Paxton Media Group

Does anyone know anything about this company?

 

They suck. Avoid at all costs. Many people will give you the reasons.

 

Especially those who formerly worked at the Durham paper.

 

Not a former employee (my wife is), but I know a few who do/have worked for the company ...

PMG is ultra, ultra-cheap, and has been known in this area to run its newsrooms with the "cut everything to the bone and expect the staff to just work harder" philosophy.

At one newspaper nearby, they fired their EIC just because a nearby editor was available and it was assumed he'd take the job. He didnt, and they've been through three or four in the years since. The same newspaper also concocted a really odd reason to fire someone (essentially giving her 70+ hours of work to do the day before she was supposed to go on vacation, then axing her because it wasn't done).

I've heard Paxton horror stories about how they won't allocate extra stringer money or overtime pay for busy sports weeks when that extra money is needed, and they're usually slow to fill vacant newsroom positions.

Basically, stay away.

 

J-68, at the risk of piling on here, I've known people who formerly worked and currently work at Paxton papers. They're very small-time, do everything to squeeze a nickel, and don't care about their staff. If you're absolutely desperate, go into it with your eyes wide open. But plan to move on in two years. If you have options, consider them.

 

Here's my favorite Paxton story:


One place I was at, they had just bought a new G4 laptop for photogs to send photos from. But they wouldn't foot the bill for the monthly Internet service, because they said there would be too many months where it wasn't used at all. So the G4 sat in the photo editor's office collecting dust.

News-side had about five openings at one time and they went vacant for months at a time.

 

I love these threads. Too bad JRC wasn't the company instead of Paxton.

 

I have one that's definitely going into "Nuts and Dolts."

So the tools in power wanted residents to send stories, and of course there were all kinds of news stringers since the company didn't want to pay anyone.

But they kept insisting they couldn't handle Word attachments. So everyone spent their morning reformatting e-mailed copy.

The program to translate Word on a Mac probably cost about $20 per license. It would have taken little money to put it onto 2 or 3 computers.

No one would do it.

 

See Herald-Sun, Durham.

In case you need help:
http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A23460
http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A23468
http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A23466
http://www.wral.com/news/4056753/detail.html
http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2005/01/herald_sun.html

I wouldn't go anywhere near these bastards after seeing up close what they did to that paper -- and several of my friends -- last year.

 

Remember the sports editor in Arkansas last year who was fired for covering preps instead of youth golf?

The paper he worked for was owned by ... Yep ... you guessed it.

 

One thought: Unionize!!!

 

See the other thread about employees whimpering and putting their tail between their legs.

It won't happen. No one will take the initiative.