Gannett, New Media merger is more bad news for American journalism

Big news in journalism this week.

It was announced on November 14 media company Gannett and New Media Investment Group's proposed merger was approved.

In short, the company will continue to go by Gannett, despite being aquired by New Media for $1.13 billion, and is now the largest corporate journalism in America, with its flagship publication USA Today.

Also of note, New Media is the parent company of Gatehouse Media, another news paper publisher.

The Poynter Institute, a non-profit journalism school and research organization, postulated some things of note to watch in the before the merger was approved. It is worth a quick read by clicking here, but in short, the move is bad for journalism in that organizations opinion.

Today, I want to put aside the corporate talk, because from a business perspective, this merger makes sense and falls in line with what has become common place in American corporate business.

Forget about fiscal responsibility, company liquidity, sales margins, profits, stock options or anything in that regard. While important, that is not at the heart of what I'm discussing today.

Before moving forward, and in the effort of full disclosure, I must note I previously worked for a publication where the parent company was bought/merged twice, finally by Gannett and have been through a merger at the ground level.

I want to focus on how this move effects upstate South Carolina. To give a lay of the land, Gannett owns two papers in the area, and Anderson Independent Mail and the Greenville News. Gatehouse owns the Spartanburg Herald-Journal, as well as the Augusta Chronicle in the Midlands of the state.

Right off the bat, this is troubling from a competition standpoint. Of the major publications in the upstate, new Gannett now has a monopoly on the three largest, with only the Rock Hill Herald owned by McClatchy.

In essence, one entity controls over 6,000 square miles of coverage area. With limited staff, that is far too much ground to adequately cover, and important news stories will fall through the cracks. Pair that with the mindset of online views driving coverage and important beats, say county council or the statehouse beats, could be dropped.

That creates an environment rife for misconduct by elected officials at the local level. If no one is watching, why should they follow the rules to the letter?

But from a personnel level, this merger is not good. With most mergers, there will be staff layoffs, slyly called "reduction in force" for those in corporate-speak.

As someone who has both "survived" a layoff and been laid off, it is rough. Newspapers are small staffs to begin with now, and when coverage areas overlap with papers who were once competitors, consolidation occurs and someone loses their job.

For those who are likely facing those layoffs now, know it will be one of the longest, stressful days of your professional career when layoff day comes. You sit there, helplessly watching colleagues get called back to an office, then emerging with severance papers and are quickly out the door.

There will be tears, and will find yourself asking, "Why are they being let go?" Just know if you make it through, the newsroom will feel empty the next day.

That loss of staff also feeds back into lack of coverage. With a smaller staff, that also means more roles are put on journalists and photographers, which I can attest leads to burnout, more turnover and gaps in coverage.

In the end, corporate journalism does have its positives: Larger companies typically have more resources, better pay and better retirement and insurance plans.

But from the ground level, where real journalism occurs, it is a detriment not only to the industry, but the communities these publications cover.

Unfortunately, upstate South Carolina has already experienced some of these negatives, and it is only getting more prevalent with this merger.