Louisiana Gannett papers to implement regional copy desk

Welcome to Gannett.

Too many editors, never enough money, too little interest in real journalism.

 

One huge reason for that is editors are considered management, and don't have to be paid overtime.

They would rather have 10 editors who they can each have work 60 hours a week and one reporter at 40 hours than vice versa.

 

Louisiana folks,

Do you know anyone at a Gannett paper in northern New Jersey? Keep in touch with him or her, 'cause the consolidation kicks in there on Monday.

From what I've heard, all that talk about moving layout to a single site is just that -- talk. There will be local pages designed on site at each individual paper by whichever editors are left.

Hopefully a consolidation of reporters won't follow...

 

Another thing that was brought up last night that nobody seems to know the answer is what do we do in the meantime, while that regional copy desk (I'm not going to refer to it as whatever center they're calling it) is finished. Because what they're telling the people moving to Monroe is that in mid-June they'll start the relocation process. But the actual regional copy desk won't go live until mid-July. So, what are the papers going to do from mid-June until mid-July? I'm guessing the answer to that question is the people left behind at each paper will pull double/triple duty and do the pages for that one month.

Or maybe we're hearing the wrong story. Either way, they can't expect people to move to Monroe overnight and have that regional copy desk operational in 24 hours. So, somebody's going to have do the paper until everyone is settled into the new positions.

 

Have heard that McClatchy would consider this with some of their papers. But that talk seems to have died down lately. It wouldn't surprise me if Sacramento, Modesto and Fresno (the three Bees) eventually got lumped in together.

 

It's amazing that is the comapny's thought process.

You can only plan and schedule so much. What's the point with no reporters to produce local content?

No wonder this company has crumbled.

 

Typical thinking by high-paid management. They expect the employees to just up and move within a month. Never mind if they have apartment leases, or houses to sell.

 

Wisconsin Gannett had four papers being done by one, Wausau, and it has never worked other than saving money.

They first got rid of the sports editors in Marshfield, Stevens Point and Wisconsin Rapids. Then Marshfield and Rapids paired their sports staff down to one writer, and Stevens Point to two, along with some stringers. So at least three writing positions and three sports editor positions were eliminated because of the joint venture.

Wausau's staff never grew, so it was never equipped to paginate and handle calls for four unique papers.

Then the infamous one got hired to lead the group and that was the deathblow.

 

That's what I worry about the most, especially in my case, because my value to the department was that I could write as well as paginate the entire section. I'm worried that once this regional copy desk becomes operational, they'll rationalize that because we're not doing pages anymore, we don't need as many people as we have covering sports.

The reality is that we're currently a five-man staff and we're barely able to keep up with a division I-A university, 40-something high schools, an NFL team (which I predict will become wire only now) and various minor league/semipro franchises. We're losing one person to this regional copy desk, so we'll become a four-man staff very soon.

Now, not having to do layout anymore will obviously ease some of the workload, but the fact that someone will still have to plan the pages, attend budget meetings, proof pages and stick around for press check at night doesn't fully take that responsibility away from us. Not to mention the last two months or so, we've been so understaffed with furloughs that we've developed a system that has virtually only one person laying out the entire section every night.

I'll be honest, the more I think about this and the more I talk to people around me, the more I realize my days in this business are numbered. I know Gannett is about to unveil another round of layoffs and I just have a feeling I'm going to be the odd man out.

 

Don't quite call it a "fact" just yet. I suspect that the section editor will be plan the cover, the rest of the interior pages will be slotted by the design desk. They will have that responsibility so they can, in theory, take advantage of common pages between the papers.
Page proofing would be handled by the design desk or by one person designated at each shop. Press checks may go the way of the dinosaurs or they'll be handled by one person at each shop.
The only real thing, left for sure, will be budget meetings because it is Gannett and as a company they can't function if people aren't in meetings.
What it should do is make a reporter's job primarily be out about content and content generation.
A writer/paginator or editor/paginator left behind is probably not going to be long for the world.
In all seriousness, it might be time for some soul-searching as to if you want to stay in the biz as a writer or desker because I don't think a combo gig, like the one you described as yours, will be around by this time next year.
Is going to work at the desk an option?

 

Oklahoma City would be closer to WF or Abilene than Corpus is.

But I'd rather live in Corpus than WF, SA or Abilene.

 

On the Texas plan. it would be fun to explain to an average reader in Wichita Falls why they didn't get their paper because Corpus Christi was underwater because of a hurricane.