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Gannett's newest "innovation"

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by murciélago, Jul 5, 2007.

  1. fletch b. fletch

    fletch b. fletch New Member

    I think that's murcielago's point, that sometimes, especially in the summer, there just isn't anything going on. In that case, our intrepid sports journalist shouldn't be "farmed out" to news just to meet a byline quota when he or she more than makes up for it during the other three seasons.
     
  2. Angola!

    Angola! Guest

    There is an unofficial byline count going on for the news writers at my paper, but I think it is just because a majority of them suck and management is setting them up to get fired.
     
  3. Inky_Wretch

    Inky_Wretch Well-Known Member

    How do the byline counters handle vacation time? If I leave for a two-week vacation, do they note that in the count or do those zeros still count against me?
     
  4. deskslave

    deskslave Active Member

    Something tells me if you work at this particular paper, you ain't gettin' two weeks of vacation. ;)
     
  5. Ben_Hecht

    Ben_Hecht Active Member

    After a while at this paper, a permanent vacation would seem desirable, it appears . . .
     
  6. shotglass

    shotglass Guest

    They can't touch you. Dividing by zero is impossible.
     
  7. tapintoamerica

    tapintoamerica Well-Known Member

    Consult with an employment lawyer. When the workload gets obscene again, start counting hours. If the byline quota continues into next summer, you'll have your ammo.
     
  8. boots

    boots New Member

    Send out the resume. Gannett eats its young. Remember that.
     
  9. I worked at a Gannett paper that more or less had a byline count. I tried at first but then I realized they didn't care what shit you handed in as long as it was the length they wanted and had a black person quoted in it (mainstreaming for you non-gannetteers and no, the reader have no way of knowing if they're black). I have too much pride to turn in shit so I resisted the byline pressure and gave each story its due, though I did sometimes write small stories I wouldn't normally write. So basically I stayed in the editors' doghouse because they don't like having their bullshit mandates ignored. Finally I got out of there and it was the best thing I ever did. Fuck Gannett.
     
  10. JayFarrar

    JayFarrar Well-Known Member

    I call BS on your Gannett experience. See I don't think that you really worked there
    At my old shop we not only had to quote a black person, but also run their mugshot to prove that the person was black.
    My assumption was that was true for all of Gannett.
    And my question is if they have a minimum, does that mean that they have a maximum? The best I ever did was file 11 stories in one day. That's more than a week's worth of work if the maximum count is also two stories a day.
    My old editor tried to do byline counts. The top three were all in sports. I had the most and in one year I had produced nearly double of my closest competition in news. And not everything I did was name bylined.
     
  11. EdReed

    EdReed Member

    I've worked at my Gannett paper for 8 years. The belts have been tightened like anywhere else - freezes, budget cuts - but my paper must run in different circles from some other company papers. We have no byline counts. None have ever been mention.
    Sports writers are sometimes asked to do news stories when something big happens, ie natural disasters, because they know the sports guys are best under deadline pressure. We survived real life, real news and the mainstreaming efforts, and yeah, they faded away pretty quick.
    We're now called an info center and 6, 40-inch LCD flat screens and a large projection screen are being installed on the wall behind our department. Now if they'll only get the Sunday ticket.
    And we have free parking.
    Things aren't perfect, but some of these tales of misery make me appreciate where I am.
     
  12. Blow me, Jay.
    I did work for Gannett and did get out just as they were starting running all the damn hyperlocal man on the street nonnews stories.
    And if you're going to one-up me, you'll need more than that. My place was so bad with mainstreaming that we had to quote a black person in the top five graphs of EVERY story unless there was a rare occassion we could prove that it was not feasible and it couldn't just be some minority on the street, most times it had to be an expert ... that rule was made up and enforced because a lot of the minorities were getting cut from the bottom of the stories.

    Congratulations on your 11 stories. I'm sure they were shit. Just like your fucking intuition.
     
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