Gannett, Gatehouse talking merger

I think if you work anywhere in Gannett you should be very, very, very nervous.

 

Well, the combined company is going to be called Gannett. So all the Gatehouse people should be nervous too?

 

GateHouse Media owner to acquire USA TODAY owner Gannett

 

I can attest to this. After I was let go by Gannett making $45 grand as a copy editor, Gatehouse offered $40 grand to be a team lead at their design center in Austin. And that was only after talking them up from their first offer of $36 grand.

 

Yikes.

 

"The companies estimated they can save $275 million to $300 million in annual costs within 24 months. They said the savings would come primarily from the "increased scale of the new organization, sharing of best practices, leveraging existing infrastructure, facility rationalization and other judicious cost reductions."

We all know what that means

 

Also, hope you like Texas. At least at my old shop, I think they're down to one copy editor, and he's gone from 100 percent editing and layout to a bunch of different tasks. Said shop fought for a while to be able to layout as much of the front and inside pages as they could with their staff, with Gatehouse demanding that more and more of it being done in Texas over time.

 

Gannett also released its quarterly results, profit down 10%, print ad revenue way down. Anyone else here old enough to remember the Penn-Central merger of 2 weak railroads that ended in the largest corporate bankruptcy up to that time?

 

Gatehouse only has the one design center in Austin, if I'm not mistaken. Gannett has three design centers remaining and some work from home editors scattered throughout the country. Don't know if they could consolidate everything in Texas since they will be taking on a huge number of papers. May not physically have the room.

 

GateHouse allows remote workers in most states.

 

The only way you can live on $36K in Austin is to pitch a tent.