OT - GateHouse Media buys Gannett

[Mr. WEO]

16 hours ago, PromoTheRobot said:

 

GateHouse only does one thing: cut costs. And if the paper doesn't fold, they cut some more next year. It's a dreadful company to work for.

 

Gannett has been laying off many and cutting costs for years.  They also have been actively looking to merge for several years. 

 

GateHouse, headquartered in Pittsford, NY, is unlikely to slash at the D and C--which is already a pretty barebones outfit.  Their 3 story HQ in downtown Rochester only fills 2 stories and has been looking for a tenant for the top floor since they moved into the building. 

[Capco]

4 hours ago, ShadyBillsFan said:

Most stories are found on AP or Reuters feeds and just repeated across the country.   

 

That's always what I felt like too.  It's also worthy to note that both agencies (which generally just report facts with very little spin) are some of the most centrist and respected news agencies.  

[Taro T]

Wonder if they'd give a discount combining a (Canandaigua) Messenger subscription W/ a D&C one?

 

Used to get both, but the D&C was just too expensive compared to the Messenger to continue justifying the subscription.  Though the D&C Sunday business section is missed.  That was good.  (But kind of redundant W/ the RBJ.)

[HardyBoy]

16 hours ago, formerlyofCtown said:

They also get all their news from CNN and sometimes flat out lie to promote their own agenda.

 

Do you have actual evidence of this outside of a few potential anecdotal examples? Like actual data that shows a significant number of young journalists take their stories directly from cnn, and are trying to further their own "agenda?"

 

You're smearing an entire generation of writers, so I'm assuming you have some actual evidence, or did you just hear this and repeat it from someone who might be you know, lying to promote their own agenda...

[blacklabel]

18 hours ago, Just Jack said:

 

Because you let the higher priced writers go and hire fresh out of college kids who trust spell check and don’t proofread before they click on publish to website. 

 

That part right there, IMO, has definitely become a habit of more than just recent graduates. I see all sorts of errors in articles written by veteran journalists. Either that or they become super repetitive and use the same phrases and terms over and over.

[4_kidd_4]

19 hours ago, ChevyVanMiller said:

Makes me wonder how quickly they will fire Sully at the Niagara Gazette, also a Gannett newspaper.

 

Makes me generally wonder how the Niagara Gazette is still even in existence. 

[ChevyVanMiller]

23 minutes ago, 4_kidd_4 said:

 

Makes me generally wonder how the Niagara Gazette is still even in existence. 

I can tell you, having written for the Niagara Falls Reporter for 13 years, obits and government-required public notices. As the only daily newspaper of record in Niagara Falls, they get all of those by default. They are lucrative and pay the bills.

[HardyBoy]

5 hours ago, ShadyBillsFan said:

My clueless two cents 

 

Most stories are found on AP or Reuters feeds and just repeated across the country.   

 

I think subscribers would want is their local flare tossed in there. 

 

Doesn't (or didn't) Gannett also own the USA today?  

 

 

The real loss is all the local minutia, from high school sports, to the city council bond allocation meeting.

 

That said, high school sports coverage is probably super interesting these days. I graduated high school (roc area) in 2002 and played soccer and lax, and we basically had the box scores in the D&C that coaches would call in, an article on your team and maybe over the course of the season you would you would get an article or two in there.  Then you had your local town paper that covered all your high school's sports, so your team would get coverage that way more regularily, but a lot of it was just recaps, with some good quotes and observations for sure (biggest draw was the picture honestly, but I was pretty cool to get talked about in there). 

 

That was pretty much before social media, and definitely outside of basically anyone under 30 at the time. Now you have three generations of people well versed in the technology and have access to ubiquitous social networks where more people are on now than subscribed then to newspapers. I have to think you can get all your high school content on a facebook page, twitter, instagram, and through podcasts. It's just so different now. I missed the start of that phenomenon likely by seven years or so before all three generations were really at the right part of the adoption curve to have a true social media community to use for gaining information.

 

Being in the Oregon Trail generation is so crazy sometimes, just things where on either side of me things are completely different, but I grew up in my formative years with it starkly both ways or in the middle or changing and blending. 

 

All that said, my real point is the biggest loss is going to be local municipal functions not being covered in an investigative manner. It's super important for the long term to keep people making long term decisions accountable at all levels to ensure they are keeping the people who will be paying for those decisions for the next 30 years firmly and primarily in their decision making.

 

Not sure if you saw the water main break we had in fort lauderdale, but it came out that we need 20 billion dollars in infrastructure work over the next years, and we need it urgently. It should never have gotten to this point here, and I think a ton of it the lack of a powerful and objective local news system that everyone follows and acts upon the stories each election...a well informed electorate I suppose. 

[SlimShady'sSpaceForce]

1 hour ago, Capco said:

 

That's always what I felt like too.  It's also worthy to note that both agencies (which generally just report facts with very little spin) are some of the most centrist and respected news agencies.  

 

maybe its because they are in the News business and not Gossip and Opinions 

[4_kidd_4]

1 hour ago, ChevyVanMiller said:

I can tell you, having written for the Niagara Falls Reporter for 13 years, obits and government-required public notices. As the only daily newspaper of record in Niagara Falls, they get all of those by default. They are lucrative and pay the bills.

 

The occasional “Happy Ad” must be pure gravy then! 

 

Thanks for your answer though.Didn’t think a paper could get by on obits and announcements, but here we are.

[HardyBoy]

51 minutes ago, 4_kidd_4 said:

 

The occasional “Happy Ad” must be pure gravy then! 

 

Thanks for your answer though.Didn’t think a paper could get by on obits and announcements, but here we are.

 

It's literally their last remaining readers footing the bill as they die. 

 

What I don't get is why they haven't spent the money on vibrant local social networks. Obviously easier said than done, and my guess there is a business there for someone to develop out their with some venture capital money, but my have a hunch facebook and google are buying those companies before they have a chance to compete.

[Capco]

5 hours ago, ShadyBillsFan said:

 

maybe its because they are in the News business and not Gossip and Opinions 

 

The thing that puzzles me is, in the wake of all this (rightful) disdain of much of mainstream media, it's obvious that there is a large appetite for just this kind of reporting (i.e. just genuine news).  If there is a market for facts without spin, why do so many outlets try to do the opposite and pander to a specific audience?

 

Maybe the market for spin is bigger than I am giving it credit for.  

[formerlyofCtown]

8 hours ago, HardyBoy said:

 

Do you have actual evidence of this outside of a few potential anecdotal examples? Like actual data that shows a significant number of young journalists take their stories directly from cnn, and are trying to further their own "agenda?"

 

You're smearing an entire generation of writers, so I'm assuming you have some actual evidence, or did you just hear this and repeat it from someone who might be you know, lying to promote their own agenda...

Got more evidence of this than any collusion with Russia.

#koolaiddrinkers

Its not just the writers its almost the entire generation.  Up is down and down is up.  Brainwashed generation.

Edited August 7, 2019 by formerlyofCtown

[Mike in Horseheads]

On 8/5/2019 at 6:24 PM, ChevyVanMiller said:

Makes me wonder how quickly they will fire Sully at the Niagara Gazette, also a Gannett newspaper.

Sully found a job? I thought he worked for the Pennysaver by now

[HardyBoy]

On 8/6/2019 at 9:36 PM, formerlyofCtown said:

Got more evidence of this than any collusion with Russia.

#koolaiddrinkers

Its not just the writers its almost the entire generation.  Up is down and down is up.  Brainwashed generation.

 

Ok, show me the evidence then.

[Spiderweb]

On 8/6/2019 at 1:35 PM, HardyBoy said:

 

Do you have actual evidence of this outside of a few potential anecdotal examples? Like actual data that shows a significant number of young journalists take their stories directly from cnn, and are trying to further their own "agenda?"

 

You're smearing an entire generation of writers, so I'm assuming you have some actual evidence, or did you just hear this and repeat it from someone who might be you know, lying to promote their own agenda...

Nah, it was just "created"...

Edited August 8, 2019 by Spiderweb

[HansLanda]

This is a business play in the hopes two sinking ships can stay afloat better as one. The question is how soon will they rip the bandaid off and stop printing? it's a huge expense, yet there still is a lot of print ad revenue out there (esp locally). So a catch 22. There will DEF be cost cutting measures.

 

These old school publishers never thought the internet was going to really disrupt a 100+ yr old lucrative business and never made forward thinking M&A moves...Whoops! 

 

As of today, Twitter is worth about 30x that of Gannett in market cap. And with the right, aggressive offer a decade ago a big pub could have probably acquired TWTR.

 

Here is your factoid for the day: in late 2006, Google acquired youtube for $1.65B...Today, over 5B videos are watched daily on YT with 80% of the audience being under 49. Cha Ching.

[zonabb]

On 8/6/2019 at 1:45 PM, 4_kidd_4 said:

 

Makes me generally wonder how the Niagara Gazette is still even in existence. 

Well, Gannett hasn't owned the NG since at least around 1998, if I recall, when they were bought by Community Newspaper Holdings Inc., which, again if I recall, is basically a pension-owned company focused first on profitability for pensioners in some southern state, hence the constant cuts. It also acquire the Lockport Scum and Urinal and Tonawanda Snooze, which was folded at some point in the last decade. 

 

Print news sucks. And they suck by choice. They don't know how to deliver local news in a digital format that people want to purchase. I stopped subscribing to the BN probably a decade ago. How many stories about real estate, development, gentrification, and hipster beer spots can you read about?

[HardyBoy]

39 minutes ago, zonabb said:

Well, Gannett hasn't owned the NG since at least around 1998, if I recall, when they were bought by Community Newspaper Holdings Inc., which, again if I recall, is basically a pension-owned company focused first on profitability for pensioners in some southern state, hence the constant cuts. It also acquire the Lockport Scum and Urinal and Tonawanda Snooze, which was folded at some point in the last decade. 

 

Print news sucks. And they suck by choice. They don't know how to deliver local news in a digital format that people want to purchase. I stopped subscribing to the BN probably a decade ago. How many stories about real estate, development, gentrification, and hipster beer spots can you read about?

 

Interesting, so basically, people were drawn to newspapers because of the national news, which now they can get elsewhere, valid point there.

 

Long form investigative local reporting, in the form of a monthly print and online magazine would work in some places. Shoot, I lived in Boston and they had several of those that I would read on the bus...actually I think the Boston Phoenix just went out of business when I left to move to fort lauderdale, but if I recall there was much more to it than readership.

 

 

Yup, Boston Phoenix died because a lack of national advertising, not due to low readership or lack of local advertising.

 

https://www.wbur.org/news/2013/03/14/boston-phoenix-closing

 

I remember reading people saying it was too adversarial a press institution and it turned off national ad sources, but I could be misremembering...the readers were there though, I like I said, I think they were speaking truth to power with well sourced and with high journalistic standards and got dropped as a result.

[HardyBoy]

On 8/6/2019 at 9:36 PM, formerlyofCtown said:

Got more evidence of this than any collusion with Russia.

#koolaiddrinkers

Its not just the writers its almost the entire generation.  Up is down and down is up.  Brainwashed generation.

 

18 hours ago, HardyBoy said:

 

Ok, show me the evidence then.

 

So to recap, you dropped a non sequitor whataboutism, coupled with an unsupported ad hominem and then crickets when I didn't take the bait?

 

Taking it you cannot show me peer reviewed, statistically significant research, where I can look at the method section and the statistical analysis applied on said research to back up your point of view then? 

 

In that case, care to share what you are actually basing your ideas on then? 

 

Actually forget all that, I don't have time for this the way I expect it to go (I'm open to a constructive conversation though).

 

One last thing and you don't even need to answer this question, but what objective evidence/proof that you are wrong would it take for you to change your mind on this (what it would take for me is in the second paragraph)?