No election results in print

[Human_Paraquat]

The article I posted above said Gannett has 7:00 P.M. deadlines.

A question for the Ganneters out there. If an NFL team that Gannett covers had a 4:00 EST P.M. NFL game for Detroit, Indianapolis or whoever else they cover in the Eastern time zone and evidently a 7:00 P.M. deadline would the company hold the presses if said game went into overtime?

Our Gannett shop will push deadlines back past 10 p.m. for 7 p.m. college basketball tips, 11 for 7 p.m. college football. We went without HS football results on Saturdays until the second round of the state playoffs.

We used to push deadlines much more sporadically. It affected our readers' expectations. Sometimes, late high school results got in because they happened on the same night as a college basketball game. Other times, bigger HS events got snubbed.

I'm among those who wish we'd cut bait and go to 7 p.m. all week, which was the original plan 18 months ago. We are not competing for daily print readers on any front. We compete for digital readers on probably 4-5.

 

[HanSenSE]

It's finally come to pass. When Singleton merged a bunch of papers in the East Bay, a circ manager wanted earlier deadlines so they could accomodate a bigger press run because of interest in the election. The editor pointed out that an earlier deadline would mean no actual results. And this was when an 11 p.m. first edition deadline was standard. Seem luxurious today. Saw a Gannett paper that didn't have the final game of the World Series in the next day's edition. And that game ended before 9 p.m. local time.

Waiting to see what our local DFM paper will do in print. Right now, sports is, unfortunately, a mess. Roundups of two day old games and Friday night football on Sundays. They covered the Series (neither team was in this area) with a standalone photo from each game and a "check online" tease as part of the cutline, which is all they could do. Imagining it will be the same routine when the G League team (a big deal here) opens next week.

 

[MTM]

Waiting to see what our local DFM paper will do in print. Right now, sports is, unfortunately, a mess. Roundups of two day old games and Friday night football on Sundays. They covered the Series (neither team was in this area) with a standalone photo from each game and a "check online" tease as part of the cutline, which is all they could do. Imagining it will be the same routine when the G League team (a big deal here) opens next week.

Does anyone who sees "check online" actually go the the newspaper site for anything not hyper-local? If I don't see a score on a pro or NCAA game, I'm going to a sports site, not podunkpress.com.

 

[playthrough]

I understand the "digital first" strategy - I don't understand putting your name on a print product that if it were a dog would be euthanized.

My local Gannett paper looks like it was designed in five minutes. Simple photos with massive text blocks, don't give the readers any eye candy whatsoever. If only they could embed tweets like every single online story.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

If Gannett gives up on print it gives up on the newspaper business.

Newsonomics: "Digital defeats print" is the headline as Gannett steps away from printed election results

This article says that Des Moines has seen daily circulation drop from 66,000 to 87,000 in the last two years. On-line circulation increased in the same period from 4,100 to 6,000. Rochester has seen daily circulation decrease from 66,000 to 47,000 in the same period. On-line circulation increased from 4,000 to 6,500.

The article says in many markets more than a third of the remaining subscribers are over 70.

The end is near.

I remember reading somewhere many years ago that predicted the last newspaper would be printed in 2030 or thereabouts.

We're almost in the 2020s. We'll be seeing a lot of print products going away very soon.

 

[DanOregon]

I'm surprised dailies just don't use the mail, considering the paucity of breaking news. Figure they arrive at the local post office by 8 p.m., you'd be fine.

 

[LanceyHoward]

Ex-Gannetteer, but from what I understand, there are exemptions for certain things in sports where deadlines get pushed back, like the Packers in Green Bay, the NFL teams you mentioned, high-interest D-I football and basketball teams, etc.

But no exemptions for election night, and no high school football coverage in print until the Sunday paper. All online only until then. Same with high school basketball, too, if they still cover that. Our local shop had maybe a dozen stories on high school basketball (in a basketball-mad area) all last season.

Interesting editorial choices. Gannett will delay a deadline until 11:00 P.M. for college football but not a mid-term election.

 

[BurnsWhenIPee]

I'm curious if readers here will make that connection in the Wednesday paper, that the college basketball game that started at 7 pm will be in print, but the election results were too late.

I'm sure many won't and the editors will consider that a victory, when it will be more of a display of how little is expected out of them as circulation continues to plummet.

 

[I Should Coco]

I'm surprised dailies just don't use the mail, considering the paucity of breaking news. Figure they arrive at the local post office by 8 p.m., you'd be fine.

Small daily I worked at in northern Michigan was delivered by mail, because of all the trouble they had finding/dealing with carriers. This was 1999-2002. The Cadillac News was ahead of its time!

Actually, we just had to get the papers to the Post Office (a couple blocks away) before 3 or 4 a.m. and it was delivered with that day's mail. Problem was, we were a morning paper, but many subscribers didn't get the paper until their mail was delivered midday or later. And of course, no Sunday mail delivery, so we were six days a week with a Saturday "weekend" edition that had all the inserts.

 

[BurnsWhenIPee]

I suspect many sites will roll out explanatory columns in the Sunday papers, spelling out the plans and whys for this all.

Given the heat for the Sinclair stations being force-fed the same message a few months back, I will be curious to see how many of the same talking points will be used across Gannett for this topic.

 

[GoogieHowser]

Listen, I'm an absolute hard ass when it comes to this — one of our base responsibilities as a paper is to follow an election. This is where, as WashPo reminds us, "Denocracy dies in the dark."

My last election at my paper was the 2016 General. I was allowed to move my deadline from 9 pm to 11 pm. I just shrugged and said "save your money we'll be off the floor by 9. If I can't get the results in the paper, there's no reason to wait."

When I told you I dealt with calls from 9 am until 4 pm of "why aren't the results in the paper" "why isn't there a big picture of Mr Trump on your cover" (I opted for 3 col vertical headshots of Trump and Clinton) and my answer was always polite and replayed dozens of times that day. "I'm sorry, our parent company and printer would not allow us to have a deadline that would allow us to get the full and accurate results. No this wasn't my decision. You can find the results on our web site but it sounds like you already know who won. No I'm not going to cover TUESDAY'S election in THURSDAY's edition"

So TL;DR, I believe very few people are going to go to these papers respective web sites because they'll just turn on CNN or the local news when they get up at 6 am and see their paper didn't bother to cover the election.

 

[Severian]

Not to mention their election results pages were absolute trash.