Gatehouse bought my company. Now what?

Well not my company but you know what I mean. Anybody work for or have worked for Gatehouse Media? When a family owned paper is bought out by a big company, what types of changes should we expect?

 

I have never heard of Gatehouse Media.


I have been through a newspaper sale tho. Went from a Hollinger company to a Paxton Media paper. The two companies that were vying to buy the paper were Paxton and CNHI.

When it came down that Paxton won, we all said that it was a good thing. Turned out, it wasn't so good. Paxton is real big on upgrading technology, but they don't upgrade the little things.



So really, there will be a level of uncertainty and you can theorize about whether it's good or bad, but until you see the company in action, you never truly know.

 

Dude, you're screwed. Gatehouse (formerly Liberty) is a horrible company to work for.

 

It's not JRC.

 

Care to explain?

 

I work for them. So far, no problems, but it's early.

 

Gatehouse is a company that owned dozens of tiny dailies, weeklies and shoppers. Earlier this year it made a big move into New England, buying its largest paper, The Patriot Ledger (65,000), the Brockton Enterprise, Metro West News and numerous weeklies from the Boston Herald. It went public and, amazingly, picked up more than $250 million. Then it bought Taunton, Fall River and a few others.
Seems to me like it's more concerned with establishing an advertising presence on the Web than it is about developing those papers. Talking to people who work for them, they have spent NOTHING on their newest acquisitions. The Ledger hasn't had a sports editor since early this year, and has asked staffers to serve as interims. They can't find a new SE because they won't pay decently. Brockton also without an SE. They don't send writers on the road. I mean, I think they're so leveraged and in debt that they don't have the cash to do anything.

 

That sounds about right. Did they also sell the paintings off the wall?

 

You better get used to the computers you have at your JRC paper. Gatehouse won't be buying you any new ones until they are ready for a museum.

 

You also need to learn computer repair so you can put out a paper every day.

 

Must depend on where you are. Gatehouse bought us when it was Liberty about 18 months ago. Everyone in the newsroom has gotten new computers and cameras, we've added staff and gotten raises.

 

Damn, di, I'm afraid to see what you guys were getting beforehand.

The Ledger PCs date back to 1998 or so, with maybe Windows 2000/ME on them if they're lucky. The only reason they haven't spontaneously combusted yet is because they have a really smart guy handling their newsroom tech stuff.