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Things aren't looking much better for newspaper publishers in the New Year, judging by Gannett Co.'s announcement Tuesday that employees of its community publishing division will be required to take another unpaid furlough in the first quarter of 2010. Tuesday also brought more layoffs at the company's national flagship newspaper, USA Today. Bob Dickey, the president of Gannett's community publishing division, revealed management's plans for more unpaid furloughs in a memo to employees first posted by the Poynter Institute.
In the memo, Dickey noted encouraging trends, but also observed that "the overall economy is still fragile with a number of business uncertainties," adding, "as we head into 2010, we think it is prudent to take a conservative approach toward managing our business."
Thus, all non-union community publishing employees will be asked to take a total of five days of unpaid leave in the first quarter. As with previous rounds, Gannett is asking unionized employees to participate in the unpaid furloughs, but cannot force them to do so.
According to Dickey's memo, the furloughs are not part of a companywide policy, although some other Gannett divisions are also resorting to unpaid leave. This latest round follows companywide furloughs in the first and second quarters of 2009, which Dickey wrote "saved Gannett a significant amount of money and helped us get through what has been unquestionably the toughest time we have ever faced as a company and division."
During these furloughs, Gannett required each employee to take one week of unpaid leave per quarter.
Also on Tuesday, Gannett revealed that it is cutting 26 newsroom positions at USA Today, as well as 11 positions at its USA Weekend newspaper-distributed magazine. While these layoffs are small compared to several waves earlier this year, which cut thousands of positions across Gannett, they are a significant number for the flagship paper, which has a total newsroom staff of about 430 (down from about 500 in 2007).
After the latest round of cuts, the USA Today newsroom will have shrunk about 20% in two years.
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I suggest we bestow upon Gannett the "You Reap What You Sow" award for 2010, for its tremendously heroic efforts in dumbing down the country. By being a leader in the movement to legitimize bite-sized articles with short, simple words as somehow being real news, Gannett fostered a climate in which TMZ, the Daily Show and Facebook suffice to meet most people's news needs, thus making newspapers unnecessary.