@#@#$'s about to go down at USAT

Huh?

in an effort deliver stories more quickly to mobile devices and produce more coverage USA Today will lay off more people?

Wha?

We're going to be faster and bigger and better — with nine percent less people.

 

(Imagining voice of Sean Connery in The Untouchables): "That's ... the Gannett way."

 

Talking with friends in the business 3-4 years ago, we concluded that the any future newsroom will need to have "half as many people making half as much money."

Maybe laying off and then building up (with kids and citizen-journos) is the quickest way to something like that. Let's face it, halving the salaries of longtimers wouldn't go down well. So you whack 100% of their paychecks, then hire cheap replacements.

Doesn't make up for what soon might happen, of course. Good luck to all.

 

At least they're being up front about pimping out the newshole.

Fuckers.

 

I can't tell you how much this sucks, but the business model that USAT pursued isn't working. Their strategy was to blanket business travelers and hotels with copies of the paper. Well, business travel is down, and not every room in a hotel is filled...

I wonder how much longer the sister sports publication, Sports (the artist formerly known as Baseball) Weekly, will last.

 

I'm amazed that piece o' crap has lasted this long.

 

Fuckers.

I figure we're 10 years away from the day USAT is produced entirely by bloggers.

 

Good-bye McPaper - Hello McContent Rings!

I don't know how they expect to produce more content with fewer people. Their website is extremely weak considering the resources Gannett has.

 

Hey Smash, I agree with ya on that one. Much better as BBW, not so much now that it can't decide what it wants to be.

 

My last stop would do that every once in a while. Beef up the business section to bend over for the moneyed communities. Then the ad reps, who though this was a great idea, couldn't fathom why the people who didn't pay for beefed up coverage about themselves weren't throwing money at the paper for beefed up coverage about themselves.

 

I think this answers our question if things have leveled off.

IMO, this USA Today announcement is the start of more layoffs and speeding the elimination of the print product. My question is ... how does USA Today think it is going to make money by providing electronic short news flashes to phones?

I mean somebody's got to get the meat to put on the phones. Kids making 10 bucks an hour are going to develop sources and generate sports news that advertisers will sponsor, that anybody will want to read on their I-phones?

Pro and college coaches will eat them alive. High school sports coverage? It will be completely gone in the new era of I-phone coverage.

There is no vision out there. It's Gannett continuing to make stupid moves and everybody copying them. Please explain to me what you think Gannett's vision is by slicing those reporters who actually have the ability to write something worth reading?