Gannett's terminations blunder

[quiller]

Gannett is a media conglomerate with the heart of a petrified ear mite and the finesse of a falling tree. Now they're endearing themselves even more to the same 1,500 or so employees who received termination notices by mistake...but never got an apology.

Seventeen news staffers recently left the paper via buyouts and layoffs. They include senior content strategist Bill Emkow and digital tem members Amy Etmans Huschka, Michele Siuda Jacques and Jamie Smith.

Budget tightening forced the departures, as Dustin Walsh of Crain's reported in mid-November:

    "The Freep is seeking to cut 13 percent of its editorial staff, including four assistant editors, three reporters, three copy editors, four web staff, two photographers and one page designer, sources confirmed."

Fifteen news personnel left The Detroit News in later December, Shea wrote at Crain's. 

http://www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/16553/company_to_freep_staffers_ooops_never_mind_our_leaving_the_company_email

Loads of rumors swirl in Detroit blogging and media circles whether the Detroit News (once a proud conservative paper, now a RINO bastion) will survive another year, and the Free Press (or Freep) not likely to last much after that unless retail advertising improves. Detroit is undergoing massive renovations to its business and entertainment districts, so this isn't out of the question


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walks

[Ghoulardi]

Good ol' Gannett,  producer of USAToday (unless, of course, today happens to be a Saturday or Sunday)

I worked for them for about seven years. The whole time they were complaining about the drop of ROP ads (run of the press ads--ads that actually appeared in the newspaper). They never bothered to think, ROP was dead, and there was gold in the preprints (ads printed before hand and inserted into the newspaper. Next time you get a newspaper, dump it out. Everything that falls to the floor is a preprint).

I even suggested to one of our sister publications that we should focus more on preprints, less on ROP. He smugly told me: "We don't tell editorial how to run their shop, they don't tell us how to run ours."

A prophet is without honor, even in his own country *sigh*

So the newspapers continue dying and complaining about the decline in ROP ads.