Mike Reed Sets Goals for New Gannett

If media companies built cars, they’d make the brake pads a quarter-inch thinner each month just to see how far they could push it until the lawsuits piled up. Gannett puts out newspapers now about like Terri Schiavo put out brain waves.

 

Wow, that’s depressing as hell, rtse. I know management always expects the “daily miracle” to somehow happen, but even Jesus needed two loaves and a few fish.

It really does get to a point where you wonder why they still bother with print.

 

Fixed it for you. That's all you needed to write.

 

No way. There wouldn't be disc brakes. There would be retrofitted drum brakes, cheaper tires and no maintenance. Then they would look around in amazement wondering why more and more people were wrapping vehicles around trees and utility poles.

Of course, there will be no media to report any of these incidents.

 

Then they would rename garages as “Local Repair Centers” and describe fatal car crashes as “Moments of Life.”

 

After passing by a rival maker's lot toward the end of its successful sale they'd get a great idea. They'd take two of their crappy cars, line them up on either side of the parking lot, and drive them at each other at full speed while offering discounted subscriptions to onlookers.
This promotion would be called Deal Chicken.

 

Deal Chicken, the gift that keeps giving. As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.

 

Saw a “holiday edition” of the local Gannett daily today. It was about the size of a Wednesday paper in 2006. There were some circulars, but not a ton.

 

I loved it when Gannett counted the Thanksgiving and Christmas papers as "extra papers" when charging subscribers. Seriously. It's not like the paper put in any effort into the newspaper - they were charging for the ads, that others had already paid for.

 

To this day, newspapers will charge the Sunday price for the Thanksgiving day edition at the newsstand.

Still remember an ME chewing us out for not swapping out the bar code on the usual weekday A1 template.

 

What's a newstand? I was in DC last week and went looking for a copy of the Post. Front desk? Nope. Hilton next door? Nope. Starbucks? Nope. I will say it was worth the effort. Still a meaty product.

 

Everybody did that. At a previous stop they put how much the coupons were worth for the $2 newsstand price.