Gannett sells four newspapers to Gatehouse

Rockford, Huntington, Utica and Norwich.

Rockford take here:

http://rrstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070412/NEWS0107/104120133

 

The Rockford editor, Linda Cunningham, was my boss early on and is one of the nicer editors I've encountered in this business. Poor her.

 

Is Gatehouse bad? I honestly have no idea. I know one of their papers, the Peoria J-S, is pretty damned good.

 

I know some folks who I think are still in Rockford. I don't know if this is good news or bad.
Gannett seems to be looking for some ready cash. I wonder if this means they are looking to buy elsewhere.
And didn't Gatehouse just buy a slew of papers? I think they did.

 

You're right, I don't know about Gatehouse. I just know it's upsetting to be sold because you don't know what they'll do.

 

I work at a paper that was just recently purchased by Gatehouse. All I know is that they kept all of our benefits in place, including 401k and vacation time and the like.

 

yeah, I'm sure the staff is just broken up about having to say goodbye to Gannett.

 

I'm sure the community's devastated that the sale will put the Local Information Center in jeopardy.

 

Been on two papers when they were sold. Even if it looks like an upgrade overall, you still don't know how it affects you. If they bring in their own people to run the place, which they usually do eventually, you start from square one. You get the famous, "We plan no significant changes at this time" -- "this time" being about three months. And in fact, they may not plan significant changes. I was on a paper when the aforementioned Linda Cunningham came in and said she planned no significant changes, and within a couple months the managing editor was history. I don't think she lied to us, she's one of the more honest people I've met in the biz -- it just takes some time to assess the situation. So it could be better, could be worse, you don't know, and that's the hellish part of being sold.

 

Interesting. Gannett recently bought the Stamford Advocate and Greenwich Times now they get rid of Norwich. As far as advertising markets go its a home run for Gannett.

I know Gannett was having some union trouble in Stamford however if I read it correctly.

This follows at the heels of Danbury being sold twice in 6 months.

As the world turns.

 

Well the Peoria paper has been Gatehouse for all of 48 hours officially now so I don't know how much influence they've had..

 

I've heard stories about Gatehouse papers who haven't gotten new computers since 2001.