Comments on: GateHouse faces downsizing

By: arthur

arthur — Thu, 28 May 2009 02:21:05 +0000

Whenever I see the unsold copies of our local Gatehouse paper stacked up Wednesdays at local outlets, I wonder if their advertisers are aware of it or are they just told the press run ?

By: endangered coffee

endangered coffee — Fri, 15 May 2009 20:57:00 +0000

hey wick, I was there for a pretty short time, basically around 99-2000 for about a year. I also worked for the beverly CNC paper in more recent years, as well as some other nonCNC, gatehouse papers (there are still a few out there)

By: wick

wick — Fri, 15 May 2009 14:56:00 +0000

coffee, we must know each other. i was working in the lex office at that same time. having worked for another one of gatehouse’s properties in more recent times, after leaving cnc, all i can say is godspeed to those left behind. my experience with gatehouse was not a pleasant one.

By: ShelT

ShelT — Tue, 12 May 2009 16:53:00 +0000

Didn’t mean to disparage police reporting. It’s an important part of a reporter’s job to comb through the police log and to remind officers now and again about “Open Record” laws.One small newspaper I worked for not only printed the widely read police log, but also listed divorces granted by the probate court. My point is that understaffed local papers would rather send a reporter to the police station than have him or her delve into municipal budget skullduggery and “executive session” intrigue among elected boards.

By: luscious-purple

luscious-purple — Tue, 12 May 2009 15:13:00 +0000

I appreciate hearing from folks who have more recent knowledge of the GateHouse situation (we're coming up on the 20th anniversary of my leaving the last of those small newspapers -- and they were all with different owners at the time). I too wonder if the losses are bigger at the dailies, although I'll bet even the weeklies have been hurt by drops in classified ads. The last of the weeklies I worked for had an office in the town we covered, and people really treasured being able to walk into the office to place a classified ad. They were aghast when the classified-ad-taking function was relocated to the regional office in the next town over.

Yes, there were some really talented people at those papers when I was there; a few have even been mentioned in this blog on occasion. They went on to bigger and better things. A couple are no longer with us.

I'm sure it's frustrating to some residents in GateHouse communities that reporters pass through so quickly and then leave, so that the local paper ends up with virtually no institutional memory. OTOH, people who are asked to work long hours for ridiculously low pay -- and then face the slings and arrows that get hurled at them on a regular basis -- cannot be blamed for pursuing more reasonable jobs. The stories I could tell about the hard work and the slights I received....

I would take issue with the notion of the police log being just fller, though. It used to take real work to go through a week's worth of police reports in a shot, and in some towns the log is the best-read section of the paper. I remember carting my portable manual typewriter to the "cop shop" to type up the log (instead of filling up a notebook with my handwriting) so that it would already be typed up for the typesetter (yes, this was a while ago).

By: ShelT

ShelT — Tue, 12 May 2009 14:09:00 +0000

Must be unfavorable loan rates and losses incurred by dailies in Quincy and Brockton. Hard to believe weeklies in Needham, Lexington, etc. are losing money. They are lean-staffed, pay poorly (many of my former journalism students have passed through), and are laden with press releases, police logs, and other filler.

By: endangered coffee

endangered coffee — Tue, 12 May 2009 13:49:00 +0000

Not only one person shows, if I remember, but some of the smaller combo papers had one person covering two towns.

By: moxieboy

moxieboy — Tue, 12 May 2009 13:39:00 +0000

I don’t believe GateHouse can cut anymore from it’s Massachusetts weeklies without shuttering some publications. I worked for the company until 2007. The majority of those publications are now one-person shows. They’ve yet to figure out a way to produce a paper without any people at all.

It’s unfortunate. There are some really talented people at that company. The situations they are thrust into do not afford them the opportunity to shine as much as they should and could.

By: Bill H.

Bill H. — Tue, 12 May 2009 13:28:00 +0000

GateHouse owns the Taunton Daily Gazette, once a fine old family-owned paper. It now passes as a parody of a newspaper: journalism as press release, oversize photographs, do-it-yourself obituaries; meanwhile softshell “human interest” stories have replaced the really significant local news, etc. If they close the Gazette, Taunton will be without a local newspaper for the first time since the 1840s, but what GateHouse does is hardly journalism.

By: Bryan Mahoney

Bryan Mahoney — Tue, 12 May 2009 13:21:00 +0000

One reporter and one editor in the Lexington office these days. On Thursday, we get an intern.