Gannett Voluntary Buyouts

I moved from New England to Houston, Texas, and aggressively applied to stuff for about 10 months. Thankfully, I found some sports freelancing from this board to keep me from relying 100 percent on my (now) wife's income, but I didn't even get a callback on anything for 9 months. In that 10th month, I got three interviews and the offer for the job I'm in now. Must have just been something in the water.

 

Glad you found something. It must have been very difficult.

 

Since when did Texans not care about sports coverage?

 

Supply of qualified sports journalists far outstrips demand in pretty much every single market right now. (And at this point, I'm no longer a journo, but my 10 years or so, most of them were on the news side because it was always easier to find a job on that side.)

 

And the ratio of "former" to "jobs still available" is even worse for newspaper photographers. I can easily count 20 former newspaper photographers living in my small North Idaho town alone.

 

I get the need and urgency to get away from Gannett at all costs, but in this current environment, I'd be very afraid of jumping when things are so uncertain. I hope Babyjay keeps us posted about this hypothetical scenario, what the decision is and how it turns out.

When I was with Gannett, we had a guy in the newsroom who was a little bit of a martyr, thought the bosses were always out to get him and keep him down, etc. One of the buyout opportunities came along, and he said "Fuck it, I'm out." Some of us tried to play Devil's Advocate with him, and asked what would happen if his wife (who was a sales rep there) lost her job. They had a small child at the time.

He said his wife is fine and secure in her job and blew off all of those concerns. Of course, 2 months later, she was laid off.

 

They care quite a bit, judging by the number of Texas radio stations offering local and national sports talk and sports coverage.

 

Talk is cheap. Cheaper than beat based journalism.

 

Bingo. Since the pandemic's struck, there have been dozens of times (for anyone still working at a newspaper) when it would have been easy to say, "F#@* you all" and walk right out. That'll teach em!

Reality: as nice as that would be, there's still the matter of finding a job in this COVID-racked economy. Or finding a job that won't easily be cut in a couple months when the latest fit hits the shan.

Don't walk unless you've got a reliable job waiting for you.

 

Correct. And listeners can call in, interact and opine with the hosts, which they can't do when reading a sports columnist.

 

All the better to hone your forklift skills.

 

What percentage of listeners call in to talk radio shows? I read once that it was less than 10% but don't know. Obviously the larger the market and audience the smaller the percentage.