Current and former employees of Gannett Co, who aren’t known for reticence with their opinions, are likely to be royally steamed to learn that CEO Craig Dubow took home a $4.7 million paycheck last year even as revenue declined 22%, the company laid off 6,000 people and shut down the Tucson Citizen. However, those employees should keep in mind that the market capitalization of Gannett increasedby about $3 billion during the year. As far as shareholders are concerned, Dubow’s bonus is cheap.

H

I did an audit of my website (News Cycle) versus Erica’s (Paper Cut) this morning. I’ve added about five layoff events that I did not have. I’ve also added an editor’s note (see the bottom of this post) to help explain the discrepency.

The bottomline is that we are not in competition with each other. Sometimes I have items she does not have and will send her a note, and there our times I will check her site for items I do not have. (OK, if it were a competition she would beat me the vast majority of times!). We have collaborated on various layoff numbers and will continue to do so.

But the goal is the same; we are both trying to publicize the fate of our colleagues.

Best Regards

Jeff

EDITOR’S NOTE: There have been questions concerning the discrepency between our layoff numbers with Paper Cuts. Some large layoffs were counted in News Cycle in late 2009 when they were announced, most notably with USA Today, Gannett’s Journal News in upstate New York, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Fresno Bee and the Oregonian. These total almost 400 people in News Cycle’s 2009 number, but appear in Erica’s count in 2010, when people were actually laid off. In addition, the expected layoffs of more than 600 people from the Honolulu papers have not been added to the News Cycle 2010 count.

Now, onto newspapers and their impending doom.
Ask yourself: What would happen to existing newspaper classified ad revenue if Craigslist improved just a smidgen?
Now, ask yourself: How much would it cost Craig to make that improvement?
It is only a matter of time. Someday Craigslist will get better and when it does. Boom.

Reporters always love to put anecdotal evidence into a story. So, here is mine.
In 2008 we sold our 1998 BMW Z3.
I placed an ad on Craiglist for $zero and one on Cars.com for $55. Nothing in the Denver Post (I am old, but not retarded.).
I got 4 phone calls immediately. All from people over the age of 45.
Four people called because they saw the ad on Craigslist and one also saw it at Cars.com.
I sold the car within 3 days of placing the ad.
I was shocked. I had no idea that people over 30 looked at Craigslist. Now, I know better.

I have access to more news by going on-line than I could find by picking up one or even two papers here in NYC.

On top of Google news, I read Al Jazeerah, the BBC, the CBC, Huffington Post, the NY Daily News, the NY Times, Digg, Slashdot, this blog and the magazine death pool.

Michael Giusti is full of it if he thinks I could get all of the news from his rag.