Dear Co-workers:
As this painful and difficult year closes, I wanted everyone at Gannett to know how much I appreciate your hard work, support and concern for our business. We could not have come this far, through these tough times, without the willingness of everyone here to give this company their all.
I want to assure you that relative to our media peers and many other industries, Gannett is transforming and leading the way. We are profitable, and our debt is moderate.
Gannett is in this position because of your hard work and sacrifices and because we made and executed on tough decisions throughout the year. We managed our cash and our debt. We've decided what to buy and what not to buy. And we've made the toughest decision of all: to keep expenses in line with revenues.
I know, as well as anyone here, that the decision to layoff employees is unpopular and wrenching. But acting as we have allows us to move forward in this recession and support the mission of our newspapers and TV stations while positioning ourselves for the digital future.
We can do this because we have a solid strategic plan. We are executing on it and we will be prepared to move quickly when the economy improves.
Our plan is to grow our digital business in a way that takes full advantage of our local strengths and our national footprint. The plan is about making smart acquisitions and partnerships such as becoming the majority owner of CareerBuilder; buying out our partners in ShopLocal and merging it with PointRoll; investing in Mogulus and 4INFO; and rolling out our internal and external digital ad networks.
Our plan is about innovation, such as the bold step of changing the newspaper paradigm in Detroit or launching ContentOne, which will change the way we share information throughout the company and with vendors.
Next year will continue to be difficult. But it also will be a year of solid management and great experimentation - of trying new ways to deliver information in ways customers want and need it. In the end, that is what we are all about and have been for more than 100 years.
Thank you all, and my best wishes for a brighter, happier new year.
(Translation)
Dear Co-workers,
Because we executives at Gannett care more about increasing our own salaries than we do about advancing local news media during this difficult time of transition for newspapers, we are going to focus on acquiring companies and services that have absolutely nothing to do with quality journalism, such as the aforementioned CareerBuilder. With any luck, these acquisitions will allow us executives to continue filling our coffers while the quality of our local newspapers and online media outlets continues to suffer. Also, though we pretend otherwise, these acquisitions will probably have no good short-term or long-term effects on the company, and you will all probably be laid off by March. Happy holidays!
Love,
Craig
— Provided by News and Information Center Employee who doesn't want to lose job
