Gannett papers mandated to use Press Wire for Olympic Photos?

I wanted to check with other Gannett papers on how they are handling this and also get opinions. Our assistant sports editor dropped this on us during a meeting early this week: Gannett has ordered its papers to use USPresswire photos for their Olympic coverage telling us that they will have superior photographs than the other entities covering the London Games, which I guess includes the Associated Press. When our Chief Photographer heard this I thought he was going to put his eye out with a pencil he was holding. Are you just running just USPresswire photos? Or are you looking at AP as well and using the best photo? I know Mother Gannett owns this USPresswire company but it is pretty limiting not being able to use AP or other photos from the Olympics.

 

But, but, I thought Gannett gave their papers local autonomy?

 

They revised the memo and are not mandating the usage of US Presswire.

They want papers to treat it as staff art. If they don't have a photo you need, go with AP or whatever.

 

I saw this on Gannett Blog earlier this week. It sounded like the "revised" memo came out pretty quickly after the original memo was sent, and they now are saying whenever possible, use US Presswire, but that all papers are expected to use the best art for their purposes, wherever it comes from.

I wonder about the management at the OP's place, if they took the original memo as gospel and chose to ignore the clarification.

 

It shouldn't have taken a genius to figure out that one wire service may not cover every single event of the Olympics and to put out a memo asking your editors to use their best judgment and to use AP if necessary.

Instead, whoever put out the original memo looks like an short-sighted idiot. Par fo the course.

 

Definitely. It's a surprise that anyone was paying attention closely enough to correct it.

 

They probably got a $37M bonus for screwing things up.

 

What the fuck is USPressWire?

Oh, oh, I get it. Another god-awful thing Gannett got itself involved in and now shoves down its employees throats. Like that useless Career Builder and a whole chain of bottom-feeding slogans.

You know the drill about G A N N E T T ... A lot of air in there. ...