Sports Editor, Montgomery Advertiser

The Gannett way, as I've experienced it, is:

*Accept the corporate spin (ahem, bullshit) as gospel
*Never question any of the company-wide initiatives (no matter how many of them have failed miserably)
*Show up to work every day and work 10-12 hour shifts and be a nice little Gannettoid and write down 8 hours on your time card

As for pay, I wouldn't expect to get rich. It's Gannett, which means you're not going to be paid what you deserve, and with the current climate of the company's economy, they're going to probably settle for the lowest bidder.

Remember, the Gannett mantra is "Better done than good."

And believe me, it resonates throughout everything they do.

 

i get this strange feeling you work for gannett.

 

Like many, I'm just familiar with the company.

 

I interviewed for a news designer/copy editor job there just a few months ago. Met the aforementioned sports editor and most of the staff.

I got a really weird vibe from the place.

Since I was out of work at the time, I prayed that I'd get the job because I needed something to put bread on the table. Well, I'm glad that prayer was not answered. Especially since a new hire would have been one of the first to go in any round of job cuts. And I've got to admit, I was very leery of being assimilated into the Gannett collective, where resistance is futile and diversity is the most important virtue trumping all.

There are good folks who work there. Really good folks. But for a paper of that size, the sports section comes as a serious disappointment. I'd chalk that up to the upper management, not so much the folks working in the sports trenches.

 

what happened at your last gig?

 

Actually, there's no economy in that. You make a new hire at, say, $29K, then dust somebody who's been there for a long while making, say, $41K.

Voila, $12K savings.

Rinse, repeat.

 

You think a new hire of an SE is going to make less than his staff?

 

i think he was referring to bamadog's in theory position, not the se job.

 

Ahhhh, gotcha

 

That's a very good observation of the situation at the Advertiser.

 

Gannett is a disaster because they're trying to reinvent the wheel. They tried to get out front in the Internet thing and left everyone in the dust, particularly their readers.
The result is they've ignored the part of the company responsible for 90-plus percent of their profit in favor of the 7-less percent, their Web sites. They give their product away for free then wonder why no one wants to buy their product.
It's fascinating. It follows no business model I've ever heard of, yet their corporate big-wigs don't seem to grasp this basic fundamental business principle.
These are just some of the many reasons this company's stock has train-wrecked from $90 per share to less than $8 per share in three years.
Gannett is very vulnerable to a takeover right now, but it's been run so poorly it might not be worth the effort. That Taj Mahal they built in Va. is about to become a White Elephant. It's just a matter of time.

 

"They tried to get out front in the Internet thing and left everyone in the dust, particularly their readers." -- That's pretty damn spot on about the whole industry.

But I'll part ways with you on some of the rest of your post. There is no doubt that the future includes a diminished print product and more emphasis online. But the key is to not diminish your print product until you're ready to support yourself online. It's basic cart-before-the-horse stuff.