Eff GateHouse

Gets its hands on the former Ottaway papers, and today is the beginning the purge.

Among the casualties: All four staff photogs at the Times Herald Record in Middletown, N.Y.

http://jimromenesko.com/2013/11/01/gatehouses-times-herald-record-lays-off-all-four-of-its-staff-photographers/

The note from the Cape Cod Times' publisher ("any new owner would've cut jobs!" is its essence) is pure crap.

Eff GateHouse.

 

That letter from the publisher is such a load. This part in particular:

Publishers/owners always say "we" have cut back, then list all the jobs they've eliminated, wage freezes, consolidation, and a whole list of things that don't apply to them.

Just tell it like it is, publishers: You can be fired at any time, for any reason or for no reason. If you don't like it, there's the door. I've got a stack of resumes in my desk. You are nothing but a parasite on my newsroom budget.

 

Welcome to the company.

 

I think you have covered that quite well. Sad state of affairs.

 

They just filed bankruptcy and assured staff (at least based on the information I heard from someone still there and a letter I received on the filing) that this is just a debt restructuring. Bull.

They love to point to lack of layoffs, but they have instituted strict hiring freezes where you basically can't replace a body if he/she retires or quits. They demand you do an exorbitant amount of work between social media, web updates, videos, local stories and photos -- especially for those without photogs on staff -- and expect you to do it without overtime. They encourage printing outsourcing and tried -- and failed -- to implement a design house so they could layoff a shit ton of people at local sites.

Meanwhile, on the revenue side, Gatehouse demands this cookie cutter approach to ad sales that just doesn't translate across the country. What works in a market in Chicago doesn't work in small town Colorado or small town California. Essentially, they put these unrealistic goals on revenue because if it works in Chicago suburb it must work in a town where the closest metro area is 2 hours away.

I'm so glad I got out and I feel bad for the people still there. Gatehouse isn't the worst in the country, but it has a very backward way of doing things.

 

This is the same company where one of its papers fewer than 20 miles from Boston (Brockton) didn't have any local Red Sox content on the day after Game 6. All AP. Maybe it was a press time issue since the Enterprise prints at the Globe nowadays, but still... not good.

 

Our paper was briefly owned by GateHouse, but our publisher put together a package and bought our paper a few years back. I miss having corporate resources sometimes, but the benefits of local ownership easily outweigh the corporate BS.