Gannett – “We're being sabotaged by our own company”

Pros

At my local site, the editors are very encouraging, patient and nurturing, and the newsroom is a rather close-knit group. A local newspaper such as mine is a great place for someone just starting out in journalism. After hearing from people who have worked for other newspaper companies, I realize the pay and benefits at Gannett are not too shabby for this kind of job. There also is the opportunity for movement to other newspapers within the company, which isn't possible with family-owned newspapers.

Cons

As I mentioned, the local site is a great place to start out -- if it didn't seem like corporate and our regional hub, for lack of a better word, were deliberately trying to run us into the ground.

First, they consolidated printing at a site an hour and a half away from us, and then they shrunk the newspaper to as little as eight pages two days a week in an effort to save newsprint.

I used to feel like I had the freedom to be creative with layout and design. Now, all 10 newspapers in our region must use the same style sheets and must have 5-column section fronts with 6-column inside pages, and "deviations ... will be dealt with quickly," we were told. Obituaries now are compiled by people two hours away who barely glance over them before sending them to us in an un-editable PDF.

Morale within the company is plummeting as every day, fear of whether today is the day for another massive layoff announcement runs rampant. At our site, lack of resources to report the news the way we should, along with furloughs and a crackdown on overtime which further depletes those resources, is taking its toll on our staff and our community.

Overall, I do not recommend anyone apply for a job with this company, unless you are some kind of masochist.

Advice to Senior Management

Local autonomy! We may not be CEOs of a major corporation, but we know how to run our own paper. Our newspaper did just fine for many, many years without Gannett's interference. Just let us alone to do what we've been doing rather than dismantling us piece by piece. Please?