Gannett's idea to save journalism: More meetings!

Top editors are being summoned to the Crystal Palace to discuss how to create quality journalism with the staffs they have left. There should be an awful lot of new, innovative initiatives coming out of this one.

http://gannettblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/memo-briefing-set-for-top-editors-on.html

 

I predict a Myspace initiative!

 

Well, on another note, I like the new websites' looks more than the old ones.

 

Rearranging Deck Chairs 101

 

This is Gannett. They would go with Friendster.

 

I've got a buddy who works at a Gannett site who said after the Deal Chicken bad copy of Groupon that the newsroom people are taking bets on when they will get the breathless announcement that the company is starting a groundbreaking free online classified service called Gregslist.com.

I found that funny.

 

I hear citizen journalism and myhub are the wave of the future. Just ask the Denver Post.

 

I hear putting in mainstreamed sources will sell a lot of papers, even if the readers have no clue what or who a mainstreamed source is.

This shit would be funny if thousands of workers weren't getting dicked over for it.

 

I actually had this conversation with an executive editor.

"Do you have a minority source list?"

"Uh, 37 of the 53 players on the team I cover are minorities. So are several members of the coaching staff and the front office."

"That doesn't count."

 

We used to get emails every other week from top editors, telling us to contribute to the minority source database.

Most of us ignored them.

 

True story: When I was an assignment editor at The Nation's Nicepaper, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth about poor inter-office communication.

We already spent (wasted) time in two department meetings each day as we wrestled with the story budget.

In one of those "clean sheet" meetings we had at one point, I said: "Why don't we quit meeting and start communicating? All of our desks are easily reached by foot. Why not try a week without meetings?"

Sound of crickets.

Soon, they added a third daily departmental budget meeting.

 

They'll start listing political donation information as an "investigation."
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