FoxPolitics.net - Appleton, WI News - What's really going on in the Fox Cities

FoxPolitics.net Blogs

FoxPolitics News

Local/State Govt Links

Salaries

• Appleton School District, 2007-08
• City of Appleton
• Town of Grand Chute
• City of Menasha
• City of Neenah

Candidates

City of Appleton

• Elected Officials
• Salary Watch
• Directory
• Mtg. Agendas/Minutes

Advisory Board

Blogroll

Selected News Sources:
Business Jrnl of Milw
Christian Science Monitor
Daily Caller
Drudge Report
La Crosse Tribune
Milw Journal Sentinel
National Journal
New York Times
Public Policy Forum
Real Clear Politics
Stateline
The Hill
TPM
Washington Examiner
Washington Post
Washington Times
WI State Journal
Selected Blogs - from the Right:
American Mind
Blaska's Blog
Boots & Sabers
Charlie Sykes
Dad29
Freedom Eden
Heritage Foundation
Jerry Bader Blog
Life Voice
Marketplace of Ideas
Marquette Warrior
Natl Review Online
No Runny Eggs
Patrick McIlheran
Real Debate Wisconson
RedState
Rhymes with Clown
Shark and Shepherd
The Lote Tree
Vox Populi
Wall Street Jrnl, Opinions
WI State Jrnl, Opinion
Wigderson Library & Pub
Wisconsin Family Voice
WPRI
Selected Blogs - from the Left:
Big Money Blog
Blogging Blue
Brenda Konkel
Caffeinated Politics
Capital Times
FightingBob
Folkbum's rambles
Griper Blade
Huffington Post
Lost Albatross
MAL Contends
Mid coast views
Moneyed Politicians
One Wisconsin Now
Open Left
Playground Politics
Political Environment
Rock Netroots
Talk to Tony
Uppity Wisconsin
Waxing America

Today's Blog: Time for the Guv to morph into Chris Christie
My husband and I and a couple hundred friends watched in Green Bay as ...(more)

Search Archives

Blogs

Time for the Guv to morph into Chris Christie (6/28/2011)

Time for Gov. Walker to talk more about the cake (3/4/2011)

Today, reality hits home (3/1/2011)

FoxPolitics News going on hiatus (1/28/2011)

Brown County Executive candidate forum Feb. 8 (1/28/2011)

Education done right (1/27/2011)

To Obama, the ‘We’ is Government (1/27/2011)

(more)

11/28/2008
Gannett cutbacks coming soon

Very interesting timing of one of the Post-Crescent’s lead articles last Sunday. Dan Flannery, former Sports Editor and Managing Editor, and now Executive Editor of Appleton’s very own Gannett property, decided to feature Thomas Kunkel, St. Norbert’s newly inaugurated president. Flannery says he interviewed Kunkel at a “Fox Cities meet-and-greet.” It’s surely possible there’s been such a fete recently, but I have the same exact wording – “meet ‘n greet, St. Norbert’s new president” - on my calendar for an event held 2 ½ months ago, the evening of September 11. Flannery was there, as I greeted him briefly that evening.

Yes, Sunday’s column is just a bit of curious timing. For you see, signficant layoffs at the Post-Crescent may come as early as next week.

Flannery details Kunkel’s impressive background in journalism – and uses the opportunity to note that St. Norbert’s leading man “leaves journalism at a time that combines exciting opportunities, discouraging trends, changing habits and a challenging economy.”

Flannery goes on, using Kunkel’s words to detail the mess – and to slam the competition.

I think we’ll end up somewhere with a robust kind of media environment, but between now and then, whenever that is, it’s just going to be a really rocky road.

….Mainstream media, in the face of this onslaught, are having to cut a lot of personnel and space and bureaus and you name it…. [Hmmm. Keep reading.]

The proliferation of blogs and other social networking platforms… is not necessarily a good thing…. This trend puts two of traditional journalism’s most valued tenets – accuracy and balance – at risk.

…. If you’re only watching television, you’re also – without maybe knowing it – perpetuating the crap that’s happening on the blogs…. And this is incredibly irresponsible by the cable networks especially, to just sort of take rumor and speculation and just legitimize it…..The blogosphere is so poisonous and so partisan, and when the cable networks just take a spoon out and feed it, it’s cyclical and self-perpetuating. And news consumers are buying into this.

Just for the record, there might be ‘crap’ out there on blogs, but I surely don’t put my pieces in that category – or any others I feature on FoxPolitics. As a matter of fact, I like to call mine reasoned and provocative. And you could even say constructive, helpful and contributing to informed political thought of the day.

Ok, so I wonder if we’ll read about the layoff of 3,000 in the Post-Crescent. Layoffs coming ‘by early December’ are supposed to total 10% of the workforce. [Update: an AP article on the cutbacks appeared October 29, per Mr. Flannery. See comments below.] Here’s the memo, from Gannett newspaper division president Bob Dickey and made available by former Gannett editor Jim Hopkins on what seems to be a very credible (as opposed to ‘crappy’) blog site.

In the last round of 3% cuts (1,000 country-wide) just 3 months ago, the Post-Crescent cut 8 employees. With a 10% cut coming soon, does that mean 25 will be out of work this time around?

Any way you look at it, that’s serious cuts – and something that surely is on Flannery’s mind.

(The 8 employee figure is courtesy of Hopkins; he sites a similar number for the Press Gazette, which ran a story about it. I couldn’t locate a similar story in the Post-Crescent [P-C], nor could Hopkins.) [Update: A story that consisted primarily of national wire reports, with added detail about 8 employees laid off at the P-C, was run in the Inc. section of the Post-Crescent August 15.]

According to Hopkins once again, layoffs of “senior managers” at some of Gannett’s 84 U.S. community dailies in September, followed the 3% cuts in mid-August. He documents a loss of one of these management positions at the Green Bay Press Gazette, one more at “Sheboygan and Fond du Lac” and between Wausau, Stevens Point, Marshfield and Wisconsin Rapids, a loss of three.

Post-Crescent senior management may have escaped pink slips in September. Could they possibly survive the gauntlet this time? And if not, will those cuts – and the possible 25 coming soon - be Flannery’s decision? It would surely seem that Sunday’s article laid the groundwork.

Jo Egelhoff, FoxPolitics.net

COMMENTS

When John Gard debated Steve Kagen at Lawrence University Dan Flannery was the moderator. At no point during the debate was there a single question asked about the war in Iraq.

As the managing editor of the newspaper he might have given this some consideration in that bogus form of debate in which the questions are screened beforehand, put in a neat pile and politely read off of 3x5 cards. No questions were taken from the floor. There were goons there to make sure that didn't happen.

Why is this important to the topic at hand? It indicates the level of engagement with which a senior member of the local print media has in his own profession. For that reason alone
any cuts at the paper should start at the top.

Don't worry though. My opinion is of no consequence. On this day, Black Friday (or The Shopocalypse as Reverend Billy calls it) the newspaper does what it does best: tell people
where the sales are-- not where the news is.

I haven't read the paper-- even the Sunday fliers-- for many years. Others I know have reduced their subscriptions to one or two days a week to get the free tv guide and other informationals not related to news.

Alternately in the blogosphere there is proof once again of Sturgeon's Law which goes that "95 percent of everything is cr*p." A direct quote.

So where is the news?

The Russians from the old Soviet Union have word for it. The word is "samizdat."

: a system in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and countries within its orbit by which government-suppressed literature was clandestinely printed and distributed ; also :
such literature.:
[cited in Meriam Webster dictionary]

When the newspaper has no news these various new forms of communication will spring up out of need and necessity. Samizdat was done on mimeograph. At Tiananmen Square it was done by
fax. And now on the internet it is done by some bloggers and informed individuals. Viral marketing (which used to be called word-of-mouth) has gotten the message out about these
alternate forms. Fox Politics is one such form (with reservations.) FP has on some days-- those days when the right wing echo chamber is not flogging the usual three issues-- news of
local relevance. For that reason I participate here. And the FP News section aggregates local news better than any RSS feed (that being another way of getting news updates.)

The need for good local journalism is not diminished. Filling that need has to be done by those other than the corporations dependent on advertising dollars in exchange for a happy news newspaper. To be sure, some local stories are covered. But more and more, there is less and less journalistic engagement in the story. This may be called fair and balanced
by some. To me it is just timidity.

Lon Ponschock (Fri Nov 28 10:34:21 2008)

I enjoyed reading what you wrote about Gannett's coming change. Starting at the top would seem to make sense. Are you listening, General Motors and Ford?

Dmentor (Sat Nov 29 13:35:48 2008)

Mr. Flannery let me know that the Post-Crescent did indeed run an AP story October 29 about the 10% reductions coming to the newspapers division at Gannett.

Concerning Lon's comment about the Gard-Kagen debate, Flannery notes that questions came from AARP members and LU students. Those organizations collected the questions and chose those that would be asked. Flannery then chose the order in which the questions were asked and of course, did the asking.

Jo (Mon Dec 1 10:40:48 2008)

Post a Reply

Print this Article

Email Article to a Friend