Morris Communications sells its newspapers to Gatehouse

I think I read here in the past that Billy took his private jet to UGA games, and ferried the staff along with him. That won't be happening anymore.

And Morris owning the Juneau paper is like Ogden owning one of the Hawaii papers. It gave the Nuttings a reason to write off those island trips as a business expense.

 

Billy wasn't on the private jet, just the writers and photogs. It was a wonderful way to go cover a game (and about the only nice thing I have to say about working for a Morris paper).

 

A very good rundown of what Gatehouse is. Ben Marrison is one of the best editors I've ever known. When Gatehouse bought the Dispatch, he got out and fast.

 

Not joking, totally serious here: Out West (NorCal), what does this mean for little papers like Manteca (a daily serving a town of about 70,000 with five high schools) and nearby Oakdale and Escalon (towns with one high school that shut down for football on Friday night)? 1. My first job was at the Manteca Bulletin about a billion years ago, and 2. I'm asking just for my knowledge. OK, 3. Didn't Gatehouse buy Stockton? Stockton is about 15 miles from Manteca.

 

Best case scenario, Gatehouse leaves Manteca alone like it has with its other properties in California, by and large. Gatehouse did buy the Record (I don't remember when that happened). Maybe some cost-cutting layoffs and probably a consolidation of print facilities between Stockton and Manteca (to the same facility if not already printing at the same spot). Not sure if Gatehouse still tries to do collaboration projects between its papers. I know they tried to have common stories between So Cal and Shasta and it was a bigger pain in the ass than it was worth.

Worst case, they start consolidating departments because they are so close to the point where things might all be run out of Stockton even if they have two separate print products.

It really depends on how much they want to pinch pennies. I'm guessing it is closer to the worst case scenario than the best.

 

Austin isn't mandatory for GateHouse properties. Papers can continue to paginate in-house if they choose.

In fact, sending pagination to Austin is charged to the paper and would cost even more jobs than just the paginators, which is why my old shop still lays out in-house.

 

My old shop got out of sending the pages off because we were in California and the design hub we were slated for was in New England. It would have been a major pain in the ass and even Gatehouse realized that.

 

After the sports staff was cut when Gatehouse bought the Trib, it was cut again recently from six to four full-time employees. Obviously, the breadth and depth of coverage has suffered as a result, and that includes losing long-time SE Joe Walljasper.

 

Maybe that's the case at certain shops depending on location or size, but it's certainly not the norm.

 

I was one of just four people in the whole building who even knew enough to click on InDesign to open it, so I'm sure the boss did the math.

By the way, GateHouse doesn't send out teams of Bobs willy-nilly to whack people. They tell their on-site management to make a Sophie's Choice, which is brutal in of itself.

 

Was told it was actually costing a paper more to have design done in Austin. The editor presented the numbers to higher ups and got it moved back in house.

 

Just interviewed at a Gatehouse paper for an SE position, and that paper still does pagination in-house.