Layoffs in Indianapolis

Re: Layoffs in Indianpolis

I feel bad for those still at the Star or those about to be put out. But I'm happy for most of the folks I've known there through the years, who moved on from that joint long ago.

 

How can anybody work for a Gannett rag without going insane, truly insane? If you are an editor or a manager or whatever Gannett-speak calls a leader, how can you live with yourself? You can't possibly believe in what you are doing. Anybody with a journalism background (and a brain, even one fried from working in journalism the past 10 years) knows everything Gannett implements is ridiculous.

And if you are a reporter or copy editor, you must have no hair from pulling it all out over the years. I know you got to pay the bills, but how can anybody work for Gannett?

 

Who lays out the actual paper? Some command center?
So newspapers have given up on having somebody read copy, huh? I guess they can always fire the reporter if he/she writes something that should never have been allowed onto the Internet or into print. Typos? I guess formal warnings can be issued to reporters. Hell, newspapers need more ways to limit raises. This would be another way to degrade a reporter, say he/she has too many typos, thus cutting the amount of the "raise." Maybe from 3 percent to .5 percent.

 

May all top brass at Gannett incur a permanent case of the scours.

 

I was insane when I got there -- and Gannett was actually a step UP from my previous employers.

 

Gannett papers have already been laid out at central design hubs. Now it sounds like more gets thrown on them, and people in the "producer" position will give copy its one read sometimes.

 

Not sure how it is in Indy, but the local Gannett papers are 80-90 percent USA Today content. Sports is rarely more than 3-4 pages and it's the same for news.

 

Your last line sums up the reason. Bills. Because if it wasn't for that, I'd wish every Gannettoid would tell the company to take its useless buzzwords and shove them.

And I worked at a Gannett paper that was quite respected by both readers and other journalists, even in spite of corporate.

 

That's not the Ronnie Ramos whose real name is Reinaldo, is it? If it is, I worked with him many, many years ago.

 

Pretty sure it's the same guy.

 

Big news: Bob Kravitz is leaving the Star for a gig with the local NBC station, per Twitter.

EDIT: Here's the TV station's release. Apparently "The Pat McAfee Show" is following his move, too.

http://www.wthr.com/story/26283044/2014/08/14/award-winning-columnist-bob-kravitz-joins-wthr-sports-team