gannett plans to layoff 3,000 by december.

Quick threadjack: I've been unemployed for 10 months, but I'll turn over the cushions of the couch until I find enough coins to pay $5 to the person who changes the subject line to correctly say "lay off" instead of "layoff."

We now return you your sadly regular Gannett programming.

 

I'm just wondering -- after the blood letting is complete, will the 10 reporters left working for Gannett papers across the country be forced to go out and find an African-American, Woman and other minority voices from their community to put into the story about the staff reductions?

 

Gannett confirms layoffs to editor and publisher. Still has not notified employees.

Dick move, Tara Connell.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003989257

 

Another black eye for Gannett. Someone get that organization some sun glasses.

 

To me, the most insulting part is that the only information Martore/Connell give is to discredit GannettBlog. Like the fact that it's only 2,000 people this time around (if that's even true) is any less mortifying to people with heads on the block in 3...2...1... Now.

Between that contempt and the update on Dubow's back... so tone deaf.

 

Here is my favorite "heartless pricks from Gannett" story......

I was working at a Gannett shop - a very small, just under 20,000 circ. paper - and they hired a dude from about six states away to come in and be the local/city editor.

Dude moves there, moves his family there and they buy a house and he is on his way -- except that, about four months after he arrived -- they eliminated his position, rolled it into some other news editor's umbrella and basically in no uncertain terms told him he was fucked.

But as if that wasn't bad enough, the sports editor position was open yet they told dude he was not a candidate for it -- and they brought in some pinhead from one of Gannett's other publications in the state.

Why fucking do that to someone? Seriously -- if you think that you are going to re-organize a newsroom, why hire a guy who you know has to move halfway across the country?

 

They did that to a sports editor we had. They brought him in from halfway across the country and three months after he got here, they decided to let him go.

The dick move in that situation is that they didn't help him get back home. The guy had spent a shitload of money to move to our shop and hadn't even been here long enough to recoup it (not to mention breaking the lease for his apartment). He even asked for his final paycheck the day he left and was told that it would be mailed to his home address.

Back to the original, ongoing topic, though, it pisses me off to no end that Gannett has still not informed employees of these impending layoffs. I guess they're hoping enough of their employees don't read newspapers.

 

Par for the course.

 

To: U.S. Community Publishing Employees
From: Bob Dickey

I want to talk with you about our restructuring efforts, as we continue to battle these difficult economic conditions and the impact on our advertisers. With your help, our various cost savings initiatives are making a difference.

Nevertheless, we will need to implement job reductions to align our resources with the revenue realities we face. Currently each location is finalizing its plan, taking into consideration the local economy, results so far this year and the prospects going forward.

Each plan is different and designed to address the ongoing local needs. All of them, however, involved extremely difficult decisions. Approximately 1400 employees will be impacted by the job reductions across the division. Your publisher or general manager will communicate the local plans, and we expect the vast majority of the reductions will take place by July 9. In a select few cases, the implementation may take longer. There will not be any furloughs for the rest of the year.

I want to stress that the job reductions are not a reflection on these employees or their work. We truly value their many contributions and thank them for their efforts over the years.

Unfortunately, we must take these steps because the advertising environment remains challenged. There have been some promising signs of a recovery, but the reality is the improvements are not broad-based and the economy continues to be fragile.

Even so, we know the economy will improve. To be ready, we need to continue our transformation and maintain a strong financial position. We must publish our newspapers, produce our Web sites and pay down our debt. By taking all these steps today, we will be stronger tomorrow.

Measured against our peers in the media industry, we are healthy and capable of moving forward. We are in this position because we have proactively responded to the financial conditions with actions such as these.

We continue to see good ideas coming from all of you, and we are becoming more innovative everyday. This combination of forward thinking and good fiscal management will, I believe, ultimately result in a return to success for our company.

So, please keep those thoughts and ideas coming. As always, you can email me or call with your comments.

 

Translation:

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

Don't tell me about these difficult economic conditions when you're sending six Gannett recruiters to fucking Puerto Rico for the NAHJ convention to "recruit" for newspapers about to lay off another 1,400 people. Don't tell me about how we all need to sacrifice when those six recruiters were put up in lavish quarters and given the company credit card to go crazy.

I'm so fucking tired of corporate bullshit spin. I'm trying my hardest to feel sorry for Gannett, but I just can't get past that billion dollar operating revenue.

 

Sitting in my cubicle now at a non-Gannett shop... a former intern/employee of my paper is here.

She now works at a Gannett paper. She just said the number apparently is about 4,800 (doesn't that seem way too high??) gone this time next week.

I'll be thinking of all those I've known at Gannett papers, including the one I used to work at.

 

The letter failed to address Gannett employees' most-pressing question:

How's Craig doing?