It was the beginning of a long weekend, bereft of hope and filled with speculation, for many employees at the largest newspaper chain in the country. That Saturday, the comments continued: “I feel like I’m waiting for the executioner. … This is cruel and unusual punishment,” read one.
On the following Tuesday morning, August 19, the details posted as comments were met with a flurry of questions:
Any info from Bridgewater or East Brunswick?What about the Florida papers?
Hear it’s starting in Springfield. Any word from there?
And so it was for Louisville and Indianapolis and Des Moines. At 1:34 p.m., maybe three hours after I watched my twenty-something colleague on The News Journal’s emaciated features desk stuff her belongings into cardboard boxes and leave the building, an anonymous comment hit the Gannett Blog: “Jeez, it’s like hearing the Trade Center came down and looking for survivors.”
An exaggeration, of course. But its point was clear.
If revenues continue to decline, Connell said in her e-mail, more layoffs will follow. The company, in the meantime, will continue to read the Gannett Blog. “However,” Connell closed her message, “we judge communication not by comments on the blog, but by the quality of communication between employees and their managers.”
That’s what most worries those of us who have become regular readers of Hopkins’ site.
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How sad and pathetic it is that employees of a major media company has to turn to a blogger for their information. Oh wait, this is Gannett, isn't it? Well, maybe it is kind of expected then. Gannett, a company with now worthless stock and newspapers loathed in most of their communities, tried to reinvent themselves as "information centers" as if that joke would fool anyone hungry for actual community news. It's decline is exactly what Gannett deserves.
Posted by Prodale on Thu 4 Sep 2008 at 10:03 PM
Know what I hate about Gannett? When you buy USA Today from the rack, it says "Use Any Coin Combination -- Quarters, Dimes, Nickels," but it accepts only quarters. Lousy, lying blank-blanks.
Yeah, USA Today sucks, but I'd rather read it than my local McClatchy McProduct (Caution: May contain newspaper-like substance).
Posted by ex-hack on Fri 5 Sep 2008 at 12:58 PM
As one of those who posted regularly on Jim's blog. Let me offer you ivy league wimps my views. First, I have never or never will work for Gannett. I have never met Jim. When he lives in the US I did called him for answers. He never returned my calls, and seem anxious to hang up when I did get him on the phone. I am probably, the one of the few people on that blog that post, that is totally objected to ALL sides of the issues, affecting Gannett. I will go after GCI, if I see something wrong, but on the other hand, I will protected GCI, if I know of OUT SIDE forces, that is doing some dangerous things. Such as the attempted, to put USAT under by a proxy votes several years ago, by a stockholder's hidden trust. It is no secret that I have been working on a book about USA TODAY, and OTHERS matters, dealing with the creation of the above paper. My decision , was not based only any love or hate of Gannett but to write a MEDICAL potboiler. At the time their was not ONE book written about GCI. Since I had publishers, who was impressed, by my research on the late Horvitz's newspaper chain. It was not hard to get book's, publishers interested, that was before I told Allan Neurtharth's office. I had no idea. In so far as Jim's blog is concern. I tend to feel that it is a business psychotherapy tool, for GCI employees. I not sure that not a bad idea.
Posted by Richard Michem on Sat 6 Sep 2008 at 07:28 AM
How can anyone expect employees to post their names on the blog or to communicate with management, when the corporate enviornment has made it clear that an employee will be reprimanded for asking questions or complaining. As a former employee I once was told, "You should be glad you are getting a paycheck, when a managing editor (who recently was laid off) assumed I had an opinion on the company because I stood silent during a meeting, a paranoid reaction at best. But it did give me a sense of "remember your place in this world (company)," attitude from management. Of course employees would rather express themselves on a blog than in person, especially if their jobs might be threatened by it.
Posted by Ed Sanchez on Sat 6 Sep 2008 at 12:34 PM
ThePensacola News Journal is a mere shadow of
what it was when it was in the Perry chain.
A more liberal crtieria for tallying circulation
totals show the circulation at 57,000 more or less.
The traditional way of counting circulation when
Gannett bought the paper from Perry had the paper with a circulation of almost 100,000. If you total the circulation number the same way today,the circulation would be about 41,00. These figures were given me by a retiree who knows.
This retiree also indicated the PNJ now penetrates 31% of the homes in its circulation area while when it was in the Perry Chain it
penetrated between 65 and 70 per cent of homes
in its area.
Recently the PNJ started giving free weekly delivery for 13 weeks if you bouht the Sunday edition ($1.75). That has been increased to some customers for six months.
I imagine the PNJ is trying look like it is increasing its circulation to impress Bob
Denny and it advertisers.
Of course, it main source of revenue now are its advertisers. The Editors favor any issues
which the power brokers of this community advocate. Woe to those who think the City should not build an eighteen million dollar
plus baseball stadium on the waterfront for a
semi pro ball club and charge it an annual rental at an annual rental which is less than
the annual payment of principal and interest on the bond to construct same.
No the PNJ is not becoming a throw away paper
because people generally do not read newspapers any more. Many of us like a newspaper but prefers one which reports the news fairly and honestly and does not try to manage it.
Gannett had not bought in a competent publisher
since Jim Jessee. It has not had a good editor
since Paul Jasper. The last true editor the PNJ has was Marion Gaines(a Perry Editor) and we
miss him.
Really perhaps the PNJ should recognize it is
functioniing in this community as an advertising
and coupon dispenser and cut the edtorial staff to the bone. It has destroyed this paper.
Posted by William S Cummins on Wed 18 Feb 2009 at 05:54 PM
My previous blog had a typo.
Second to the last line I typed PNJ's
circultation was 41,00. It should have been
41,000.
Sorry
Posted by William S. Cummins on Wed 18 Feb 2009 at 07:23 PM
My previous blog had a typo.
Second to the last line I typed PNJ's
circultation was 41,00. It should have been
41,000.
Sorry
Posted by William S. Cummins on Wed 18 Feb 2009 at 07:24 PM
The Pensacola News Journal did exactly what Mr. Cummings suggested: On December 2, almost 30 employees were laid off, including the business page editor who was on maternity leave at the time. She was one of at least three women on maternity leave who were laid off at other Gannett sites on the same day.
For the record, it is three months later, and I am still unemployed. F*** Gannett.
Posted by Anonymous on Mon 2 Mar 2009 at 10:22 PM
Looking into the future for Gannett, there is something about its strategy I don't understand. Why does it compete its national newspaper, USA Today, against its local newspapers at a time when both are trying to survive in the face of declining readership and ad revenue? I'm not a media industry expert, so I'll admit this might be a dumb question.
Posted by Mark Tauber on Fri 13 Mar 2009 at 12:33 AM
As a soon-to-be-former-carrier of the Indy Star, I can tell you that I will never work for Gannett again. I have never seen a more inept bunch of losers running a company. Everything is blamed on the carriers not the crappy equipment or the managers who are more worried about their own pockets. They have a crappy product and I intend to tell everyone what goes on behind the scenes. Their call center isn't even local.
Posted by V on Fri 17 Apr 2009 at 12:33 PM