News at GateHouse Media/PJ Star

[Average Joe]

More interesting stuff at the PJ Star's sister newspaper, the Springfield Journal Register.
Editor resigns, Publisher and Managing editor all asked to resign, staff to be cut in half.
150 employees (nearly half their work force) offered severence in effort to make paper profitable.
Rumors that Gatehouse will look at the PJS in the same light, and the "axe is about to fall".

http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003676380

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/5319818.html

There was a small note of this in the Journal Star but not on their web site.
Forcing out all the top people and cutting half the employees loose does not seem to be a very friendly way for GateHouse to deal with the oldest newspaper in Illinois (founded 1831) in the first few months they own it.

[Murph]

Apparently the full time paid moderators are going to get the ax.

[smitty]

Where did you get that information from?
How will it affect those boards?

[Murph]

Where did you get that information from?
How will it affect those boards?

They won't fire the Publisher and Managing editor and leave a lowly message board moderator......

How will it affect the boards?

For one look for the private message feature to be turned back on.....

[Average Joe]

Smart stockholders and portfolio experts will shy away and they'll have to discount these offerings, and lose even more $$.
Watch for the layoffs to begin soon.

I have heard rumors of layoffs by the end of the year, and think it will happen soon.

[Murph]

They won't fire the Publisher and Managing editor and leave a lowly message board moderator......

How will it affect the boards?

For one look for the private message feature to be turned back on.....

So people will know. The PJS board disabled the private message feature to keep people from finding out about the BradleyFans board. They would also delete any post that had a mention or a link to this board.
Bad idea that didn't work

I will also add that I am proudly banned from said board for expressing my displeasure of these communistic tactics.

[Murph]

And even the good folks here at Bradley fans won't let me tell the whole story, proven by how they just edited MY post for me.....

If anybody wants to know the real story and EXACTLY why the private message feature was turned off by their moderator PM me and I'll reply when I get time.

THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE.....

[tornado]

My take on it.....
I am presently banned on the PJS board under my identity of "tornado" and when I asked why, I was told my posts were objectionable, and the explanation was that I had posted that I knew more than I was willing to post publicly on a subject (which was about a certain recruit who was at a BU game) and that I'd be happy to discuss further but not openly.
It has been noted that a school's booster talking openly about recruits from a personal standpoint could be misinterpreted as impermissable contact (remember the issue with Iman Shumpert at North Carolina when he talked with a couple of the school's NBA players??)
...and so to avoid even the appearance of anything improper, I said I would not say anything further openly.

Well that got me banned and I have never since posted as "tornado".

But I was told the reason for the discontinuation of the private messaging was because people would use the PM feature to start arguments, rip into other posters, or start up unfounded rumors, etc.....in other words....some of the things said privately were NOT to the liking of one of the moderators, since occasionally certain people would show him their PM's and accuse others of bad mouthing.
This stuff may possibly be true but doesn't this stuff happen every day in real life and it doesn't cause us to put duct tape over everyone's mouth?

[Da Coach]

Here is another thing that is really annoying to me, and I hope the visitors to the BradleyFans site appreciate this---

I cleared out all the cookies from my files and went to the PJ Star Sports page and to the PJ Star Forums. That's all, just one visit to the PJ Star sports and forums sites. Then I checked my cookies files and here is what I found--

default@adopt.specificclick
default@advertising
default@atdmt
default@att
default@bluestreak
default@ehg-gatehousemedia.hitbox
default@hitbox
default@mediaplex
default@pjstar
default@quantserve
default@specificclick
default@zedo

12 different cookies planted on my hard disk from just 1 visit to the PJ Star site! And they must have all come from their site, as I verified that all cookies had been cleared prior to visiting their site, and then checked immediately after the visit.

Then I cleared the cookies again and went just to the BradleyFans site. No matter how many pages you view at BradleyFans.com, the only cookie you will ever get is this one--
default@www.bradleyfans

That's because we do not have advertising, popups, or banners, and we do not place adware or spyware cookies on your computer. Never have and never will.

Can anyone with more computer and web knowledge explain why the PJ Star site needs to download so many tracking and advertising cookies to every user's computer? If you are wary about getting these adware, and spyware cookies, then be warned that you are getting them at their site.

[tornado]

Because they make money doing it, sell the web info and tracking, and use it to direct market in the future.
Many, many web site also plant cookies (as I am sure you already know) and even worse programming, and they generally do it for profit reasons.
I agree there is no profit motives here, nor any motive of any kind except to help boost support for BU.

[Murph]

Wow, the Peoria Urinal Star plants spyware on your computer, now that's just plane mean.

[Murph]

San Diego newspaper offers buyouts


The Union-Tribune has weekday circulation of about 280,000 and Sunday circulation of about 360,000. It is the flagship of San Diego-based Copley Press Inc., which earlier this year sold its newspapers in Illinois and Ohio to GateHouse Media Inc. for $380 million.

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/finan.../D8TADC080.htm


tick tick tick......

[tornado]

I found this pretty interesting....

Just 3 days ago, this article showing that the PJS's sister publication that's also owned by Gatehouse,
the Rockford Register Star, was named
GateHouse's Newspaper of the Year

http://www.rrstar.com/communities/x1056535997

Then two days later, the paper is cutting loose a whole bunch of their work force..."to be more efficient".

http://www.rrstar.com/homepage/x1059919706

[BUBraves2006]

The newspaper industry is a total mess. They have no idea what to do about the internet revolution.

[Murph]

Journal Star offers employees voluntary severance package

Uh oh...No more full time moderators.....

http://www.pjstar.com/php/index.php?/news/peoria_journal_star_offers_employees_voluntary_severance_package/