gannett plans to layoff 3,000 by december.

i think you know i'd get you all drunked up and give you a big ol' man hug if i could.

 

Wall Street would jack up the stock prices of domestic automakers if they announced they were laying off all of their lugnut inspectors, airlines who laid off half their mechanics, and restaurants who laid off their cooks.

 

Let me quote ya a hypothetical ...

You're a Gannett employee. (Hell, a bunch of you reading this probably are Gannett employees. Good luck and stay frosty.) You find out this is coming down. Are you working on future possibilities now just in case you get whacked or are you hoping the axe misses your neck?

For that matter, are you working on future possibilities just in case or are you planning to leave anyway?

 

yes, yes and yes

 

In defense of the market, Gannett was up only slightly more than the S&P 500 today. And these job cuts had been expected for long enough that I'm sure the news had already been priced in. The stock might have moved a little if the market had expected 2,000 cuts instead of 3,000 but that wouldn't move the price enormously. They've already hit the stock by something like 75%. I don't think the market is the evil one here.

 

Problem is the job market is drying up in all kinds of industries. I guess if you want to work in a soup kitchen you'd be in pretty good shape.

 

To all three, yes.

Last cut sent six people packing at our shop, but only one in the newsroom. This next cut, we believe, will have a greater impact on the newsroom.

I'm expecting at least one person will be gone from our sports staff of six full-timers, possibly two with one of those people getting reassigned to a new position in the newsroom.

It's already a ghost town in our newsroom with as many empty cubicles as actual employees. I can't imagine what it'll be like after this next cut.

And FWIW, we're about a 45-50K circ paper.

 

Exactly. I got my first non-high school job outside of journalism earlier this year because I was tired of the bullshit. Now, the company I work for now is scaling back the budget. Business is down and I'm worried about my future at that job now.

Other than that, this sucks. I watched a bunch of friends and former colleagues go through this with McClatchy twice this summer. Now, I have friends that could be on the block at Gannett.

Fucking ass holes.

 

In just two pages of thread we have managed to speculate two entirely different things.

Some posters believe this is going to hit the community papers hard.

Some posters have mentioned large metros... or papers with circs above 100k.

Some posters have mentioned papers that have already had numerous rounds of cuts. What's left to trim there?

More importantly, does anyone know specifically which papers are supposed to be impacted more? Your metros? or your "community papers?" For that matter? What are we considering to be a community paper?

Something with a circ under 30k? Or are we talking about local weeklies here?

 

I think when Gannett says "community newspapers," it is referring to its 84 dailies nationwide and not the other once- or twice-weeklies it owns, even though the latter is what comes to mind when I hear the phrase "community newspapers."

This isn't pretty. I wonder if they can expand that 10% cut to also mean expenses, such as going from 10 limos to 9 at Gannett HQ in Virginia.

 

What happens when you lay off 25% of your editorial staff nationwide, the stock price jumps 10%, and then the next day comes and reality sets in. You think Gannett stockholders are still celebrating on the day after?

 

Who owns Gannett stock anymore? I'd almost rather own Chrysler stock.