Gannett, Gatehouse talking merger

Don't know if this is a sadder day for the industry or this board that you didn't need the blue font for this.

 

Here's the Poynter story. Five cliffhangers as the Gannett-GateHouse merger vote nears - Poynter

 

It was 20 years ago this month that I was considering going to a Garnett paper to be their design editor. My biggest hangup was the rule that two stories couldn’t jump.

How far we have come.

 

Newsonomics: With its merger approved, the new Gannett readies the cost-cutting knife

 

God, I knew bad news was coming but those stories are depressing as hell.

 

Nothing about this is going to end well ... except the pay for the top executives. Somehow, that always gets better.

 

"But the advisory to editors is that 65% of the savings come from compensation to staff or stringers."

What? 65 percent cuts from newsroom needed right away?? Is this really what's happening?

 

I didn't know newsroom staff cuts were coming again? Can somebody explain why to us? This is nuts. How can any news organizations slice even more people? Is this the round where all "assistant editors" get hacked? Or just reporters as usual.

 

Dan you are a good person. Congrats on being raised right way. I'm sure this is helpful to many. You are goodness personified.

 

The night before my "elimination" by GateHouse, when I was told I had to be in a meeting at 3 p.m. the next day, I copied everything from my desktop onto a flash drive, then deleted the originals. I didn't get a chance to get things out of my Google Suite, and they locked my account while I was in my meeting with the general manager, so make sure to get all of your copies from there, too.

 

I imagine a ton of middle management suits are sweating bullets right now. The time for crumb-snatchers like us will come later.