MisterCreosote
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Sep 9, 2010
- Messages
- 15,643
This is from one of the ex-Gannetteer Facebook groups, and is 100 percent spot-on:
When I was executive editor of Gannett News Service (okay, that was in the late 1980s), I was hired by John Quinn largely because I had 25 years experience at UPI, managing and "leveraging" (that's for you, Nancy Woodhull!) coverage from correspondents around the world. The idea was that, in addition to distributing news gathered and written by the GNS staff, we would take the work of reporters from USAT and the other Gannett papers, make it wire-ready in our Washington bureau, and re-distribute it to everyone. I tried valiantly, but largely unsuccessfully, to change the Gannett culture.
There were areas that worked: Special projects that weren't on deadline; features, graphics and photos that we could turn around more easily than we could with breaking news that came to us with a narrow local perspective and had to be broadened — under the gun — for national consumption.
There were a number of USAT reporters who routinely and happily expanded six-graf stories into 400-word stories with greater context and nuance. And there were rare instances when we relied on local coverage almost entirely. Prime example: Westchester and USAT, on 9/11.
But the vast bulk of what worked was produced by the GNS national and regional staffs in Washington; and various state bureaus … Indianapolis, Springfield, Ill.; Columbus, Sacramento, Baton Rouge, Trenton, Harrisburg, Tallahassee, etc.
I wish Gannett well in trying to assemble a USAT-based wire service network. But I am skeptical, given massive staff cuts at many papers, and the editing desk changes that leave local stories to be handled by a copy desk hundreds of miles away and unfamiliar with the originating communities.
We never quite pulled it off 30 years ago, with far greater financial, personnel and talent resources, and with total management commitment. Hard to see how it can be successful with the news business in free-fall, and with a management far less interested in quality journalism than on cutting resources to maximize profits.
When I was executive editor of Gannett News Service (okay, that was in the late 1980s), I was hired by John Quinn largely because I had 25 years experience at UPI, managing and "leveraging" (that's for you, Nancy Woodhull!) coverage from correspondents around the world. The idea was that, in addition to distributing news gathered and written by the GNS staff, we would take the work of reporters from USAT and the other Gannett papers, make it wire-ready in our Washington bureau, and re-distribute it to everyone. I tried valiantly, but largely unsuccessfully, to change the Gannett culture.
There were areas that worked: Special projects that weren't on deadline; features, graphics and photos that we could turn around more easily than we could with breaking news that came to us with a narrow local perspective and had to be broadened — under the gun — for national consumption.
There were a number of USAT reporters who routinely and happily expanded six-graf stories into 400-word stories with greater context and nuance. And there were rare instances when we relied on local coverage almost entirely. Prime example: Westchester and USAT, on 9/11.
But the vast bulk of what worked was produced by the GNS national and regional staffs in Washington; and various state bureaus … Indianapolis, Springfield, Ill.; Columbus, Sacramento, Baton Rouge, Trenton, Harrisburg, Tallahassee, etc.
I wish Gannett well in trying to assemble a USAT-based wire service network. But I am skeptical, given massive staff cuts at many papers, and the editing desk changes that leave local stories to be handled by a copy desk hundreds of miles away and unfamiliar with the originating communities.
We never quite pulled it off 30 years ago, with far greater financial, personnel and talent resources, and with total management commitment. Hard to see how it can be successful with the news business in free-fall, and with a management far less interested in quality journalism than on cutting resources to maximize profits.
