gannett plans to layoff 3,000 by december.

How many newspaper CEO's are getting fired? After all, the industry is performing so poorly, it's time to cut some of them. Right? Of course not. They'll have a good Christmas and, oh, keep you in their thoughts for about five seconds.

 

I think you're off by five seconds.

 

one mississippi, two miss ...

 

Oh you know, it's the customary prayer where they say "Thank You for bestowing upon your chosen ones at this table our great bounty and golden parachute."

 

funny, but yawn used to quote the bible.

 

To whoever decides to write one: Fuck you right in your stupid ear.

 

Just got home from another 12-hour shift that will only go down as 8 hours on my time card (to avoid the obligatory chewing of the ass by my bosses to keep OT to a minimum) and I gotta tell you, these next few weeks will be horrible.

The co-workers I talked to are on pins and needles and every one of them can come up with reasons why they're going to be the ones getting cut, even the ones that most people deem untouchable.

Can't be good for production, but then again, better done than good, right? Isn't that the Gannett mantra?

 

His staff was spared in the first round of cuts. When these come down, they're going to more than make up for it.

 

In fairness, the last cuts that Gannett made was the heads of departments at larger papers, VPs of Human Resources, Operations, etc. Instead of HR person for one paper, you are in charge of 3-4 if you got to keep your job.

Now, about that corporate office ....

 

At this point, I don't care who you are, you should have something else in the works. I don't mean another paper, I mean another career.

As a former editor of mine said, "There are two kind of people in journalism, those who have lost their jobs and those who are waiting to lose their jobs."

I traded emails yesterday with one of Gannett's top columnists. If you listed 10 writers who you would assume would be safe in that company, he would be on the list.

He's scared shitless. He just bought a house and has a kid in college and he is convinced he will be jobless by Dec. 5.

The buzz is that the first round of cuts will happen by Nov. 21 and they'll be done by Dec. 5.

 

To add to your point, my experience has been that papers that try to sell classifieds still sell them. Papers that convince themselves that they can't compete with Craig's List, EBay, etc., don't compete with Craig's List, EBay, etc.

Same mentality in newsrooms about how to approach news. Many of the things papers have always expected to deliver, they don't anymore and they'll tell you it's because they can't. Really? Are you sure?

Then they throw a redesign at you and suggest ways to minimize the damage within the context of disastrous big-picture decisions.

A deck-chair-Titantic analogy would be apropos when you get to that point.