Mike Reed Sets Goals for New Gannett

I found this info out about them last year, when they first started buying up places.

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My theory: Perhaps they're trying to nab contracts with municipalities and hoping to leverage the local newspaper and whatever sales staff is eft to get the job done. "We can give you X, and we can also keep the local paper alive for legal notices"?

 

Seems like a lot to work out in just a week's time from an outside perspective. Who paginates? What front-end system will be used for copy? Who's the regional editor and who reports to whom? Do the initiatives already underway carry forward?

Not to mention, who prints the papers now? This has the look and smell of the screwiest of goat screws.

 

That was my initial reaction. But Cherry Hill has purchased Gannett papers before and are back for more so I suppose the previous purchases have been successful.

 

Meanwhile Gannett is going through another cycle here of formally killing off weeklies, the ones that have been starved for 20 years.

 

Gannett has not disclosed how much money they received from the sale. Given Gannett's debt load if an appreciable amount of money was received I think they would have disclosed the amount and said that the money received would be applied to pay down debt in accordance with their strategic plan or something to that effect.

The failure to disclose leads me to believe that they basically gave the papers away. If that is true it is certainly a bad sign for other small town papers.

 

Maybe tiny sale prices but perhaps New Gannett also offloaded substantial liabilities to CherryHill as part of the sales. Just as the NY Daily News was sold for $1 but its pension obligations were part of the sale.

 

I doubt it. If Gannett had been able to offload material amounts of debt as compensation for the papers I think they would have bragged about it in a press release.

 

All right, I've finally had it. It was a long time coming but seeing journalism types use the word drives me insane. OFFLOAD is not a friggin' word. It is corporate jargon. It ranks up there with please be advised and the all-time pisser, going forward. The word is UNLOAD for crying in a sink. Sorry LanceyHoward, I did not mean to pick on you. But I feel better now.

 

I mean, the second definition for it on ole Merriam-Webster.com is: "rid oneself of (something) by selling or passing it on to someone else." Dates back to the 1850s, according to this site.

 

I hate the term rightsizing.

 

I hate the phrase, "You're invited to a meeting."