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Gannett paper: you have to reapply for your job, and while you're at it ...

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Baron Scicluna, Oct 23, 2014.

  1. HackyMcHack

    HackyMcHack Member

    Anyone have to watch a United Way video as part of the process? Had to do that at a couple of places. And those videos were AWFUL.
     
  2. BurnsWhenIPee

    BurnsWhenIPee Well-Known Member

    From the places I've worked, it's been pretty common for the publisher/ME to be on the board for the United Way, or at least very chummy with their board members. So it's been an embarrassment for them to not have 100 percent participation and a bunch of money donated from their workforce.

    And I'm fine with them being embarrassed by that. At my last stop, the ME stopped by my desk to ask about my pledge card, which I had thrown away immediately. He started his spiel about how only $1 or $5 a week could make a difference, etc., and I said loudly, "That's a great point. Let's do it this way - you can take 100 percent of the raise I received this year off the top and donate that to the United Way. Deal?"

    We were in a wage freeze that year, so everyone in the newsroom received a big zero. He didn't like that answer, but everyone within earshot had a real good reaction to it right away.
     
  3. BDC99

    BDC99 Well-Known Member

    Yep. A couple of times. The whole thing is an embarrassment, and it makes the UW look bad, IMO.
     
  4. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    I guess in a way that I was lucky that I was never coerced. My Gannett shop would do incentives like extra days off or gift certificates. But they would still nag by having the meetings, and sending out email after email "reminding" us that the drive was going on.

    I guess this story, beyond it being Gannett, just struck me as utterly preposterous. I know it's "right" to work Alabama, but it strikes me as being flat-out coercion that a business announces layoffs and then tells employees to give to the charity of the business' choice.
     
  5. Johnny Dangerously

    Johnny Dangerously Well-Known Member

    The reason for the huge push is, I suspect, so the paper could claim "100 percent participation" in the drive.

    At one of my stops, I didn't donate for five consecutive years. At the end of that stretch, the paper boasted of its 10th or 11th straight year of 100 percent participation. I asked someone who worked next door to the publisher, and she said, "If you fill out your form, you participate."

    I suspect that was true at the other places I worked that claimed 100 percent participation despite me knowing full well there wasn't 100 percent donation. Thing is, a newspaper wouldn't let a company or agency it covers get away with that kind of fudging to look good, but then again, newspapers do hypocrisy and double standards pretty damn well.
     
  6. PaperDoll

    PaperDoll Well-Known Member

    I don't recall my Gannett outposts mentioning donating to the United Way. However, one of my former news-side colleagues is now a PR person for the local United Way branch. Maybe Sports was immune from the pitches?

    When Gannett offered to match employees' charitable contributions, I gave to the max the company offered. Same for contributions in recognition of volunteer hours. That program seems to have quietly disappeared.
     
  7. RecoveringJournalist

    RecoveringJournalist Well-Known Member

    There has never been a point where Gannett was only mildly disliked, unless you were at the Mother ship. :D
     
  8. RecoveringJournalist

    RecoveringJournalist Well-Known Member

    Ay my last stop you were encouraged to give a day's pay. They acted like that was the standard donation.
     
  9. MTM

    MTM Well-Known Member

    With layoffs, furloughs and pay cuts, most of us are closer to being recipients than donors.
     
  10. RecoveringJournalist

    RecoveringJournalist Well-Known Member

    Yeah, it's fucking offensive. I can't speak for every paper, but at my old shop they bullied the fuck out of you to donate. I was rarely in the office and I felt it. I would get daily emails letting me know they had not gotten my donation yet.

    "Yeah, we just let 40 of your co-workers go, but now we're encouraging you to give money to let the company look good."

    Fuck Gannett.
     
  11. boundforboston

    boundforboston Well-Known Member

    What's some of the bad stuff? I know they take about 10 percent of donations for themselves.
     
  12. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    This is from 1992:

    The whole sorry affair hits a nerve with countless employees whose bosses arm-twist them every fall to give their ``fair share`` of their paycheck to a non-profit foundation that let its president spend $92,265 on chauffeured limousines and $40,762 on Concorde flights to Europe over three-year periods. Investigators say William Aramony apparently used United Way of America money to pay for much of what they called his ``lavish lifestyle.`` In addition to his $390,000 salary plus $73,000 in other compensation, he helped himself to a disgrace of other perks. For example, his UWA expenses included $33,650 for air fare to or through Gainesville, Fla., the home of a close female friend, from 1988 to 1990.

    http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1992-04-09/news/9202010652_1_william-aramony-uwa-spin-offs

    That was a huge deal, one of the biggest stories in the nation.

    Twenty years later they were still dealing with excessive compensation (though not as scandalous).

    It's a terrible place to spend your charity dollars.
     
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