Sports Content Coach, Detroit Free Press

[Potter]

Looks like a good gig for the right person.

I want to copy and paste this into every job thread.

 

[BDC99]

Except that editors, if they're good ones, have been coaching reporters for the last 100+ years.

Gannett just put the "coach" title on because they were 1. Changing job descriptions to allow them to shed some high-priced people, B. Tried to make it seem like they were doing something "innovative" just for the sake of appearance and III. Certain people did it to look busy to justify their salaries.

Key words: "good ones." How many of these are there, really? Not enough.

 

[DeskMonkey1]

Our company was recently purchased by Gannett from Digital First media. We love it. Cleaner copy and better benefits. I don't get all the hate on these forums.

Their tendency for layoffs

 

[Southwinds]

Our company was recently purchased by Gannett from Digital First media. We love it. Cleaner copy and better benefits. I don't get all the hate on these forums.

Worst to second-worst is an improvement, sure.

 

[Cespedes]

I'm a pretty young journalist. Who are regarded as some of the best companies?

 

[Batman]

Our company was recently purchased by Gannett from Digital First media. We love it. Cleaner copy and better benefits. I don't get all the hate on these forums.

If you don't know about Gannett's reputation, I'll assume you're new to the business and I'll do my best to explain in 200 words or less.

Gannett is notorious for "innovations" and short-lived concepts that really amount to little more than feel-good buzzwords dreamt up by someone who hasn't worked a beat in 20 years (if ever) and has lost touch with the demands of an ever-increasing workload on today's reporter. Or they're just stupid and lack common sense.
These concepts usually last six months to a year, just enough time for the grunts to adapt to it, until some genius in corporate comes up with the next great idea that the entire company is forced to adopt.

That's annoying enough, but it really only affects those at Gannett papers. What is worse is the effect their business practices have on the industry.
Starting around 2008 or 2009, when they hit a rough patch, Gannett became a pioneer in finding ways to gut newspapers while putting on a rosy smile and saying, "This will make us better," or my personal favorite, "This will allow us to focus on our communities and local coverage" at the same time they make half of each paper a USA Today insert.
The gutting also involved screwing over a lot of longtime, experienced employees.
From 2008-11 Gannett probably laid off in total somewhere between a third and a half of its workforce. Literally thousands of employees companywide. Most of these were older, veteran reporters -- some of them among the best in the business -- who had spent decades working their way up the food chain and were earning a decent salary. While it was a cold-blooded and possibly necessary business decision, phase two of that process was to eventually fill some of those positions with younger -- i.e., cheaper -- employees.
The layoffs have calmed down some the last couple of years, but mainly because they don't call them that any more. Now they're "realignments" or "reorganizations" that somehow seem worse. Instead of just cutting a job, they make people interview for their old ones or move them into new positions by eliminating beats.
The net effect has been a radical change in newsrooms, where experience isn't as important as your number on the balance sheet. Ideally, the business model is to have people leave after a couple of years so they don't start to ask questions about when they might get a raise. The executives get bonuses, while the rank and file employees the company depends on on a daily basis live in constant fear of when the next great idea from corporate is going to come down the pipe.

Even THAT isn't the worst part, though. The worst part is that, being an industry leader that has had some financial success with these practices, Gannett has become a model for other companies to follow. Some, like CNHI, have even come up with their own sadistic twists by using furloughs instead of layoffs.
Industrywide it's led to a brain drain as those who haven't been laid off have fled the business for better, more secure options in other fields. Which is exactly what Gannett and newspaper executives want. They're in this to make money, after all, which isn't a crime. It's just a shame that they'd rather do it by putting the screws to, instead of rewarding, what should be their best, brightest and most experienced employees.
And if you cry foul, think that older employees need to get out of the way to give the younger generation a chance, just remember this -- you'll be in our shoes one day. Probably sooner than you think.

 

[BDC99]

I don't think that was less than 200 words. But well said.

 

[Ice9]

A lot of people make fun of the Gannett "coach" title, and I get that some folks don't get what it means (especially if you're not inside journalism), but there are a lot of major (non-Gannett) publications and editors who have said in the past year that editors need to start working more as coaches to help improve the quality of their sections and their reporters.

And this concept is revelatory how? Did I miss something?

 

[I Should Coco]

Batman hit it on the screws.

A more succinct version: "Churn" used to be a term to describe subscribers starting, stopping and re-starting their subscriptions. In the past few years, I've heard it used to describe the newsroom staff.

 

[albert77]

If you don't know about Gannett's reputation, I'll assume you're new to the business and I'll do my best to explain in 200 words or less.

Gannett is notorious for "innovations" and short-lived concepts that really amount to little more than feel-good buzzwords dreamt up by someone who hasn't worked a beat in 20 years (if ever) and has lost touch with the demands of an ever-increasing workload on today's reporter. Or they're just stupid and lack common sense.
These concepts usually last six months to a year, just enough time for the grunts to adapt to it, until some genius in corporate comes up with the next great idea that the entire company is forced to adopt.

That's annoying enough, but it really only affects those at Gannett papers. What is worse is the effect their business practices have on the industry.
Starting around 2008 or 2009, when they hit a rough patch, Gannett became a pioneer in finding ways to gut newspapers while putting on a rosy smile and saying, "This will make us better," or my personal favorite, "This will allow us to focus on our communities and local coverage" at the same time they make half of each paper a USA Today insert.
The gutting also involved screwing over a lot of longtime, experienced employees.
From 2008-11 Gannett probably laid off in total somewhere between a third and a half of its workforce. Literally thousands of employees companywide. Most of these were older, veteran reporters -- some of them among the best in the business -- who had spent decades working their way up the food chain and were earning a decent salary. While it was a cold-blooded and possibly necessary business decision, phase two of that process was to eventually fill some of those positions with younger -- i.e., cheaper -- employees.
The layoffs have calmed down some the last couple of years, but mainly because they don't call them that any more. Now they're "realignments" or "reorganizations" that somehow seem worse. Instead of just cutting a job, they make people interview for their old ones or move them into new positions by eliminating beats.
The net effect has been a radical change in newsrooms, where experience isn't as important as your number on the balance sheet. Ideally, the business model is to have people leave after a couple of years so they don't start to ask questions about when they might get a raise. The executives get bonuses, while the rank and file employees the company depends on on a daily basis live in constant fear of when the next great idea from corporate is going to come down the pipe.

Even THAT isn't the worst part, though. The worst part is that, being an industry leader that has had some financial success with these practices, Gannett has become a model for other companies to follow. Some, like CNHI, have even come up with their own sadistic twists by using furloughs instead of layoffs.
Industrywide it's led to a brain drain as those who haven't been laid off have fled the business for better, more secure options in other fields. Which is exactly what Gannett and newspaper executives want. They're in this to make money, after all, which isn't a crime. It's just a shame that they'd rather do it by putting the screws to, instead of rewarding, what should be their best, brightest and most experienced employees.
And if you cry foul, think that older employees need to get out of the way to give the younger generation a chance, just remember this -- you'll be in our shoes one day. Probably sooner than you think.

As someone who worked in a Gannett newsroom for 24 years, I can attest to the truth of this, word-for-word. The lowest point was when I had to re-interview for the job I'd been doing well for 12 years, and to be told that I failed to meet the arbitrary "score" for being rehired. Fortunately, my editor understood what my worth was in that position, but she still saddled me with a written list of goals I was supposed to meet in order to stay employed.

Fortunately, an escape hatch opened up (although it took the sudden death of a good friend for it to open). I thought I would be a little wistful or nostalgic when my last days at the paper rolled around, but my only real emotion on my last day was, "thank God I'm done here." I never thought I could be as happy in a job as I have been in the six months I've been in my current job.

 

[Ice9]

What kind of recruiting budget will this coach have?

No? No? Crickets? OK, I'll see myself out.....

 

[Sports Guy]

I want to copy and paste this into every job thread.

Hilarity from the newbie.