There is a fine line between covering Woods when he wrecks his car and extending coverage when and if he gets treatment,'' the paper explained today in an editorial.

Hattiesburg | Woods reported in paper's backyard

Citing sources it doesn't identify, Radar is reporting today that troubled golfer Tiger Woods (left) is being treated at a "top sex addiction program" in Mississippi's Hattiesburg, home to Gannett's American newspaper. The website identified the clinic as Pine Grove Behavioral Health and Addiction Services. A Gannett Blog reader, Anonymous@11:34 a.m., asks today: "Anyone left in Hattiesburg to cover this?"

Radar's story follows by three days an earlier report that Woods was being treated at a different clinic, in Arizona's Wickenburg, according to The Huffington Post. That's about 60 miles northwest of Phoenix, home to Gannett's Arizona Republic.

Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.

Stripped to a 'flying gas can,' we start the final leg

Back in January, Anonymous@7:10 a.m. recalled today, I compared management's strategy to a scene from Hunt for Red October, where they stripped down a helicopter to make it a "flying gas can."

In the aftermath of last week's much-discussed Deal Magazine article, "the comparison is even more valid," @7:41 a.m. writes. "We now know where they were flying to: to make the bond payments. But now they are pouring the gas out to make the helicopter lighter. Will they realize you can't fly without gas? 
Please find a buyer.
 For all its faults, Gannett did have some smart ideas. And perhaps could have emerged from this as the champion in journalism. It's such a shame."

Word for word, here's my original January 2009 post:

Gannett has been on a journey to an all-digital future from the moment it was founded more than a century ago in central New York's Elmira. But now, our weakened company has begun what may be the most perilous leg -- one it may not survive.

This moment recalls the 1990 Cold War thriller, The Hunt for Red October (trailer, below), based on Tom Clancy's bestseller. CIA analyst Alec Baldwin is aboard a U.S. aircraft carrier, desperate to cross a dangerously vast stretch of ocean. Admiral Fred Thompson says there's only one way: by racing a helicopter, stripped of all unnecessary weight. "A chopper turned into a flying gas can," he warns grimly.

That is what Corporate has been doing at an ever-quickening pace for more than a year now: Stripping Gannett of all but its most profitable, revenue-producing parts, in preparation for this final passage. The restructuring has now assumed greater urgency, following the credit crisis and September's Wall Street meltdown.

We get a fresh progress report on Friday, when media stock analysts expect the company's fourth-quarter financial report will show another double-digit profit plunge. (To be sure, the New York Times Co.'s beat-the-street report offers a ray of hope.) Gannett shares closed today at $7.33, up 29 cents. Still, GCI is down 80% from a year ago vs. a smaller 35% decline in the broader S&P-500 index.

Dismembering you
Far from Wall Street, Gannett's bid for survival has been quietly playing out in a big customer-service call center in Louisville, Ky., serving 22 of the 85 U.S. papers -- mostly in the East. There, scores of operators read from company-prepared scripts this month, describing the slow dismemberment of The Courier-Journal and the 21 other papers -- including the first one, in Elmira.

This poignant chapter in American journalism history is told in an otherwise routine, three-page company document I got from a reader. It's a cheat sheet for operators responding to bewildered and frustrated subscribers, calling from distant places about cutbacks in news and delivery.

But to future historians, the document would help explain the industry's early 21st century decline. They would discover that newspapers didn't all die overnight, much as Corporate just threatened the Tucson Citizen. Instead, publishers morphed into corporate chop shops, stripping their legacy papers of financial and intellectual capital -- piece by piece.

In Louisville, where the Courier-Journal holds 10 Pulitzers, they carted off the crafts column on Jan. 6. In Rochester, N.Y., where Gannett was based nearly 70 years, the Democrat and Chronicle lost a second Friday sports front. Even little Elmira wasn't spared: They cut the Star-Gazette's Monday business page.

And so it went, paper after paper, the operators explained -- from spiking Monday and Tuesday op-ed pages at New Jersey's Pulitzer-winning Asbury Park Press, to Saturday features at The Daily Journal in Vineland. Reduced. Combined. Consolidated. Eliminated. Cut. Killed.

Throwing weight overboard
To be sure, Gannett has taken far more dramatic steps, in stripping down to gas-can battle mode: Dumping 2,200 jobs last month alone. Freezing the pension plan. Writing off nearly $3 billion in assets. Junking presses. Launching ContentOne. Furloughs.

Friday morning, CEO Craig Dubow will showcase all that and maybe more, when he speaks to Wall Street analysts after the fourth-quarter earnings release. The 10 a.m. ET analyst teleconference will be webcast. It's open to the public -- you and me included.

Continuing the recent trend of declining results, analysts forecast a 37% earnings dive, to 81 cents vs. $1.28 a year ago. Revenue is expected to be $1.79 billion, down 5.7%.

Earlier: Revenue and earnings, plus CEO Dubow's commentary, since fourth quarter, 2007.

Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write gannettblog[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the green sidebar, upper right.


'The Hunt for Red October'
Here's the theatrical trailer:



Related: More video favorites on Gannett Blog's YouTube page

[Today's front pages, Newseum]

Program note: Regional 'hubs' are now tagged

Looks like Corporate is serious about the new Regional Design Centers, given the latest report: Mississippi's Hattiesburg would move copy desk page-production work to Jackson, Miss. With that, I've added Hubs to the list of tags; 10 initial entries, blue rail, right.

Hattiesburg said moving work to new Jackson hub

Regarding Corporate's hurry-up rollout of the new Regional Design Centers to build newspaper pages at production hubs across the company, a reader tells me in an e-mail:

Some staffers at the Hattiesburg American claim to have seen a memo that says The Clarion-Ledger copy desk in Jackson, Miss., will soon begin producing the American's pages. Apparently the copy editing would still be done in Hattiesburg. This has been rumored since Jackson began printing for Hattiesburg, but apparently it will occur sooner than anybody thought it would.

Can anyone confirm -- and add details? Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write gannettblog[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the green rail, upper right.

[Today's front page, Newseum]

New feature! Puzzling spotlight on random exec

First in an extremely sporadic, very occasional-at-best series.

Hurst

Leslie Hurst has been president and publisher of The Daily Advertiser in Lafayette, La., and the Daily World in nearby Opelousas, since May 2007. At that time, she also became vice president of the Sun Coast Group, supervising papers across Louisiana. Previously, Hurst had been president and publisher of Michigan's Lansing State Journal, and group vice president of the Midwest Newspaper Group.

The Climb

She started in Gannett as head of market development in Florida at the Pensacola News Journal and the Fort Myers News-Press. Then, she was named president and publisher as follows:

• 1996: Hattiesburg American in Mississippi
  
• 2000: The Herald-Dispatch, Huntington, W. Va.
  
• 2003: The Idaho Statesman, Boise
  
• 2005: Lansing State Journal
  
• 2007: Lafayette

The Quotes

"Leslie has a proven record in every job she has done for Gannett and I am pleased Louisiana is getting such a terrific manager," newspaper division chief Sue Clark-Johnson is quoted saying (a bit woodenly) in the official statement when Corporate sent Hurst to Lafayette.

"I feel like I'm coming home," Hurst told the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association, around that time. "I really love Louisiana culture, and I missed it when I left."

The Clip
The Independent Weekly in Lafayette published a fierce takedown on Jan. 20. In "Chain Reaction,'' the local weekly said, "Corporate newspaper giant Gannett has ransacked The Daily Advertiser, one of its most lucrative newspapers. And every penny of profit squeezed out of the daily has been wired straight to its Virginia headquarters."

Please post what I anticipate may be expressions of bafflement, outrage, and arch remarks in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write gannettblog[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the green rail, upper right.

Shreveport: Top editor quits; GCI's second in week

Executive Editor Alan English of Louisiana's Times (left) took the top news executive's job at Georgia's Augusta Chronicle yesterday, three months after publicly bemoaning Christmas layoffs at the Shreveport paper. It's unclear whether English's job will be eliminated; Shreveport's story doesn't say. The Georgia paper is owned by Augusta's privately held Morris Communications. English had been Times executive editor since 2004, and a Gannett employee since 1990. He's at least the second executive editor to bolt in the past week: In a budget-cutting move, Mississippi's Hattiesburg American named managing editor Dan Davis to replace Kathleen Williams, after her job was eliminated.

Kool-Aid Korner: Just ignore our shrinking papers!

"We feel strongly that our

news products will continue to excel."

-- General Manager Tracie Fowler, assuring readers today, even as she disclosed that the Hattiesburg American has eliminated the position of executive editor, in a cost-saving move.

Hattiesburg: Executive editor out, her job axed

Merely risking life and limb to put out the paper during a howling hurricane is no longer enough to keep your job in the Gannett Co. Vers. 2.0. That is today's morale-boosting message from Corporate, as the shake-up continues at Mississippi's Hattiesburg American: Kathleen Williams is no longer executive editor at the paper, and her position has been eliminated, the paper is now reporting.

"We appreciate all that Kathleen has done to improve our newspaper," General Manager Tracie Fowler told her paper for its story. "In this economy, when resources are being constricted, these are some of the tough decisions that we have to make. This is strictly a business decision."

Managing Editor Dan Davis assumes the top newsroom position.

The shift follows Fowler's elevation two months ago, to the new position of general manager. Her promotion came after Publisher Skippy Haik announced plans to leave, on relatively short notice to staff, and in the wake of Gannett's decision to move printing and other production to The Clarion-Ledger in nearby Jackson.

Above-average circulation declines may be an issue. (A huge mitigating factor, to be sure: The American's market has suffered population losses after hurricanes.) As of Sept. 30, daily was 16,446, down 7% from Sept. 30, 2007; Sunday, 19,683, down 7.9% -- at odds with the companywide average, according to Deutsche Bank. By comparison, excluding USA Today, circulation across the company fell 5.6% daily and 4.3% on Sunday during.

Can anyone add details? Plus, are there other papers that recently lost executive editor positions to budget cuts?

Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write gannettblog[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the green sidebar, upper right.

[Image: today's front page, Newseum]

Fort Collins becomes eighth site to shutter press

That new total in the past five months alone is approaching nearly 10% of Gannett's 85 U.S. newspapers. With today's confirmed shutdown at the Fort Collins Coloradoan, I count at least eight production plants closed via consolidation with sister sites.

The Coloradoan's Pat Ferrier reports in a story, now on the paper's site: "The move will end more than a century of newspaper printing in the city and comes at a time when newspapers nationwide are being challenged by the economic recession and the ongoing migration of advertising to the Internet."

The Coloradoan would be among the few Gannett sites contracting with a non-GCI plant. The other seven, all shifting to nearby Gannett print sites: Asheville, N.C.; Battle Creek, Mich.; Clarksville, Tenn.; Hattiesburg, Miss.; Mountain Home, Ark.; Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and Richmond, Ind.

What am I missing? Post your replies in the comments section, below. E-mail confidentially to gannettblog[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the green sidebar, upper right.

Hattiesburg: A city says goodbye to its press

[Starting tomorrow, printing shifts to Jackson, Miss.]

Southeast Mississippi's Hattiesburg heard something early this morning for the first time in 111 years from the local newspaper: nothing. "The presses at the Hattiesburg American slowly fell silent, following the paper's final printing in the city of its birth,'' Tim Doherty reports today, in a nicely written story you'll want to save for later.

Good for the newsroom, too! Looks like this might have been a hard story to pull off, judging from the slightly exasperated-sounding tone of the quote from outgoing Publisher Skippy Haik.


View Larger Map

Record the last runs!
As Gannett keeps cutting, we'll write a lot more of these stories in the years ahead. Consider video interviews with long-time press operators, and capture the sights and sounds of your last run.

What do you hear about your press? Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write gannettblog[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the green sidebar, upper right.

Imagining a prosperous (but shrunken) Gannett

[It's 2014: Are Corporate and USA Today still in McLean, Va.?]

Gannett is aiming for a high-profile home run by deploying its nascent ContentOne news service to cover President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration -- just in time to rally investors when the company releases fourth-quarter earnings in the weeks ahead.

The new service will be a major test of the cross-divisional leadership skills of two rising stars: Chief Digital Officer Chris Saridakis (left), and Kate Marymont (below), the recently named newspaper division news vice president. Corporate has said nothing about the project for public consumption since CEO Craig Dubow pitched the idea to media stock analysts at the UBS conference last month, telling them: "ContentOne is an entity that will completely change the way we share content across the company."

The few details that have surfaced so far suggest ContentOne is a reconstituted Gannett News Service: a 21st-century web wire, if you will. More broadly, however, the service is another key piece in a puzzle showing what Gannett might look like in five years or less: A 100% digital news and information provider, no longer printing newspapers or running today's version of broadcast TV. Let's call the future company by a name already in use: Gannett Digital.

With ContentOne and USA Today as its editorial backbone, I imagine Gannett Digital producing and distributing information for a national audience mostly anchored in more than 100 U.S. communities where its legacy brands -- newspapers and TV stations -- now employ perhaps 35,000 U.S. workers. (How many will be working in five years or less? Keep reading.)

ContentOne is part of a wider bid to boost revenue and cut costs, by imposing more uniformity in content and technology on the company's disparate portfolio of websites. It's also the latest incarnation of the long-neglected 1980 Pulitzer Prize-winning GNS. The new web wire is apparently being run in some fashion by Gannett's official publicist, Tara Connell, a former top USA Today editor.

Like the youth-oriented Metromix entertainment sites and the "moms" franchise, ContentOne aims to roll up all of Gannett's online readers into a mammoth advertising "buy." How big? Corporate is gunning for more than 50 million unique visitors in the Obama trial that began last Tuesday -- double the most recent reported average uniques. National ads would presumably be more price-competitive and easier to sell, because Gannett's community papers mostly adopted identical G04 website templates last year.

Consolidation hits newsrooms
ContentOne is the next step in Gannett's drive to reduce overhead by consolidating work to eliminate duplication. That effort has focused on areas including ad production, printing and finance. Now, Corporate is extending the strategy to newsrooms, in a move with implications for the recent emphasis on "local-local" coverage.

For example, suppose Gannett eliminated all the printed features sections, and substituted the new, edgier Metromix sites recently rolled out companywide. Management could shrink features staffing to a skeleton crew. Surviving staff would focus solely on cranking out updates, plus Metromix briefs and calendar items aimed at the audience where they already live: mobile devices and the Internet.

If that worked, Gannett could apply the same model to other subjects as it keeps herding readers to the websites -- and shutters more printed news sections and TV newscasts. In their place: A network of websites, RSS feeds and other distribution channels carrying subject-specific products with long shelf lives.

"At its most innovative," CEO Dubow (left) told the UBS conference last month, "ContentOne will allow us for the first time companywide to view our content as a product, instead of a way to fill our products -- newspapers, websites and TV news broadcasts. We will become content creators for our advertising partners, pricing and selling our content for use by them."

Dubow took over as CEO in July 2005; he had been chief executive of the 23-station broadcasting division for four years, after joining the division in 1981 as an advertising salesman.

He told UBS analysts that the news service "also will allow us to develop and gather information much more efficiently by eliminating duplication and allowing our local entities to focus on what's important -- a deep, rich local report. It is the logical next step from our local Information Center initiatives, creating a national head to the local content gathering bodies."

In a way, ContentOne delivers Gannett's Holy Grail -- but digitally: It marries the 85 community newspapers with USA Today. This lower-cost, shelf-stable strategy is revealed in a leaked memo about ContentOne's Obama plan, which includes a special "micro'' website anchoring news and entertainment coverage.

Obama blog, and new platform?
The memo says: "ContentOne inaugural site will power online coverage before, during and after the Jan. 20 inauguration. It will be one product with local branding, traffic and ad sales. On it, will be the best of USA Today's national coverage, local site local coverage, (plus) WUSA-TV's live video feed through Mogulus."

It continues: "There also will be a cross-network VOD sampling via Mogulus and Washington-specific entertainment listings through Metromix that will serve your local customers who may be going to DC for the celebration. The site also will allow for and encourage local coverage. We are planning a three-week window for this site -- two weeks before the inauguration through one week after -- with live coverage emphasis on Jan. 19, 20 and 21, when interest will peak."

The Obama microsites are woven into each local site; consider The Arizona Republic's.

Indeed, I wonder if USA Today's new White House blog, The Oval, was launched as part of ContentOne's debut. (Also interesting: The Oval's URL incorporates the word "communities," as does the newer Faith & Reason blog. Both appear to use a software platform that's not TypePad, which most of the paper's other blogs still use. What's the communities aspects about?)

ContentOne also could lead to centralized editing and webpage construction, because it's a sort of web-based pagination system. Teams of editors and page builders could be employed inexpensively at the existing regional hubs in Wilmington, Del.; Fort Myers, Fla.; Des Moines, and Indianapolis. Gannett is already experimenting with regional copy editing and page design in at least one state: Wisconsin, where it owns 10 dailies that also share printing and production.

In this future scenario, local advertising sales could be handled by a small staff on contract. This is now a fully digital company, so there are no presses to ink up, no papers to bundle, nothing to hand-deliver to homes and offices; all those jobs would be gone.

It's already happening. As I post this, Gannett is junking presses at sites including Hattiesburg, Miss.; Asheville, N.C.; Richmond, Ind.; Battle Creek, Mich., and Poughkeepskie, N.Y. Those papers are now being printed at sister print sites. Yet, as papers get trucked further, weather-related delays are inevitable: Only today, the Poughkeepsie Journal apologized to readers; it's now being printed at The Journal News, 64 miles south in White Plains.

Meanwhile, marketing, human resource and finance work is being consolidated at the regional hubs, plus the Springfield, Mo., site. All these moves contributed to Gannett's reducing newspaper employment by more than 2,100 jobs, last month alone.

And the twin towers?
Gannett could sell the seven-year-old complex housing Corporate and USAT in McLean, Va., to a REIT, after the commercial real estate market recovers. The company could then lease back only the space it needs -- maybe a single floor or less -- in what new owners could rename the 7950 Jones Branch Corporate Centre.

This version of Gannett in five years or less is a leaner, more prosperous company. It's anyone's guess what revenues will be. And the U.S. workforce, now about 35,000 employees? Maybe it will tumble to 20,000.

Or maybe just 2,000.

What do you think? Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write gannettblog[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the green sidebar, upper right.

[Photo of Corporate complex: Kohn Pedersen Fox Architects]

Hattiesburg: Skippy Haik is out; pub job eliminated

The Hattiesburg American's advertising director, Tracie Fowler, has been named to the new position of general manager, the Mississippi paper is now reporting.

She effectively replaces Skippy Haik (left), who is leaving as president and publisher, Jan. 31. I assume these general manager positions carry most if not all the traditional publisher duties -- but don't pay as much.

Haik has been the American's CEO for five years. The paper last month said it would move production to the nearby Clarion-Ledger in Jackson; that wiped out 38 jobs as part of Gannett's companywide newspaper layoff in early December.

[Photo: American]