Gannett buying The Dallas Morning News?

I would have maybe four months ago. Not today.

 

I've told this story before: I was recruited by a Gannett design hub five years ago, when they were launching. They first called me on a Tuesday. They called again Thursday, then offered the job on Friday. A guy I'd never met, in a very distant city and a workplace I didn't see in person, so no way of knowing what the office setup or the team looked like.

They wanted me to pack up my apartment and move fast so I could get to their city, 1,200 miles away, over the weekend so I could start on Monday. Bells and horns went off in my head. They got huffy when I turned them down. I told them no way I could move that fast, and certainly without an on-site interview and look-see to check out the fit, and their comeback was: "Yeah, but we're GANNETT!!!"

Yeah. Gannett. I ran like hell and never regretted it.

 

I can't find anything either. I also find it hard to believe it is a priority for Gannett to buy Dallas. They are rumored to still be very interested in Tronc. Their other acquisitions have tended to be in areas where they can create bigger clusters of papers such as Ne Jersey, Tennessee and Wisconsin. I don't think Gannett owns very many properties near Dallas.I think the reason they want Tronc badly is they can combine the national staffs of USA Today and Tronc.

I don't think Gannett owns very many properties near Dallas so there are not many opportunities to consolidate.

 

Gannett does own Abilene and Wichita Falls. Not super close, but within a three-hour drive.

 

There were a lot of sportswriters cut around the country.

I'm not sure if the Design Studios were entirely safe, depending how you define them. Many "producers" who edit consolidated copy were laid off yesterday. Most people on the outside wouldn't know their names.

 

Maybe someone who was just laid off and can use those contacts to land a job there in the short term while they (hopefully) look for something else.

 

Bob Collins of MPR with a nice look at just one of the papers that was gutted yesterday, the St. Cloud Times (Dave DeLand had been the longtime sports editor but went over to news few years back).

In slashing a newsroom, Gannett drives a stake in a community’s heart

 

A friend/former supervisor works as a copy editor in Nashville's design studio and says, surprisingly, that his typical workdays aren't that bad. Staffing is adequate, for now, and the pace is steady and busy but not overwhelming. Everyone has time to take dinner and restroom breaks, and his longest week in four years there was 42 hours. His first boss was a control freak who demanded, among other things, that employees who took sick days produce a note from their doctor, but he was considered a jackass even by Gannett standards and was gone after a year. They planned to add people to handle the workload from recently acquired papers (no doubt they'll add even more if the Tronc deal goes through) and there are no idiotic schemes to shift work to GateHouse or any other outside vendor.

On the other hand ... he is under no illusions that Gannett is a good company to work for and realizes that his job has a limited shelf life and the ax could swing at any time. His salary is 60 percent of what it was when he was laid off as an assistant city editor. Fortunately, he turns 60 next year, has accumulated an adequate nest egg, and doesn't need the job to last more than a few years.

I was recruited by that Nashville studio shortly after it started up and had an experience similar to Riptide's. The departed control freak's assistant called on a Tuesday, asked if I could fly in Friday and said I'd be offered a job Friday night if things went OK. Wasn't even sure if they'd let me think about it over the weekend. I had no idea if I could take off work on such short notice for the interview and also told the guy, "Gee, at least let me talk to my wife first." She didn't want to move and I declined to go there for the interview, resulting in an angry phone conversation with the hiring manager. No big loss, in retrospect.

 

Not that I'm aware of. And since I live in that market and know tons of people at both papers in the market, I'm pretty certain I would have heard if that deal was done.

 

I'll take unemployment pay for 12 months, move to Florida, put on one of those God-awful flower-patterned shirts and work an $8 an hour toll booth job before I do that.

 

I turned a job down once, 23 years ago, even though it paid more and had better benefits. I looked at it as a slightly better position than I was already in but a lateral move that would stall my professional advancement by at least 1-2 years. When I explained to the guy my decision and gave him the honest truth, he got furious, told me I was making a huge mistake and I didn't know what I was doing. He was blood-boiling angry and all he'd done was interview me and show me around the office. They hadn't spent a penny on me.

I knew at that moment, based on his crazy-ass reaction, I made the right decision. I sure as hell didn't want to work for that nutjob.