Watching Gannett, and I see a bad moon rising

http://gannettblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/stock-sinking-dubow-said-raising_18.html

 

They just cut 1,000 nationwide, IIRC. It didn't get nearly as much attention as McClatchy. Then again, you don't work for Gannett and not expect some unfortunate money-saving event to trickle down every other week or so.

 

How long until they start closing papers?

Is USAT making money?

 

All of Gannett is making money.
They just aren't making budget.
As is typical for all media companies, if they made 20 percent profit, but budgeted for 23 percent, they would count that as a 3 percent loss. Even if the previous year the profit margin had been 18 percent.
Not making budget sends a message to stockholders, they demand the company makes budget. Easiest way is to cut expenses.
Easiest way to cut expenses is lay people off.
And rinse and repeat...

On a side note: Hopkins is looking for some funding to keep Gannett Watch going.

 

Hopkins' begging for money is pretty lame. He and his significant other spent the summer vacationing in Spain, and he comes off like a whiner -- and tone deaf considering how much of his readership consists of downsized journalists -- by saying he needs to make $20K-plus a year to keep the Gannett blog alive.

Even with the little bit of original reporting he's doing, operating the blog is a two-hours-a-day gig at the most.

 

They will not close USAT. I've heard consolidation rumors. I would also be worried if you are a Gannett writer covering any event with an AP reporter sitting next to you.

As for Hopkins, saying he works two hours a day is kind of like an editor who tells you it takes 20 minutes to write a blog post. Sure, if you sit and spew madly. But the moment you pick up the phone to try to actually verify something, that 20 minutes looks like a pipe dream.

And Hopkins is actually providing a forum to peel back the iron curtain. Ironic in that Gannett is a media company.

 

Hmm, interesting. On the jobs board is a thread about Louisville possibly opening up one, maybe two jobs. Wonder if those jobs now vanish?

 

Huge cuts are coming at Gannett in the next 4-6 weeks...

 

care to elaborate? Can you get bigger than the last round of 1,000?

 

It could possibly be as much as twice that. Don't be surprised if they even fold/merge a few papers where they have other Gannett papers close by.

They want it done by Christmas.

 

Merry Christmas.

 

I had heard this rumor before.
The problem is that some of the smaller papers are the ones making money.
It doesn't make fiscal sense to fold — and this is just an example — the Murfreesboro, Tenn., paper into the Tennessean, when the Daily Journal is the one hitting budget and the Tennessean isn't.
Now if you have smaller papers clustered around a larger daily, you might see them reduce print frequency and have dual reporters/editors.
Maybe run the smaller paper as a section inside the larger paper.