The Not-So-Free Press

Robust and color on every page ! (4.00 / 1)

As we ponder the new mini-Freep and its sidekick paywall read below about the sizable golden parachute that carried Gannett's retiring CEO to a soft landing and tell again me with a straight face it's the internet that did in the newspapers.
Sure newspapers have suffered loses of readership & advertising ,cutbacks,upheavals caused by the internet but...

Craig Dubow resigned as Gannett CEO for health reasons in October and was eligible for a retirement and disability pay package of $37.1 million. (Peter Lewis has pointed out that when Dubow took over as CEO in 2005, Gannett's stock price was $72-something a share. At his departure, it was $10-something - down 85% in his tenure.)

On Wednesday, Gannett revealed in a 10-K filing that Dubow will receive a $5.9 million cash payment in early April, apparently the first part of his retirement package. Gannett Blog's Jim Hopkins went through 155-page document and noticed that Dubow and Gannett agreed to keep the executive's separation agreement "more or less a secret - although GCI [Gannett Co.Inc.] reserved the right to disclose its contents to the SEC. Which, of course, it did."

http://gannettblog.blogspot.co...
http://jimromenesko.com/2012/0...

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by: BP @ Fri Feb 24, 2012 at 16:50:26 PM UTC

That's the way the money goes... (0.00 / 0)

POP goes the weasel!!

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by: Sue Prent @ Fri Feb 24, 2012 at 17:09:10 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Stick a Fork in the Freeps (0.00 / 0)

Last gasp of a dying paper. RIP Freeps.  

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by: bozo @ Fri Feb 24, 2012 at 21:33:22 PM UTC

Paywalls all around us (4.00 / 1)

I'm not as concerned with the "tall tabloid"-izing of the Freep, as I am with the paywall. I realize that the newspaper business is losing revenue and seems to be caught in a downward spiral -- less revenue, fewer pages and reporters, poorer product, higher prices, lower sales, lather, rinse, repeat -- and they have to make money somehow. (The executive bonuses and corporate model certainly don't help matters, of course. But they're only one part of a much bigger problem.)

But with the Freep joining the Rutland Herald and Times Argus (among others) behind paywalls, we're going to have a major shortage of widely-available news. Vermont Digger is excellent but limited; other free online sources covering the state include VPR, Seven Days, and the two TV stations. All have their own limits, and none have the ability to cover the waterfront. There won't be much news feeding the public discourse. The Freep's pending paywall (and shrinkifying) is one more step into a deep tunnel whose exit is not yet visible.  

"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible."  --Frank Zappa

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by: jvwalt @ Fri Feb 24, 2012 at 21:37:59 PM UTC

I don't think the paywall will serve the Free Press well. (4.00 / 1)

Since the Messenger put up fences, all of Michelle Monroe's superb reporting is unavailable for links, and the rest of the paper just doesn't inspire one to pay-up.  So a lot of good writing and valuable insight just goes unread.

It's a shame because I think there must be a better business model for small papers to follow.  Maybe a "basket offering" that would allow readers to subscribe for very relatively little to online editions of all papers, statewide.  I'd go for that; but not if I wouldn't get the complete content.

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by: Sue Prent @ Fri Feb 24, 2012 at 22:17:55 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

So (4.00 / 1)

I can pay now, and still see all the ad vomit all over their paper?

I'd consider under the following conditions:

1. They replace the ads with 1 per page, in a specific location.

2. They feature anyone who breaks 100 comments in a year on the front page - full bio, news story, investigative reporting, line up photos (if there are any), dirt digging, etc. etc.

3. They publicly kill off the 'Deal Chicken'.

4. They let someone else write 'The Voice of the Free Press'. When often times the sports scores are thicker than the news stories - I have no interest in what 'The Voice of the Free Press' has to say.

Tabloid? Color? So they aren't going to be a 50% or more 'AP' feed aggregator?  

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by: bmike @ Sat Feb 25, 2012 at 12:51:45 PM UTC

"...50% or more AP feed aggregator" (4.00 / 1)

...exactly!  

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by: Sue Prent @ Sat Feb 25, 2012 at 14:35:46 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I (4.00 / 1)

think its hilarious that their print deadline is 9pm.
What do they do over there? Most of their stories are AP... and the local stuff is sometimes a day late...

How long does it take to aggregate and drop into the layout yet another AP story?

And why is the inside of the front section always something nearly 100% non relevant and non local to VT...?

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by: bmike @ Sat Feb 25, 2012 at 18:13:35 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I hear you about that early print deadline... (4.00 / 1)

I have been told that smaller regional stories that come in too late for the 9:00 PM deadline and are judged insufficiently important to wait another twenty-four hours, are simply dropped.

I've got to say though, that that inside front page with all the international "shorts" is the stock and trade of entertainment at our house.  I actually keep a file of all the bizarre bits that show up there and it has grown pretty fat over the years.  Every time my son comes home for a visit, he knows there will be new lunacy to discover in there.

But I agree that those stories could be relegated to a less prominent place in the paper.

A paper can't keep paring down its newsroom staff without regional coverage eventually suffering.  And it's the regional stuff, not the AP feed you can pick up anywhere on the web, that gives the paper value.  It makes me particularly crazy when, occasionally, you see coverage of a regional news item being taken from the AP feed.

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by: Sue Prent @ Sat Feb 25, 2012 at 18:41:24 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

It's the ad layout that takes all the time (0.00 / 0)

Followed by editing the text to fit between ads....

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by: simplify @ Mon Feb 27, 2012 at 13:47:52 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

By the way, (0.00 / 0)

has anyone caught the irony in the Free Press promising color on every page of its upcoming tabloid format when they've just eliminated color from half of the Sunday comics?

Yeah, I'd much rather see a bunch of advertising for sales at JC Penney and Walmart, and celebrity gossip in color than the funny papers!

My Dad, who used to share the funnies with my sister and me when we were too little to read them ourselves, must be spinning in his cosmic existence!

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by: Sue Prent @ Sun Mar 11, 2012 at 20:29:13 PM UTC