Because nobody reads the paper on Presidents' Day ...

[I Should Coco]

... the Toledo Blade won't have a print edition on several holidays. "In an effort to encourage more traffic to our online products – toledoblade.com and the eBlade – we are making an adjustment in our print-publication schedule," the Blade management wrote in a memo to employees.

The no-print holidays (unless, of course, they fall on an advertising-rich Sunday) are Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, President’s Day, Memorial Day, July 4th, and Labor Day. Apparently the Thanksgiving Day edition is too insert-laden to send online.

The full memo from Blade executives, on Romenesko: » Toledo Blade kills print edition for almost all holidays; Newspaper Guild protests the move JIMROMENESKO.COM

Commentary from SJ.com?

 

[jr/shotglass]

Those of us at three-a-week "dailies" say they got it good.

 

[dixiehack]

... the Toledo Blade won't have a print edition on several holidays. "In an effort to encourage more traffic to our online products – toledoblade.com and the eBlade – we are making an adjustment in our print-publication schedule," the Blade management wrote in a memo to employees.

The no-print holidays (unless, of course, they fall on an advertising-rich Sunday) are Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, President’s Day, Memorial Day, July 4th, and Labor Day. Apparently the Thanksgiving Day edition is too insert-laden to send online.

The full memo from Blade executives, on Romenesko: » Toledo Blade kills print edition for almost all holidays; Newspaper Guild protests the move JIMROMENESKO.COM

Commentary from SJ.com?

If Ohio State is playing a semifinal game on 12-31, no paper the next day isn't going to be a popular choice.

 

[jr/shotglass]

Or they'll see little reaction, which would be many times worse.

 

[TigerVols]

Christmas Day paper circa pre-1990 or so was always one of my favorites; it was like a print edition Internet, full of all the wire filler stories the desk had been saving for months.

 

[Matt Stephens]

I'm confused. Goal is to push traffic to the digital products, including the eBlade, but as far as I can tell, that's just the e-edition. So is the paper still being designed for those days to create .PDFs for the eBlade?

 

[steveu]

Yup. In short, no printed paper but there will be an e-replica. Wonder if they'll get pushback from subscribers.

Block also owns Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. I don't think they would try it there because the Tribune-Review would eat them alive, but that's just me.

 

[MNgremlin]

Apparently the Thanksgiving Day edition is too insert-laden to send online.

This surprises you? Ever heard of Black Friday?

 

[Doc Holliday]

This is a cost-cutting measure that screws employees like reporters, editors, pressmen, etc.

Think of all the people that will not be paid holiday pay for working these holidays now. Yes, they'll still get a holiday but not the extra pay they would have received for almost EVERY holiday of the year. Do it once, the savings is minimal. Do it every holiday, that's significant and probably worthy of a couple of fat bonus checks for the bean counting publisher and his managers.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

This is a cost-cutting measure that screws employees like reporters, editors, pressmen, etc.

Think of all the people that will not be paid holiday pay for working these holidays now. Yes, they'll still get a holiday but not the extra pay they would have received for almost EVERY holiday of the year. Do it once, the savings is minimal. Do it every holiday, that's significant and probably worthy of a couple of fat bonus checks for the bean counting publisher and his managers.

Unless they're putting out an a.m. paper two days before, the employees are still going to be working on the holidays to put out the paper the day after. It can save them money if nobody is working the day before the holiday.

 

[I Should Coco]

This surprises you? Ever heard of Black Friday?

Sarcasm is tough to detect on message boards.

 

[JohnHammond]

Most of those editions are pretty thin as it is.

 

[Doc Holliday]

Unless they're putting out an a.m. paper two days before, the employees are still going to be working on the holidays to put out the paper the day after. It can save them money if nobody is working the day before the holiday.

Good point. I'm sure they'll run as bare bones as possible.

 

[I Should Coco]

Regarding this move giving some employees the holidays off ... as Baron noted, they'll get the day before holidays off. Enjoy that Third of July barbecue and fireworks show!

My previous employer, back in the Midwest, published every day except Christmas. That worked out very well, because I'd much rather a night off for Christmas Eve.

 

[Batman]

Regarding this move giving some employees the holidays off ... as Baron noted, they'll get the day before holidays off. Enjoy that Third of July barbecue and fireworks show!

My previous employer, back in the Midwest, published every day except Christmas. That worked out very well, because I'd much rather a night off for Christmas Eve.

That's one of the things I've always liked about being an afternoon paper. We get the holidays off by putting out two papers in one day. Like the day before Thanksgiving, we'd put out the Wednesday paper and then turn around and do the Thursday paper with a 6 p.m. deadline and then come back Friday morning. Same with the Fourth of July. We have to work Sundays (normally a day off) for Memorial Day and Labor Day, but the deadlines are still early and you get the holiday itself off.
On Christmas, the one day we didn't publish, we had a double edition that we'd more or less put to bed on the 23rd. A few people would come in the morning of the 24th to make sure the world hadn't blown up and to send pages, and by 1 p.m. the office was vacant until the morning of the 26th. In sports, we started doing our all-county football team that day so we got it done early in the week and had the entire day off.

 

[JayFarrar]

At least one paper in the region didn't print on certain holidays but I think it was Christmas and New Year's.

This is a little more of a step and I always thought the holiday papers were well read just because people had time to sit around and look at them.

Plus I always worked at places where the all-area football team ran on Christmas day and that was always a popular thing.

 

[dixiehack]

Regarding this move giving some employees the holidays off ... as Baron noted, they'll get the day before holidays off. Enjoy that Third of July barbecue and fireworks show!

My previous employer, back in the Midwest, published every day except Christmas. That worked out very well, because I'd much rather a night off for Christmas Eve.

Every paper I worked Christmas Eve strived to be off the floor by early afternoon at the latest. Most everyone was around and in good spirits, and often there was a potluck to boot. It was actually one of the more pleasant days to work.

By contrast, being in Christmas Day to put out the 12-26 edition felt like solitary confinement.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

Every paper I worked Christmas Eve strived to be off the floor by early afternoon at the latest. Most everyone was around and in good spirits, and often there was a potluck to boot. It was actually one of the more pleasant days to work.

By contrast, being in Christmas Day to put out the 12-26 edition felt like solitary confinement.

Very true.

Working New Year's Eve can be depressing too when you see everyone else leaving for their fun and holidays and you're chained to your desk. Only good thing is usually the deadline is earlier and we forget about the late-night bowl games, although this year, with one of them being a playoff game, that might not be possible.

 

[spikechiquet]

Sorry. My lack of being able to get on SJ.com from home and being slot man at work has diminished my time on here.
Many of you know I work at The Blade. Yeah, things here are not happy-smiley face right now.
I read quickly through all this and, although I won't share my personal feelings on all this in this forum since many (including a few of my bosses and coworkers) know I post on here I will be glad to share some facts of what has gone on over the last year or so:
- Our union contract expired in May, 2014. We are still working under that.
- Talks have been slow and heated at times. We've been spinning our tires for more than a year.
- Last month, the company hired efficiency experts to come in and watch us work and ask questions. A report on that is due in a few weeks.
- There is a lot of stuff going on that I can't discuss publicly, but none of it sounds great. Some consider the copy desk a lost cause, but the union continues the fight. A few grievances have been filed with the NLB.
- The announcement of the no-paper holidays is quite a shock...but no one is getting any days off. We still have to put out a whole paper, it just won't be printed. It will be on the eBlade only (which from what I am told has had a max audience in one day of a whopping 37 views)...so, yeah, I will still be at work on Christmas Eve and Christmas night putting "the paper" out. Holiday pay will still be in place for us that work on the desk (and reporters that work). They will be saving money on printing and delivering, of course.

We did have a fairly successful "no-social media" day to protest what's going on here yesterday. It was election night in Ohio AND the University of Toledo was on ESPN last night against NIU. So to see every Blade reporter go dark for the night and only post that they won't be posting showed some unity.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

Sorry. My lack of being able to get on SJ.com from home and being slot man at work has diminished my time on here.
Many of you know I work at The Blade. Yeah, things here are not happy-smiley face right now.
I read quickly through all this and, although I won't share my personal feelings on all this in this forum since many (including a few of my bosses and coworkers) know I post on here I will be glad to share some facts of what has gone on over the last year or so:
- Our union contract expired in May, 2014. We are still working under that.
- Talks have been slow and heated at times. We've been spinning our tires for more than a year.
- Last month, the company hired efficiency experts to come in and watch us work and ask questions. A report on that is due in a few weeks.
- There is a lot of stuff going on that I can't discuss publicly, but none of it sounds great. Some consider the copy desk a lost cause, but the union continues the fight. A few grievances have been filed with the NLB.
- The announcement of the no-paper holidays is quite a shock...but no one is getting any days off. We still have to put out a whole paper, it just won't be printed. It will be on the eBlade only (which from what I am told has had a max audience in one day of a whopping 37 views)...so, yeah, I will still be at work on Christmas Eve and Christmas night putting "the paper" out. Holiday pay will still be in place for us that work on the desk (and reporters that work). They will be saving money on printing and delivering, of course.

We did have a fairly successful "no-social media" day to protest what's going on here yesterday. It was election night in Ohio AND the University of Toledo was on ESPN last night against NIU. So to see every Blade reporter go dark for the night and only post that they won't be posting showed some unity.

Good for your union on the "no-social media" stuff. It's a small thing, and likely, upper management won't care that much, but at least it shows that your group can make things a little less comfortable for them.