Gannett's idea to save journalism: More meetings!

Regarding the thread title, hasn't that always been their solution for everything?

 

we had a meeting once so that staff could "share their ideas on how to make the organization more efficient." The usual suspects volunteered the usual ideas. Use the front and back of paper, stop buying water for the water cooler, turn off your computer when you leave, etc. Finally I said, "How about we get rid of the newsroom? It's 2010 and everyone has a home PC or laptop, a cell phone and a printer. We all communicate via e-mail inside the newsroom anyways. Give everyone a stipid for cost of cell phone and internet monthly costs, have a bi-weekly staff meeting for budgeting, and you won't have to heat and cool this building most of the time."

You woulda' thought I said, "lets burn this bitch down and collect the insurance money." At the end of the day they won't want new ideas. They just want to be able to say, "we've met with our staff to discuss ways to cut costs..."

 

Every year or so, we'd receive e-mails asking us to send in suggestions on ways to improve the paper, blah, blah. So everyone would, and nothing would ever come of it, except once or twice, when we would have, you guessed it, a meeting to go over some of the ideas. And still, nothing would happen.

Near the end of my tenure, we received the email again. I wrote back, "Why bother? It's not like any of these ideas have ever been implemented."

 

I had the exact same conversation with my SE at my former Gannett stop.

At one meeting, our EE spelled out how "We're not talking about quotas, but we want the voices in our paper to accurately reflect the diversity in our community." Then some newcomer who didn't know any better says, "Well, you told us that our community is something like 96 percent caucasian. So as is, we're not accurately reflecting the diversity in our community because we are having more than 4 percent minority voices in the paper. And you're telling us we need to do even more of that?" He didn't last long.

And this was the same place where everyone in the newsroom was expected to contribute examples of mainstreaming and diversity that they have achieved, every single week, to be put in boxes in the newsroom. Then the newsroom secretary would compile all of them in a spreadsheet so the ME could have easy access to for reports to corporate. And I'm sure this ME got plenty of bonuses for this work that was done for him. Meanwhile, anyone who didn't cooperate got dinged on their appraisals.

 

A few things from the letter:
1)

How about NOT making an already smaller staff work another person down so you can have the meeting in some far off location?
This is the 21st century. If you must have a meeting to share information it took a year for some other group to gather, try a video chat or webinar or something along those lines.
Here's a quick answer to your above question: You can't.

2)

See above. This "do more with less" mentality may look good on the paper the budget's printed on, but not in the actual paper. You can't have one person doing the work of two (and sometimes more) and expect the same quality, especially if you're watching the overtime like a hawk.

3)

So, not only is the company making you leave the newsroom a man (or woman) down, but YOU have to pick up the travel costs yourself? For company business?

 

Want me to go somewhere on company business? Pay for my travel. Period. Otherwise, teleconference.

 

The managers, for the most part, have no clue what we're going through.

 

They know exactly what you are going through. They just want you to do the same thing we've always done -- plus more web stuff -- with half the staff.

You say you can't possibly do all that in 40 hours and ask for the priorities.

It's all a priority. Just keep up with your hours and make sure to tell a manager well in advance if you're in danger of overtime.

You're always in danger of overtime, you say. You're doing your job and the job of Bob, who was laid off. Plus you're blogging, tweeting, shooting video, etc.

You just need to get the most out of your 40-hour week.

There is no way. I can't possibly do all that in 40 hours without fudging my time card.

Then we'll get someone who can ....

 

I think they were saying that the individual paper's budget should pay for travel, not the employee.

 

Thing is, they they wouldn't get someone who can. They dump you, the job would sit empty for six months, at least, while they save more money, and then they'd leave the position frozen.

That happened quite frequently at my former Gannett place. Any time anyone left (mostly on their own), the job wouldn't get filled right away.

 

Nope, gamers aren't diversity. Neither are features written about athletes. Basically, the entire sports section didn't count as diversity or mainstreaming -- despite being the only place where minorities were regularly included in coverage.

Did anybody ever have to bring back photos of the people quoted to prove they actually looked non-Caucasian, not just people with "diverse-sounding" last names?

 

I could see that being useful. Like a news version of the Reggie Cleveland All-Stars.