USA Today, bloat and a vote for local ownership

[tomtom2]

I hope Gannett gets out of the newspaper business soon. Please, sell some of the properties to local owners who truly care about their towns and cities. I would like to see local ownership that understands the role of media and won't just focus on the bottom line and silly things like quota hiring and building crystal palaces.

I would like to see corporate and USA Today riding off into the sunset together, doing what they do, and leaving the rest of us the heck alone.

Forget ContentOne. Forget forcing grand digital schemes down our throats.

There might be a place for web journalism but not at the expense of sound reporting. That is what Gannett is doing. It's getting rid of good editors and content people and throwing resources into programmers and web page designers. This isn't just about the economic downturn. The faltering economy came at a convenient time for Gannett in some ways. They are always looking for a reason to get rid of older workers, but even more so now.

If USA Today and corporate want to pursue that web path, I wish they'd do it alone and let us cover our towns the way our readers expect. Let us maintain our standards of editing.

As for some of the comments about USA Today...I worked there for a few years. I found it to be an incredibly frustrating experience. There were so many cooks in the kitchen, so many layers of people who you had to go through to get the simplest things done. I got the impression that people had to have their fingers in the pie in order to justify their jobs.

I thought USA Today was massively bloated, yet there were pockets of extremely over-worked people who were doing more than their fair share because there were also pockets of gross incompetency and laziness that dragged everyone down. I assume that still exists, which is why it's surprising USA Today did not sustain any staff reductions this week. While some might have left there in recent years, I doubt they were the ones who should have departed. I am guessing, like myself, many got fed up with things and either left on their own or were pushed out for not being team players in the eyes of those only interested in mediocrity and office politics.

[Guest]

USAT will surely lose some people this month. David Hunke is looking at "the numbers" so he can decide where he thinks the cuts should be made, and his decision is supposed to be made by the end of July. (Does that mean he doesn't trust the managers there to make those decisions? HA! Oh...Actually, it probably means some restructuring is in the works.)

[Guest]

I thought USA Today was massively bloated, yet there were pockets of extremely over-worked people who were doing more than their fair share because there were also pockets of gross incompetency and laziness that dragged everyone down. I assume that still exists, which is why it's surprising USA Today did not sustain any staff reductions this week.

Not sure when you worked at USAT, but as a current newsroom employee I can tell you that the bloat is definitely gone. We've lost 8-10 reporters and assignment editors this year so far. And these are people who left on their own to pursue new careers, many of them outside of journalism. That's on top of 20 or so positions lost in December, which is on top of a steady stream of people leaving (again, on their own) all through 2008. The head of advertising for the Web site just quit a couple of weeks ago. Again, not laid off. She just quit.

I'd be curious as to whether the community newspapers have seen staffers quit and leave in the way USAT has. I imagine it's a little easier here, simply because we're in a huge metro area with lots of government-fueled jobs people can get to.

None of those positions is being filled. And the truth is that we've lost reporters who were very, very good at covering very visible beats in the economy, health care, sports, etc.

I definitely think that ContentOne is going to look to USAT to be a provider of lots of content for the chain.

Here's the worst of it all: No one is saying anything. Not our publisher. Not our editor. Not the managing editors. No one knows what's going to happen next. But something's coming.

You've all been assuming USA TODAY is exempt from more cuts. I can't say for sure, but I'm doubtful that we won't see a major restructuring of some sort.

[Guest]

I agree: Considering that Hunke is reviewing the numbers himself, it must mean that some restructuring will occur. Why else would he need to look it all over so carefully?

[Guest]

The publisher might be considering numbers, but he should also consider people and what they contribute. For instance, if there are only 2 widget managers and one of them is a terrible employee, but he/she has survived for various not-so-legitimate reasons, and there are 10 widget makers who are all smart people with good ethics, I fear that it's the widget makers who will be vulnerable because there are more of them. Instead, I wish USAT would fire the one bad employee (the widget manager) and promote one of the widget makers into management if the position vacated absolutely needs to be filled. The smart widget makers are likely to be flexible and able to transition into other jobs, while the bad manager is just, well, bad. USAT has driven out enough good people with multiple skills while retaining some real dead wood. It needs to stop and there needs to be a creative solution to identifying, confirming and extracting the worst of the worst.

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[Anonymous Bosch]

I always wonder what would happen if we all just said "no" to corporate - they can't fire everyone at once. I know for a fact that our online department has ignored many requests from corporate over the years because A) they knew a bad idea when they saw one and B) corp didn't follow up well enough to notice. And yet the world continued to revolve and our paper continued to make money. Hmmm, maybe we DON'T need to take orders from an out-of-touch "media group" in order to report the local news. Maybe we CAN figure it out ourselves. I know, let's just secede from the corporation itself! Give me liberty or give me a golden parachute!

[waylonbmk]

Lots of indicators.

One hour of cybercafe internet access costs 30¢ in Rural China.

One.Hour. USA Kinkos is now 15 DOLLARS for one hour. Madness.

Do you earn 50 X as much in the USA?

That is the top figure you will see. 50 times. Bottom can be as low as 5 X for a car thats 4k in China and 20k in USA.

Lunch will cost me 90¢. I am trying to lose weight so I wont eat another meal today. When was the last time you ate for 27 A MONTH? If I went to a very nice restaurant it would cost me 40 Yuan, 6. In many countries around the world it is much cheaper and much healthier to eat out every day. In America it is much cheaper and much healthier to eat at home.