Gannett Blog commenters dish on the Asheville Citizen-Times:
The Greenville/Asheville consolidation continues down the path of failure. We have now lost another commercial printing customer, that’s five customers so far. Poor print quality and strong arm tactics are driving customers away.
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Maybe Greenville/Asheville is losing print customers because an ex publisher went to work for a competitor.
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Asheville apparently has begun sampling, with free papers delivered Wednesday to apartments and condos.
Of course, since it’s now printed in another state, the Citizen-Times had no coverage of UNC’s basketball game against Maryland, which ended at 10 p.m.
There’s not much chance that 8 p.m. Major League Baseball games will make deadlines either.
Why not just go ahead and convert to weekly publication?
10 Comments
hey Jeff, let’s by the sardis road plant and start a daily newspaper. We could drop the ad rates, increase news columns and still make a very respectable profit.
whatyada say?
Jeff, keep it up.
There is some very good people that still exist at the Citizen Times.
It is a very noble thing to do by throwing a life line out there.
Martha is correct. The last time I went to the Gannett blog was during the last round of layoffs when I posted the jobs Fayetteville Publishing/Iwanna had available. I also posted them here on Ashvegas. We were able to hire two very good ex-Gannett people; a single copy manager in Fayetteville and an online sales manager at Iwanna.
If hiring and helping people who have been laid off by Gannett is tacky, I plead guilty.
Mr. Green states "I don’t read the blog…too much misery". Rather disingenuous when he posted an email surfing for ex-Gannett employees during a previous layoff. Tacky, to say the least.
Free papers to condos and apartments, unless you live in public housing, in which case you can’t buy it?
Most of the "news" in the paper is available online before it appears in print which kinda’ makes buying the paper a waste of money.
And, since there is no investigative reporting at all, the content is "canned crap" from Gannett or local gossip …. frequently the news on this blog is more relevant than that which is "published" by the CT.
As an Ex Citizen Times employee I to are taking a piece of their pie, and will take more soon because of a nicer product.
I will say, the staff at the Citizen Times is a group of talented hard working employees just struggling to make ends meet. Gannett is the real enemy and a word of advice to the managers I still call friends,
" Stop Drinking The Gannett Kool Aid" and get your resume finished.
Think they lost a couple more this week. But the rumor mill hasn’t caught wind of it.
Jeff, thanks for your note. If you’re the ex-publisher who went to work for the competition, I guess I’m the ex-reporter who went to work for the competition. I, too, take no pleasure in Gannett’s current miseries; all I want is openness, and the company to treat others the way it wants to be treated.
On the positive side, I think Mountain Xpress has been quite pleased with the job the Fayetteville Observer folks have done.
I see I made the Gannett blog as the ‘ex-publisher’ who went to work for the competitor. I don’t read the blog…too much misery, so I rely on Ash to post the highlights or lowlights. It’s tough to watch my former company self destruct and I take no pleasure from it. Too many good people getting hurt.
Yes, we have picked up at least two A C-T commercial print jobs at Iwanna in Asheville and are talking to more. In addition we are now printing the Mountain Xpress at our parent company’s plant in Fayetteville where we have also been printing the New Life Journal for some time.
Still more capacity at both presses of a North Carolina family owned company, so call us if we can assist with excellent customer service at reasonable prices.