More cuts at USA Today?

Arrogance level among new USA Today sports folks is considerable. They are probably happy to unload more over-45 journalists. (Since they are too old to really "get it.")

 

Anyone at a print publication thinking they are "safe" and thinking they can count on more than another year at their present place of employment is delusional - whatever their age. Not saying things are dropping that quickly, but how many colleagues do you have to see get disappeared and not figure your time will come eventually?
I'm surprised Gannett hasn't made all of their reporters independent contractors, "renting" them by the month.

 

Best of luck Dave. Gave you a follow too. Wishing all of you well.

I know about the 2,000 follower thing, as I'm there. I'm 1 of 2 in our newsroom who have individual Twitter accounts, and the number of followers I have is nearing that of my paper's main account, but since my paper doesn't engage with anyone on it, that hasn't been too difficult to catch up to. Other than throwing stories up everyday, my paper doesn't engage with it. I've been making it a point to interact with followers on local content, mixing things up with results, breaking news, tidbits, video and pics from game coverage, retweeting relevant information, etc., all obvious things to me to do within the medium. At the end of the day, though, the bosses don't care. Being a few minutes late on our early deadlines, that's what they care about.

 

The one risk with that is that Gannett would have to negotiate individual contracts, and wouldn't be able to keep the contractors under their thumb.

Want to add tweeting to reporting duties? The contractor will want to negotiate extra pay for that.

 

I'm following too, Dave. Best of luck with everything. You're a pro's pro. And thanks for your perspective on family ... we all need to be reminded of that from time to time. Best of luck with everything.

 

Point had already been made.

 

I know of a writer who people have said does that. He has like 70,000 followers and he's not someone who you would ever expect to have that many. I never knew how that worked, but if it's that cheap, people should do that for job preservation.

 

If The Tennessean is actually quite profitable - this story says so, and I have heard much the same myself from people in a position to know - then what's really behind the "Newsroom of the Future" job cuts?

http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashville/after-a-local-groups-failed-purchase-attempt-the-daily-looks-to-be-with-gannett-for-a-while/Content?oid=4589999

My thoughts today will be with the rank and file Nashville reporters who had to endure the rank humiliation of reapplying for their jobs. And their families.

 

There are dozens of services that will do it for you. And for cheap. Is someone from USA Today management really going to wade through 10,000 followers to determine who is and who isn't spam? Please.

http://buytwitterfollowersreview.org

 

Why settle for 20% when you can grab 25%?

That old goose just has to be FULL of gold.

 

I'm not sure if USAT really wants original stories anymore. At least in sports.

Seems like every time I go to the USAT website and click a sports headline now, I get someone's regurge of a story that ran elsewhere. I never go there looking for pre-chewed food, but that's what always seems to be served.

Also, USAT's Olympic section used to be a must-read, but for the last several months that page has been relatively stagnant -- and definitely lacking its usual breadth of coverage.

 

I think the NFL and college basketball coverage are far better than they used to be. I think the enterprise and investigative stories are better as well.

I still maintain that the section is vastly improved as a result of the overhaul a couple years ago.