Centralized desk talk from GateHouse

Very little in the way of specifics here, but bad news, nonetheless.

http://jimromenesko.com/2012/01/18/gatehouse-moves-to-central-copy-desk-lays-off-staff/

 

GateHouse has chopped in some of its locales, and started doing so fairly early (2008).

I'm wondering where the New England desk will be -- Framingham would be a good guess, but you never know with GateHouse.

 

Detaching the content producers from the communities they cover is not a good idea. All these places using centralized desks must think copy writers do nothing but proofread.

Headline writing, deciding news value and play in the paper and knowing the community's standards are all important aspects to connecting with your readers. But I'm sure someone in Chicago knows exactly what's important to a reader in Norwich, Conn. :

 

I have heard that seven members of the desk in Norwich, which is, well, everyone, got notified they are being laid off ... in six months.

They will remain employed until the company completes its transition to a regional desk.

Hopefully, they all find jobs before then and can go out on their own terms.

 

I'm not sure about numbers at the other Gatehouse properties, but I'd imagine it's a bloodbath throughout the chain.

 

FWIW, these desks do not operate in a vacuum. The budget for the paper in Conn. would be put together by an editor in Conn. How to play the stories likely is told to the desk via conference call or messenger or just e-mail. If local news breaks or there is an addition, the desk will be notified, "XXXXX moving to front page. Push YYYYYY inside. If you need to hold something, ZZZZZZ can hold."

Not a perfect system, but not exactly flying blind, either.

 

Definitely this. Not great, but it's not as if a Chicago paper will have Red Sox and Patriots centerpiece stories everyday, while the Cubs and Bears are stuck inside as part of a national roundup.

My former paper went to their centralized desk a few months ago, and while it's not ideal, from talking to former workmates, they book the section, decide story play and which story goes where, and are pretty free to change on the fly because of breaking news. In the end, they call the shots, not the centralized desk.

I feel for the people in Norwich (and others affected), but anyone who sees a centralized desk anywhere as any kind of a surprise needs to pay better attention.

 

" ... [M]ore than 35 percent of newsroom time is spent on production of the print product, drastically depleting resources necessary to produce the compelling content our readers expect."

It's always the fucking desk's fault, isn't it?

 

Fuck GateHouse. Some really good people are getting cut, news and sports, and already have been from there. Sadly there's some other deadweight in that newsroom that should go, and should have gone yesterday, but never will.

 

And they say that as if they're going to be diverting resources elsewhere. More than likely, after they cut the desk, they're going to continue to bleed their newsrooms dry.

 

I didn't supervise one, but I worked on one long enough. That word was, indeed, the most appropriate description for it.

 

I hate this industry so much.

Economy's great? We don't make budget.

Economy sucks? Hey, let's permanently eliminate newsroom positions and slowly burn out the overworked folks left!

The day I can get out, hopefully on my terms, will be a glorious one.