Gannett Voluntary Buyouts

Woody, just want to tell you every time you post I get a kick out of Ed Belfour-the drunkard. That's all. Carry on.

 

I had the PTT, or whatever it was called when Gannett laid me off 10 years ago. It was as you described, where for one week per year that you were there, they would pay the difference between unemployment and your salary. So, if you were making $700/week and got $350 in unemployment, they would pay the other $350 for one week for each year that you were as there.

As I recall, insurance was for a length of time, but I don’t remember how long, then you could go on COBRA.

Of course, if you weren’t eligible for unemployment, you got nothing.

Fuck Craig Dubow.

 

Better make sure when they start counting in terms of service. GateHouse just bought Gannett last year and bought numerous other chains leading up to that. So if you worked for a legacy GateHouse paper, your clock might not have started ticking until last year.

If you worked for, say, Rockford, which was Gannett, then sold to GateHouse, then became Gannett again, the question is a little cloudier.

 

Wouldn't that be great if someday everybody on a major metro Gannett sports staff took the buyout and the suits had to cover sports until they got 25,000 dollar a year replacements?

 

It'd be amazing to see some dopey features editor who's idea of good journalism is a 700-word review of a hipster artisan pizza restaurant have to spend 15 hours at a ballpark, churn out four stories and a video, and then have to do it again the next day.

Also, Liut, you can see the bodycam footage of Eddie's run-in with the Louisville PD here: https://dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7991173/Bodycam-footage-shows-drunk-ex-NHL-goaltender-Ed-Belfour-54-sprawled-hotel-floor-1am.html

I liked covering Ed Belfour. He's a smart guy and a hard worker. He knows more about goaltending equipment and skates and how to use them to improve his game than a lot of equipment managers and product reps. But he's definitely got a few screws loose.

 

They would never allow an entire sports department to take a buyout.

 

Exactly, Paper. That's why the sweeping generalizations and delusions of big Norma Rae-type revolts that … some … on here throw out there are so silly.

First off, if it's like past buyout options, not everyone is eligible or gets the offer. They typically give some sort of minimum standards, like at least 50 years old and have been with the company for at least 15 years. There's no way an entire sports staff would qualify under that. Then, you can apply for the buyout, but that doesn't guarantee you'll get it. If too many people in a department qualify and apply, they won't give it to everyone. At least that's how it went in 2015 when I had a first-hand look at it.

 

Paper and Burns - weird to type that out - I think it depends entirely on the size of the paper. The one I was at was a 12,000ish circulation daily, and in 2017, one sports reporter of the 2.5 man staff took a buyout, and the other got promoted to the managing editor of the digital side, leaving a part-timer. He wasn't elevated to full-time, and they've been going along with a half-time sports reporter since, with the managing editor sometimes chipping in. Especially if there is a pro sports team within spitting distance, I think they're happy with the idea of just using wire and/or coverage from a sister paper of the "bigger" teams, with token coverage of the local stuff.

 

Gatehouse/Gannett has decimated the coverage of Boston teams. I don't know if any of them travel, except for maybe the Patriots.

Quincy, Brockton, Providence and Worcester regularly covered the Sox. Quincy, Providence and Worcester traveled. That's in addition to the Hartford Courant and the Eagle-Tribune.

 

Well, you could have done Pee and Clip.

 

I'll never forget the year I was covering a Fiesta Bowl and one of the news editors called in a panic at 9 a.m. Phoenix time demanding to know where my 1A story was from that day's presser - her deadline was 10:30 p.m. - and I responded with, "You DO know we're 3 hours behind you out here, right?" Silence. Silence. Silence. "Oh, right. Sorry."