Sunday, March 29, 2009

S.O.S.: This is your News Department on Kool-Aid

I've never met Ann Clark, one of two executives Corporate stationed at Arizona's Tucson Citizen last week. But Clark may recall me as the blogger who made light of an especially dreadful News Watch article published under her byline last fall.

A general executive in the News Department, Clark is supposed to help mentor thousands of reporters and editors in the community dailies. Now, however, she's in Tucson with another Corporate executive, apparently charged with one of these missions:

1. Quell a mutiny among 60 employees, all in the Tucson Citizen's newsroom, after Gannett ordered them to put out the newspaper on only a day-to-day schedule, with no guarantee of future employment, pending an unlikely sale to 11th-hour bidders as early as next week. The paper stays alive at least until until then.

2. Provide support to those employees during an incredibly difficult time, as Tara Connell described Corporate's goals for Clark and the second executive from McLean, Va.: Bob Oliver, a vice president for compensation and benefits.

Kool-Aid O.D. evidence
Last fall, I offered Clark's News Watch article as fresh evidence of how little Corporate had changed, more than two years after CEO Craig Dubow started pushing urgent, meaningful "transformation'' to keep Gannett alive. What was my smoking gun? First, some context.

The article was published by the News Department when long-time Gannett executive Phil Currie (left) was still in charge. (Fort Myers News-Press Executive Editor Kate Marymont assumed the position with Currie's retirement late last year.) Currie's job was to help journalists do watchdog journalism -- a newspaper's most fundamental responsibility -- at a time when GCI's finance side was putting the screws to newsroom budgets. I recall him mostly for his many, many editorial quality control and efficiency programs, beginning with 1991's News 2000, and ending with the Local Information Center business model of 2006.

Yet, by last September, Gannett's newsrooms were in disarray. Only a month before, the company had launched one of the largest workforce reductions in its 102-year history. The 600 newspaper employees laid off, combined with the elimination of 400 more jobs, was probably the industry's single-biggest such cut since World War II. (The December cuts were bigger, of course.)

So, looking to Corporate and the News Department for practical advice on rebuilding their increasingly emaciated newsrooms, here's what journalists got in that Sept. 18 News Watch article:

Headline: Find ways to strengthen your diversity efforts on Information Center Web site

Introduction: Four papers get cited for good work -- Cincinnati, Nashville, Phoenix, and St. Cloud, Minn. Then, word-for-word:

These are just a few examples of efforts by Gannett Information Centers to further understand and report on the diversity communities in which they live. These examples are based on information provided in the All-American Review materials and the Diversity Award entry process. We have culled “Best Practices” of journalism and Information Center actions that reflect the principles of All-American. Examples are organized by key areas in our collective outreach efforts: Diversity committees, Community outreach, Diversity examples, Mainstreaming examples, Staff development and Diversity source lists.

Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write gannettblog[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the green rail, upper right.

[Today's
St. Cloud Times front page, Newseum]

9 comments:

  1. Ah yes, major kudos to Cincy for putting some black folk on the front page! If they're focusing on this type of crap, no wonder the stock is falling off a cliff.

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  2. I don't know about anywhere else, but no one in my info center has mentioned diversity in our pages in a long time.

    Are other places different?

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  3. What a mess of a message Gannett sends. St. Cloud was led by former Gannett editor Ihne, who as I recall also won national journalism diversity awards for Gannett and I think multiple company "president rings", and she has a pending suit against Gannett and publisher Hammer -- who as an editor lost an $18 million lawsuit before a jury in Florida (overturned by an appeals court) -- for wrongful termination, sex and age discrimination. Egads.

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  4. I do know Ann Clark and she should have been let go long ago.

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  5. At some point in Phil Currie's long reign, the diversity program morphed from being a laudable one that achieved a lot to a personal "brand" of Phil Currie. It became a way for Phil Currie to praise himself and portray himself as a healer of racial wounds.

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  6. "Information Center" HUH??? Isnt that like putting lipstick on a pig. Gannet you crack me up.

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  7. Things apparently haven't improved now that Kate Marymont has taken over from Phil Currie. Just read her latest NewsWatch. She thinks what we need are MORE DAMNED CONTESTS!!

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  8. I will never understand why 'information center' was proclaimed the new name for the newsroom. 'Operator? Could you help me place this call?' That's an information center. News is not what you find in a phone book. But whatever. Who knew we had mentors in this company? THAT was news to me!

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  9. Here is an honest comment about the mainstreaming ewffort. On paper it osunded like a good idea. Show people of all backgrounds and they will buy the paper. Guess what,they didn't. Most of the recent market studies show the print audience is composed of old, white males. Go figure.

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