The Gannett Corporation’s last round of newsroom layoffs at the Des Moines Register caught my attention immediately, because I’m a daily subscriber. I learned only recently that the Iowa City Press-Citizen was on the receiving end of more Gannett penny-pinching a few weeks ago.
The Paper Cuts blog (one of the more depressing sites around) has tallied more than 3,300 layoffs and buyouts at U.S. newspapers so far in 2011. When Gannett reorganized the Iowa City Press-Citizen’s newsroom in August, two employees lost their jobs: executive editor Jim Lewers and city editor Greg Smith. At the time, General Manager Gabriel Aguirre wrote, “These staffing adjustments today were made to ensure we’ve got our valuable resources in the very best places so that we can deliver the high-quality journalism our readers deserve and demand.” But no one was hired to replace Lewers. The Civic Skinny columnist at the Des Moines-based weekly Cityview noted this week that the Iowa City Press-Citizen “is looking more and more like a bureau” of the Des Moines Register.
The paper, which now is printed out of town, now has neither an editor nor a publisher. It reports to Register publisher Hollingsworth.
How a newspaper can deliver “high-quality journalism” with a smaller newsroom staff and no editor on site is beyond me. The Press-Citizen serves a highly-educated population in Iowa’s largest college town. The newspaper should have its own editor.
But hey, the Gannett Corporation isn’t all austerity, all the time:
Gannett last week doubled its quarterly dividend, to 8 cents a share from 4 cents. That means an extra $64,725.08 this quarter – that’s $258,900.32 a year – for chief executive Craig Dubow, whose total compensation last year was $9.4 million, and an extra $25,284.72 a quarter – every little bit helps – for Gannett president Gracia Martore, whose compensation was $8.1 million. The compensation of both was doubled last year, in part because they did a good job managing costs – that is, laying off people.
And people wonder why newspaper circulations continue to drop. Former Des Moines Register feature author Reid Forgrave did the smart thing in July, leaving for a sportswriting job at FoxSports.com.
2 Comments
18-24 months to live, tops
In this newspaper economy, Cedar Rapids-Iowa City isn’t big enough to support two papers – three is you count the Daily Iowan which probably publishes 200 or so days a year.
There’s still room for bigger papers and for small-town weeklies, but the medium size papers don’t have a niche.
jdeeth Sat 17 Sep 9:22 PM
Comparisons
I’m a daily reader of both the Press-Citizen, and the Cedar Rapids Gazette, and I agree that the P-C is toast. The Gazette is doing at least as well as the P-C at covering Johnson county news, plus it has better state government coverage, lots better business news, and Linn county too.
Lets take the recent school board election for example. The Press-Citizen hosted a forum, and printed the candidates bios and statements, but that was it. The Gazette did just as well, plus it covered the C-R school board in great detail.
There was plenty of juicy gossip for those in the know:
which candidate was the superintendent’s best friend?
which candidate had been fired by the district?
But the Press-Citizen didn’t even ask the quiestions. To be truly informed, you had to be on the right email lists, or to read John Deeth’s blog. (Hi John.)
corncam Mon 19 Sep 9:26 PM