Wednesday is the day that Gannett, the corporate owner of the Asheville Citizen-Times, is scheduled to announce the latest rounds of lay-offs at its newspapers across the country. The number has been estimated at about 1,500 jobs cut. I have no idea how that will play out in Asheville, but my former colleagues there tell me they’re just keeping their heads down and waiting for the news.
I’ve been running various scenarios and trying to imagine what might happen. I’ve also been reading the rumor and conjecture over at Gannett Blog, the best source of information about how this will all play out. So, here’s my rumor-mongering, in on particular order:
– Randy Hammer gets cut: The grapevine says that Citizen-Times Publisher Randy Hammer is one of the people whose job will be axed this week. As the Asheville newspaper continues to merge with its larger sister newspaper, the Greenville News in Greenville, S.C., I can see this as a possibility. In the last round of layoffs, most of the top department heads at the Citizen-Times were cut.
If Hammer gets cut, that would be a major hit. If true, we would no longer have a local publisher for our daily newspaper. Personally, I have no issue with Hammer. I only worked for him for a few months, and when I left the newspaper, he reached out to me. We drank a couple of beers and talked about newspapering. I always appreciated that.
– Copy desk merger: I’ve thought for a while that most of the cuts this time around would be realized through the move of the Citizen-Times copy desk to Greenville. This follows the merger scenario, and this move has already happened with the New York Times-owned Hendersonville Times-News and its sister newspaper in Spartanburg.
– Internet-only newspaper: Another rumor is that several Gannett newspapers will have their print editions shut down and that they will move to Internet-only publications. This seems like a drastic move for the Asheville market, where I have it on good authority that the plans are to shrink the size of the print edition. But you could sure save a lot of money by cutting the expense of buying newsprint and paying people to deliver it to doorsteps.
– Newspaper sale: Along these same lines, some people are conjecturing that Gannett will put up for sale some of its newspaper properties.
Now it’s your turn – what are you hearing about the impending Gannett lay-offs and how they will affect the Asheville Citizen-Times?
8 Comments
Over the last 1 1/2 month I’ve noticed they were attempting to have local stories featured daily on the front page. Maybe to late, maybe not.
You know there are plenty of 30-somethings to 70 somethings that still want coupons.
Newspaper junkie – the kind of reporting that you mention should be an everyday occurence instead of a last ditch attempt to save their job or the newspaper. I don’t want to see the paper go under. I just want to see a paper that reflects the greater Asheville community. Obama on the front page is old news. It was reported last night on all of the network news shows, MSN, etc…
In order to survive they need to tell me things I don’t know. One day last week they had a picture of the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders on the front page of the sports section. Has the CT turned into Sports Illustrated? I’m sure that there are mountain bikers or canoeists that could be covered. That kind of sloppy use of press releases is inexcusable. In my mind, the Dallas Cowboy cheerleader photo negates any of the investigative reporting. Maybe it is Fernandez that needs to worry.
Is it my imagination or has there been an increase in well-researched, thoroughly reported and tightly written and edited articles in the Citizen-Times lately? In the last few days, we’ve had Nanci Bompey’s article on the new UNC medical school program in Asheville, Mark Barrett’s piece on the jobs picture in WNC, Jordan Schrader on a beer tasting bill in the legislature and Dale Neal’s one-two punch on the decline of volunteer fire fighting companies and Asheville’s role in climate data research. Yes, still a lot of unelaborated crime reports straight from the Asheville Police Department Web site and “staff reports” from press releases. But are reporters now being told to go out and dig for stories and give the reader some background and context? Is someone at the Citizen-Times trying to make it into a real newspaper?
Wait a minute, Rhonda. You might be contradicting yourself a little. To parahprase… this is a sad paper, I only read it online. Isn’t that a bit like saying, "Junk food is completely unhealthy, so I only eat it on Tuesdays"?
In other words, why read at all if the product is poor?
Other points…
Will the Charlotte or Raleigh papers report on any local government and public safety that might affect WNC? Youll have a hard enough time getting people here to believe the Piedmont even knows we exist.
Does anyone truly know how guarded the XPress is from the same plight of the C-T if, like they seem to be with their news, everyone goes online for their ads (see also: Craigslist)? The same can be said of IWanna. Simply put, what’s killing newspapers isn’t doing it selectively.
And as for blogs, national news agency Web sites, etc… I believe the new wave of information consumers are top-feeders. What I mean is this. Younger people, the ones who are driving up news aggregator readership (like Fark) don’t care about community news. There’s this thinking that "well, I’m just gonna read the NY Times online or the Huffington Post online for alllllll my news needs." That’s fine, but you’re only getting the macro picture. In other words, the latest wave of information consumers don’t care about the micro world in which we live. I honestly believe that.
In return, they don’t subscribe to local papers. They don’t genuinely read them online. And pretty soon, they won’t even need them for ad listings. It’ll all be online and free, until something drastic changes.
So, people ask… why don’t newspapers charge for Web access? Well, the RIAA is still battling piracy. Not to mention, SOME paper out there will decide not to charge. It’s economical suicide for the C-T to all-the-sudden charge for its Web site. Hell, the NY Times tried to get users to register (for free!) for awhile and that failed too.
I don’t have answers, but I think too many people are taking too much joy in seeing something fail. I’m not sure what to make of the bandwagon bashing, like it’s en vogue to say to point and laugh at newspapers (and I don’t just mean the C-T).
I’m sure I’ll have more thoughts later, but right now my head hurts and I’m gonna go home.
you are exactly right asheville citizen, this is a pahetic excuse for a newspaper. i only look at it online, and actually not very often even on my computer. sad to see it decline. i don’t know anybody who gets the paper delivered any more. end of an era for this and a lot of newspapers.
I think that Gannett would like to eliminate the publisher’s position at the ACT. However, it is my understanding that the attorneys have advised them not to let him go until Susan Ihne’s lawsuit is resolved.
Based on the continued decline in automotive, real estate and classified advertising, I’d anticipate job losses in the classified department.
Insiders have said for a long time that the accounting department will consolidate with another Gannett location.
I really don’t care what happens to the Citizen-Times. Like most people I know today, I get my news from the internet, through blogs like this one, the Charlotte Observer (for NC news), The New York Times, CNN, Huffington Post, Daily Beast, etc. I still pick up the Mountain Express and IWanna, but printed newspapers are quickly becoming obsolete.
Actually, I get a lot more information about what is happening in our community through this blog "Ashevegas" more than most other local sources. Thanks….you provide a great service to our city and region.
The Citizen-Times has lost its place and is no longer worthy of its former slogan "The Voice of the Mountains", They have cut and cut, there is hardly any investigative reporting, business news is a joke, features are pathetic and the editorials are meaningless. There is hardly any :"news" in our newspaper.
If they think they can continue to sell newspapers with amateur columinists like John Boyle and Susan Reinhardt, they are very wrong. The C-T, and most Gannett papers, have written their own obituaries by continuing to be "dumbed down" in both size and lack of news.
As long as there is a paper for Asheville, Circulation should be O.K. .. should because its down to a skeleton crew as is..
Anyone else… My prayers are with ya.