Gannett announces furloughs

Didn't want to clutter up the post with stout, pilsner, IPA, kolsch, etc.

 

At my former shop, bought and gutted by GateHouse, everyone left in the newsroom with the exception of one reporter has to take a furlough week, even one who was making less than $38K. Someone asked the general manager when he was taking his weeks. He walked away and didn't answer.

Gannett stock closed at 82 cents today.

 

Typical spineless suit.

The other chain I worked at after leaving Gannett had marginally better suits. They were at least human beings and treated you like a human being, but they had no idea how a modern newsroom operates. I was brought into to "take the sports operation digital" only to find out that any digital and social media presence was run by people who didn't report to anybody in the newsroom and thus couldn't be bothered to fit me in. Having made that realization, I did what I could on that front and tried to make a good contribution doing what I was good at: breaking sports news and investigating things. The dipshit ME took me out to lunch and fed me a compliment sandwich, the filling of which was 10 minutes of "we hired you to do digital things, so do them." I'd never seen the fucker outside of his office but for A1 meetings in the two years I was there. And not even joking - he forgot his wallet, so I paid for lunch. I resigned two months later.

 

The boss and two salespeople will have to eat furloughs at a shop I'm familiar with.

 

Great post Woody. Some of my posts are really negative about the business as I feel like too many of us get taken advantage of by companies like Gannett. The wink/wink for years in paying writers for 40 hours when they work 70 a week. Just do the math on some of these beats. Every other business would pay its employee for hours worked. Not newspapers. And like somebody wrote in a thread these suits won't even say "good job." Why? They could get in trouble come evaluation time if they act as if a reporter or copy editor is doing a good job. It would mean a higher raise on Gannett's evaluation formula. Love your post, Woody. Bless u.

 

$4.8 million? That's 3 percent of the entire company's worth right now.

 

Hotels are vacant. So who is reading USA Today? I wonder why it continues to print.

 

Journalism may be becoming like Farming: A hobby. I know a tremendous number of farmers who still live on the family farm and keep it running because they love farming, but have a day job in town for the steady income, insurance and retirement. We may be rapidly approaching a time when Journalists teach at the local high school, community college or university, or do something else for the steady income, insurance and retirement, and then at 4 pm report to the local newspaper to put out the next morning's daily or put out Thursday's weekly. I also know a few farsighted guys who double majored in college in Journalism and Advertising/Marketing/Sales, went on to pick up a Masters in Advertising/Marketing, and now work for newspapers where they sell ads during the day and then at 3 pm move over to their desk in the newsroom or sports department. They make 2/3 of their salaries off commissions on sales, and 1/3 off their reporter salaries. Since selling has a flexible schedule, if a big story breaks at a 10 a.m. news conference or a team is off to a distant tournament, they can fit that into their schedules. They're happy as can be and the newspaper can't treat them like crap because it depends on their ad sales to stay afloat. Yes, in both cases, the people doing this are working two jobs and have no time left over, but they're making good incomes and are happy in what they do. It may not be the idea solution (the hobby farmers would love to make good incomes just farming, and the Journalists would love to make good incomes just reporting) but it may be where we're heading.

 

Capitalism at its best. To hell with the little people.

 

Correct on both counts. In a morning meeting once the day after the NBA season ended and locker cleanout stories were done, the ME asked me what our beat guy was working on for tomorrow's paper. I nearly had a stroke. The guy had literally worked every day from September 1 through that day in April or May and she had the audacity to act like it's all fun and games and demand more. You know, because working 95 hours a week and covering 82 regular season games, travel and all, plus playoffs, plus off days, plus practice, plus preseason is just fun and games.

And yeah, you can't ever rate people high enough to justify raises. They used to have a 1-5 scale, and I was told to rate everyone as a 2 or a 3. We had one beat that generated the majority of overall traffic, and our beat person absolutely killed it. I tried to give that person a 4. My boss downgraded the evaluation to a 2 because "they're never in the newsroom." Seriously.

 

Never in the newsroom? That means they’re out gathering news. Imagine that. When I was in the old NYT regional chain, I was told to rate everyone as a 3. Ridiculous.