Can you help me turn this into a spreadsheet?

[Updated.] Some of my smart readers very quickly created the spreadsheet I sought. And now I have the answer to my question: An employee in Atlanta sent his "I quit" e-mail to nearly 4,700 other employees -- and possibly many more. (Worldwide, there are about 31,000 employees.)

My original post: Several readers have forwarded an e-mail that includes thousands of employee names in the "to" field, formatted as follows: Hopkins, Jim; Smith, John; Jones, Mary and so on.

I'd now like to import these names into a spreadsheet, using the semicolons as a separator for each line. But I don't know how to accomplish this. I've saved the names to this Google document.

Earlier: At WUSA-TV, the "I quit" e-mail everyone's talking about.

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.

Martore on Yahoo's new CEO: Women might be 'a little bit better' at balancing work and family life

In an interview, CEO Gracia Martore spoke to Washington's WUSA on the selection of Google executive Marissa Mayer, 37, as the new chief executive of struggling Web portal Yahoo. Mayer, who started last week, is expecting her first child. Martore, 60, joined Gannett in 1985 and was promoted to CEO in October. She has two children.

WUSA | Reporter gives school censorship lesson

From a Washington Post story yesterday:

WUSA journalist Andrea McCarren knows that news reporting sometimes has unintended consequences — especially since her own children were teased and bullied after her stories on underage drinking aired last month.

So when the student newspaper at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School published an article mentioning her reporting, McCarren objected. The article, she told the school’s principal, could create more trouble for her children, both students there.

Ironic result: A journalist triggered a bit of temporary censorship.

WUSA | Baltimore Ravens executive named GM

Burdett

In a news release today, the Broadcasting division said Mark Burdett has been named president and general manager at WUSA, the CBS affiliate in Washington.

Burdett was vice president of corporate sales and development for the Baltimore Ravens, and earlier senior director of partnerships and development for the NFL team.

He succeeds Allan Horlick, who announced his retirement in November and "leaves the station after a distinguished and award-winning career in DC broadcasting."

[Photo: Ravens]

WUSA | Reporter quits teen-age drinking story after her own teenagers are said to be threatened

Andrea McCarren said viewer comments at the CBS affiliate in Washington started out being nasty, then grew outright threatening toward her two teen-age children, online and in school.

"The volume and intensity of the backlash became so overwhelming last week," The Washington Post reported yesterday, "that Mc­Carren and WUSA decided on an extraordinary step: She would pull herself off the air and hand her latest teen-drinking story to her colleague."

Related: One of McCarren's recent reports on underage drinking.

Earlier: At WUSA, a recipe guaranteed to stir up comments. Also: McCarren interviews CEO Martore for a Make A Difference Day story.

WUSA | Story removed after attribution questions

From a Poynter Online story this afternoon: 

[Updated at 3:19 p.m. ET.] The error happened, General Manager Allan Horlick told Poynter by phone today, when “an assignment editor saw the piece in the Post and cut and pasted the body of the information into an email” that was then sent to Web producer Ashley Jennings, who thought it was a press release to be rewritten and published on WUSA9.com.

My original post: WUSA is in the process of removing a story from its website after receiving inquiries about whether portions of it were taken from a Washington Post piece on the same subject.

The CBS affiliate in Washington published the story yesterday about Fairfax City Mayor Robert Lederer's resignation three hours after Post reporter Tom Jackman's story was published.

Several paragraphs appear verbatim in both stories, Poynter says.

As I post this, however, the WUSA story remains on the station's website.

WUSA | A recipe guaranteed to stir up comments

[Anchor McGinty is shocked -- shocked! -- by comments]

Gannett's CBS affiliate in Washington posted a Pearl Harbor Day anniversary story yesterday designed to stir up lots of reader comments online. Then it broadcast a report on the outcome. Here's how it unfolded.

The headline
"Sidwell Friends School, Sasha and Malia Obama's School, Opts For Asian, including Japanese Food On Pearl Harbor Day"

The menu
Here, the station said, "were the options for Malia Obama and her sister, Sasha on the 'Day that will live in Infamy.'"

• Asian Mushroom Soup

• Oriental Noodle Salad

• Classic Spinach Salad
• Teriyaki Marinated Chicken Strips

• Szechuan Tofu & Veggies
• Garlic Roasted Edamame

• Vegetable Fried Rice

• Fortune Cookies

The plea
The station asked readers: "What do you think about the menu? Insensitive, or is it just time to move on?"

The reader comments
Among the nearly 200 so far, it's clear mandating Facebook IDs doesn't guarantee civility.

• Patricia Bayless writes: "What else would anyone expect out of the fraud and his brats and the Liberals? BTW, the brats are extremely homely."
• Aaron Shupp replies: "Patricia I'm guessing you're a homely, trainwreck of a trashy whore yourself considering you don't even use a portrait on Facebook."

The follow-up 
The station then broadcast a segment about the story it had posted and the comments that followed.

On behalf of his co-workers, WUSA weekend anchor Derek McGinty expressed shock that the comments grew so divisive: "The absolute rage and name calling from some of you was frankly way over the top."

Related: Blogger Gil Asakawa writes, "This about takes the cake for lame-ass non-issues."

WUSA | GM Horlick to retire next year, memo says

Allan Horlick will retire as head of the Washington-area TV station early next year, he told employees in a memo this afternoon.

Horlick

"The simple truth," he says, "is that while I love doing my job, there are so many other things that I want to do, and there's no time like the present."

Horlick was made the CBS station's president and general manager in January 2007. A search is underway for his replacement, he says.

I've posted the entire memo in the comment section, below.

WUSA | Martore visits nameless inner-city orphans

[Gracia Martore and Oliver Twist]

I ask you: What are the odds?

An estimated 200 volunteers descended on an elementary school in southeast Washington's predominantly poor, African-American community on Saturday as part of the annual Make a Difference Day of volunteering launched by Gannett's USA Weekend in 1992.

And of all those volunteers, the company's WUSA-TV chose one in particular to interview and quote -- extensively.

"On a crisp autumn day," correspondent Andrea McCarren says in her report, "at an inner-city school scarred by budget cuts and the passage of time, a transformation is underway. On this Make a Difference Day, Gannett CEO Gracia Martore is leading the charge."

Indeed, there was Martore, in a blue Make a Difference Day t-shirt that barely concealed her wireless mic pack, industriously stacking books and telling McCarren:

"Gannett's mission is to inspire the greater good in the 100-plus communities that we serve. In addition to providing news and information that is important to our readers and viewers in those communities, we feel compelled to make a difference in those communities."

Has Chief Marketing Officer Maryam Banikarim been re-reading Charles Dickens in her new, post-Robin Pence world?

My favorite part of the WUSA transcript are the quotes attributed to the beneficiaries of Martore's noblesse oblige. They're identified as follows: "a young boy," "a girl nearby," "another classmate," and "a little girl."

(I'll add: Please, sir, I want some more identification -- like that important white lady over there!)

That's Martore (center) in the frozen frame of the video:



Earlier: GCI's board of directors visits an Iowa workhouse. Plus: Martore directs another $15,000 in Gannett Foundation money to her alma mater.

WUSA | This illustrated a baby's bathtub drowning

Anonymous@9:27 a.m. summed it up in three words: "Worst. Graphic. Ever."

For nearly two weeks, WUSA-TV used the following image with a story about an 11-month-old Maryland girl's apparent drowning death in a bathtub. (Yes: Those are three tiny bubbles floating above the tub.)

Without explanation, the Washington TV station substituted another illustration not long after widely read mock-the-news website Fark posted a link, inviting readers to comment. And they did: The post has now attracted 134 comments.

Former Des Moines Register designer Charles Apple called it an offensive use of stock art: "This travesty proves — more than my words ever could — why using stock art is such a bad idea for a story like this."

How did this happen? A March 2009 resignation offers a clue: Assignment desk editor Alan Henney wrote an "I quit" memo that became the talk of Gannett Blog. "The consultants and out-of-touch corporate management," he said, "have ruined the newscasts with repetitive Web clutter, endless sidebar packages, and their preoccupation with the Internet."

Henney continued: "We are doing less news gathering these days and more information posting. Somebody needs to be driving the news machine at all times, actively pursuing news leads. We’ve lost our focus."

Earlier: Union deal paves way to hire "mojos."

Deal Chicken | Promotions: big, small -- and 'real'

As more sites roll out local versions of Gannett's Deal Chicken, newspapers are taking different approaches to promoting the online coupon service on their homepages.

The Arizona Republic, which developed the original version of the service, is hitting readers over the head with this banner treatment:

The Cincinnati Enquirer has added a link near the top of its homepage, with an illustration for extra punch:

And The Indianapolis Star also features a link in the same position, but without any graphic:

Video: 'Real chickens on Deal Chicken'
Meanwhile, for reasons I don't immediately understand, a YouTube user is featuring this video promoting Deal Chicken's Washington, D.C., launch on behalf of WUSA-TV in an, uh, creative way.

How is your site promoting Deal Chicken? 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.

By the numbers | Comparing Twitter followers

3,091,681

The New York Times

773,433

The Wall Street Journal

404,480

The Washington Post

242,182

Bronx Zoo's formerly missing cobra

119,039

USA Today

13,733

WUSA-TV

961

Gannett Blog

587

Gannett Corporate

Broadcasting in new deal to revamp 10 websites

Corporate has just announced a deal with DataSphere Technologies to launch "community-focused" websites that will be integrated within existing sites now run by Gannett TV stations in 10 U.S. markets, including Atlanta and Washington, D.C.

The new sites will feature "hyperlocal news content and include user-generated content about area happenings and events,'' according to Corporate's statement. "Local businesses will benefit from the opportunity to target their potential customers. In addition to powering the community websites, DataSphere will provide existing Gannett broadcasting websites with enhanced functionality, including market-leading site search, coupons, business directory and ad targeting."

Corporate's statement doe not detail the type of editorial and non-editorial content to be added, however, and it doesn't give a timetable for the changes. The statement also raises other questions: Will the new template for the U.S. newspaper sites -- code-named Project Odyssey, and expected to be launched soon -- also be applied to the broadcasting division's sites? If so, how does the DataSphere deal impact that new template?

In addition to Atlanta and D.C., the other markets are Tampa, Fla.,; Sacramento, Calif.; Grand Rapids, Mich.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Buffalo, N.Y.; Little Rock, Ark.; Portland, Maine, and Macon, Ga.

Tops of '09: Layoffs, a memo, Wausau -- and buck$

[Happy Birthday! Among dozens I produced, this was top video]

Ten of your most-read Gannett Blog posts of 2009:

• Gannett layoffs and other cuts rocket past 1,300
• Gannett confirms mandatory unpaid week off
• Pay to play: Dickey, "sharing the financial hardship"
• WUSA: The "I quit" memo so many are talking about
• Corporate takes ContentOne for first big test drive
• Editor restricts Facebook, Twitter access
• Anatomy of a disaster in Wausau, Wis.
• Gannett freezes wages, adds Q2 furloughs
• Are you ready to take a one-week pay cut?
• CEO Dubow paid $3.1 million for 2008

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.

[Source: Google Analytics]

WUSA | Three stations dive into pool's deep end

In another sign that the financially pressured industry is moving to reduce its costs, WUSA-TV is joining two other stations in launching a common newsgathering operation that will share daily footage, The Washington Post says today.

Lock up the liquor! Gawker's readers are back

That other media industry blog picked up Alan Henney's farewell note, giving me an excuse to re-post the famous scene from one of my all-time favorite films: 1976's prescient Network, starring Peter Finch as an emotionally disturbed TV news anchor.

WUSA: The 'I quit' memo so many are talking about

Assignment desk editor Alan Henney of broadcasting division flagship WUSA-TV told colleagues in an e-mail on Wednesday that consultants and "out-of-touch corporate management have ruined the newscasts with repetitive Web clutter, endless sidebar packages, and their preoccupation with the Internet."

Then, he hit the send key at 12:47 p.m. ET. Read what he wrote.

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]

WUSA-TV: Union deal paves way to hire 'mojos'

Under an agreement this week with labor unions, Gannett's broadcast flagship will become the first station in a major market to replace crews with one-person "multimedia journalists," who shoot and edit stories single-handedly, The Washington Post says today. The station -- which is running last in the local ratings -- also plans an across-the-board cut in reporters' salaries as it increases their responsibilities. Multimedia journalists will earn 30% to 50% less than what traditional reporters have been earning, with salaries topping out at around $90,000 annually, the Post says, citing sources it doesn't identify at the station.

WUSA: What's as much fun as watching paint dry?

How about a live feed of construction work on the on-air set for Gannett's flagship TV station? It's being webcast by Mogulus, the video service GCI invested in back in July. Passing along the link, Anonymous@6:05 p.m. says in a comment:

"The newsroom has been torn apart for new furniture and configuration as it transforms into the 'Information Center.' Some question spending money on new furniture, even though it's needed, when you are downsizing staff."