Mike Reed Sets Goals for New Gannett

I was at a Holiday Inn Express on Friday morning and looked for a newspaper to read with breakfast. No USATs to be found. All I turned up was a two-day-old copy of The Jamestown Sun (a Forum Communications paper).

 

I think that happened one year at the Gannett paper I was at. Which then meant that for the next several years, we got tons of emails from the brass about how we had to make sure the bar code was changed.

 

You got the memo, right?

 

I was surprised to learn the big Thanksgiving paper coming out on Wednesday afternoon was no longer a thing at our local Gannett shop.

For a good run there, that was the biggest day of the year, with exclusive locations, people lined up to get it and 3 times the press run, with multiple trucks sent out to replenish supplies after it sold out.

I guess sending the printing 300 miles away has consequences.

 

Not Gannett. Ogden owns the rags in my neck of the woods now after buying the family owned paper I worked at.
Wednesday before Thanksgiving was always stuffed with inserts. So much so, that they always asked for help the night before to get the paper out the door with an early deadline.
The local paper still has a prep basketball section. Before I stepped away 3 years ago, there was never a chance the edition was inserted the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. This year, it was.
There may have been 10 inserts on Wednesday. There were perhaps 30 just a few years ago.

 

I guess insert-heavy papers just prior to Black Friday are a thing of the past. Nostalgia aside, it's bad from a revenue perspective.

 

Tangential topic.

What is the deductible for employee health insurance at Gannett? The reason I ask is my 60+ brother lost his health insurance for a while during the pandemic. He found that ObamaCare was less than his deductible.

I am just wondering if gannett employees would be better off on ObamaCare and when if/when they get reduced can get the same insurance with reduced rates because of higher subsidies.

 

Our press deadlines are pushed up three hours Tuesday night so that they can get the papers back to the office with enough time to stuff the Wednesday editions with inserts. (not Gannett shop)

 

My old shop just made the carriers stuff the Thanksgiving Day papers themselves. It was easily the biggest paper of the year. There may have been an early deadline, but since it was Thanksgiving Eve, nobody objected.

 

Layoff notices coming down tomorrow and Friday.
I know of 1 in sports. Another small market that will have zero sports staff.

 

Gannett just sold six small dailies in North Carolina to Paxton. Only one had a sports reporter.