gannett plans to layoff 3,000 by december.

Gannett has always had big bets on the future (News 2000, Real Life Real News, All-American contests, the Local Information Center). And how many of them have actually benefited the company's papers? Zero.

 

Was taking a SportsJournalists.com sabbatical, but just jumped on to post this (names of Cincy people already cut):
http://citybeat.com/cincinnati/blog-850-enquirer-layoffs-part-two.html

So, entire CiN staff, plus editorial writer Peter Bronson, and (shockingly) former sports ed Michael Perry -- that's the one that really hurts. Perry is a class act, one of the best journalists this town has had.

No word on today's slaughter, yet.

 

Here's the latest report from Indy, courtesy of former employee Ruth Holladay's blog:

This is somewhat repetitive, but here are (some) added names/titles of those who got hit yesterday, with thanks to the sender:

"The fallen, day one:

"Earlier Thursday night:
Three exempt employees without official confirmation
Jackie Thomas, AME/Features
Allen Greenberg, Assistant Metro Editor/State Government
Channon Seifert, Features Art Director

"One Guild-represented employee confirmed by in-person conversation:
Rasheed Fazle, online, hired at the Star 9/23/97.

"We lost at least 3 folks from building services who work at the Pulliam Production Center, names not confirmed, and at least two of those were represented by the Guild

"It looks like, without official confirmation, that another dozen cuts will occur today, a mix of union and nonunion newsies.

"Another sad day to come."

Exempt employees are management; they are not represented/covered by the Guild union.

 

Wow, Michael Perry, that's a shocker. A really good guy. Interesting that Gannett is giving up on metromix so quickly. We hired a bunch of people last year just for that. Wonder if they're on the chopping block?

 

What it looks like Magic is that they are going to have Metromixes in many markets, but some of those will have little local content beyond calendar type stuff.

Let's say the Jonas Brothers are on tour. Somebody somewhere will write a feature and each local Metromix will use it when the show gets close.

Don't know, but that's what it seems like.

 

Just to clarify, most of the alt weekly staff in Cincy was let go, and those who remained are now doing stuff for Metromix.

 

Re: Cincy

What was Michael Perry's most recent role?

 

During my six years at a Gannett paper, we had three weeklies/special sections start and then fold.

"We can sell ads!"

"Nevermind."

Luckily they used mostly in-house people. But still, why they didn't learn their lesson is beyond me.

 

We created four special sections this year; without them, we would be dead in the water.

 

Two lost in sports in Binghamton; Part-time clerk (who handled a lot of the grunt work) and part-time paginator.

Building-wide, 12 laid-off, four relocated to other gigs.

 

A friend of mine lost his job at the Rocky Mountain News when it went out of business. He quickly found another job in Montgomery, Ala. Now, it looks like he's about to lose his job there. It stinks that they would hire a guy just to let him go a few months later. They should just have kept the position unfilled. He had to go through the expense of moving and still has been unable to sell his home back in the Denver area.