Destroying local media

Gannett strikes again:

The only full-time news reporter at the Daily Jeffersonian kept busyuntil recently. Kristi Garabrandt drove around Guernsey County, Ohio, for three years coveringlocal council meetings and Eagle Scouts, photographing community events and writing a series on drug addiction.

The Daily Jeff, as it’s called locally, has been around since 1824. “The reality is the community paper is pretty much what holds your community together,” Garabrandt said.

Then came the layoffs. Earlier this month, the Daily Jeff’s parent company, Gannett, announced a dismal second quarter. The company reported a $53.7 million loss on $748.7 million in revenue, as it dealt with inflation and soaring print costs, the CEO said. Employees were warned in an email of “necessary but painful reductions to staffing.”

A week later, Garabrandt became one of at least dozens of Gannett employees who lost their jobs. It took her off guard. “When you’re the paper’s only reporter, you don’t consider yourself nonessential,” she said.

Gannett will not disclose how many journalists were laid off or which newspapers were affected. The nonprofit media institute Poynter and the employee union NewsGuild have tracked at least 70 to 90 newsroom positions eliminated this month, a fraction of Gannett’s total workforce of roughly 13,000.At some papers, the journalists let go were their newsroom’s only sports editor, photojournalist, customer service representative or, like Garabrandt, full-time news reporter.

The perpetual cycle:

• Debt-loaded media company or private equity takes over local paper
• Load it with more debt
• Many cycles of firings
• Newspaper gets worse
• Profit? Probably not for the paper or even the media company, but for the people who control the company, absolutely!