Worst company you've worked for...

I do have a 401k at Gatehouse.
Not that I have anything good to say about this company, whose stock has plummeted from something like $22 to 8 cents, but can't we just admit that all media companies pretty much suck because of the economy, that they've been forced into this suckiness because of the economic climate?
I mean, this company does suck, but I wonder if it and others would suck so bad if not for the fact that they're hemorraging cash and are trying to do whatever they can to stay afloat.

 

I suppose. But, those are the current crop.
Some of us have been doing this longer than three years.

 

Still can't believe neither Paxton nor MG is on this list.

 

Always found it ironic that proof that the "Peter Principle" was accurate is Cox Newspapers.

Had a whacko for a boss at a Freedom paper, and some real lame-brains in the management/advertising end, but the pay and stuff was OK (at least, it was 15 years ago).

Small, family owned paper I worked for was award-winning and running in the black 10 years ago. Then Pulitzer bought it, put an oversized idiot with an ego even bigger than his butt in charge and removed any semblance of journalistic integrity and sold it to Brown, which did even more to demoralize the staff and wipe out decades of well-earned good reputation.

Then there was the last place, the one in Texas … low pay, worst morale, ZERO time off. The reason I am no longer in the biz ...

 

My last shop, for reasons I've already mentioned in the thread on Anything Goes.

 

Try talking to the good people who worked for Thomson in the 1990s. The ones who had to fill out requisition requests for a pen. And frequently had to buy their own.

Or try all the poor souls who worked for JRC. Long article, the main JRC stuff is on the second page:

http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=3246

 

Working for Nixon Newspapers (most of their papers were in Indiana) was like a living, breathing Dilbert cartoon. The only company in the newspaper business that said I had to wear a tie when corporate showed up. Those stupid "motivational" posters everywhere. A publisher that went on to become a JRC lackey. Getting bought out by Paxton was a step up for people working there, although I was long gone by then.

 

Or Murray, Bumbry, Crowley, Dempsey, Sakata or Lowenstein?

 

The only people who could vote for any company other than JRC, are people who have never worked for JRC.

The most miserable company in the history of American journalism -- maybe in the history of the world.

Keep burning, Bob.

 

I worked for a Donrey paper that was purchased by Singleton. About two months after the sale, the publisher said to me, "Who'd have ever thought we'd look back at Donrey as the good old days."

Donrey was cheap, but well run. Singleton was, well, Singleton.

 

Sanitized:

I've worked for Lee, Hagadone, Knight-Ridder (McClatchy), Jefferson-Pilot, Tribune, Morris, Times-Mirror (later Tribune) and Cox.

I know such a poll is a thankless job, but none of my candidates for worst from that list are on your poll.

Funny thing is, Hagadone didn't do bad by me, but I was only there a little over a year. I think for long-term grief, Morris has to be pretty far up there.

 

That's kind of how the Gannett folks in Illinois felt when GateHouse came in.