News Journal is cutting staff again
Is there anyone left? We received this tip:
TNJ has laid off planning editor & columnist Jeff Gentry and watchdog editor Chris Coates. Part of a Gannett-wide slashing of 350 jobs, or 2% of the workforce.
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Anyone want to start a daily newspaper (web only)? There is a desperate need for one in DE
Hell, it’s already a lame 1 county news paper. The Cape Gazette provides better information
I feel bad for Jeffrey. His articles were a pleasure to read.
I’m not sure what people expect when they have come to assume all of their news will be free. How many products supplied by other people do we expect to get without paying anything? Music, perhaps.
Gannett still sucks, having done all it could to basically decimate the journalism profession in America. But until there is a fundamental change in the way people are conditioned to receive their news, this will be the norm.
Gentry was terrible. A whole column about nothing, a total waste of space IMO.
UI,
Seinfeld was a half-hour a week about nothing, and that turned out pretty well. My friend Roland Wright wrote the same type of stuff at the NJ 20-plus years ago and he had a great following (and some folks like you who thought it was a waste of space).
My point is, for all the criticism the media gets — from the left, from the right, from those who think it’s too tough, from those who think it’s too soft — it’s refreshing to read something every once in a while that shows that the folks who put the paper together are just as human as the rest of us.
I think it’s a shame that they left Jeff Gentry go. He was one of the few remaining pieces of glue valiantly trying to keep real journalism alive at what is still the largest media outlet in Delaware. (I can no longer say that it is the best.) The paper needs more Jeff Gentrys, not less, because the reporting staff is so lean, and so inexperienced. Most of them are so new to the area that they know little about the community they’re writing about, and many need more help with grammar and punctuation than the few remaining editors are capable of providing.
Make no mistake about it, Jeff Gentry will be missed — not because we’ll no longer have his columns but because he fought a daily uphill battle in trying to plan solid newspapers with nowhere near the number of soldiers needed to win the fight.
The best collections of journalists in Delaware today are employed by the University of Delaware and state government, where they practice communications and media relations, but not true journalism. As for real journalism, these days I’d venture that the best practitioners are the full-time and freelance personnel employed at WDEL and Delaware Public Media.
Staff cuts will continue until morale improves.
Left untouched: A corporate structure that adds no value but costs plenty. The only difference between TNJ and a shopping circular is that the circular is free.
No one reads the local newspaper anymore…except for the obits. No political news at all. SAD. Can’t hold any of the Delaware Way politicians accountable any more
I will miss Jeff Gentry’s column. He and Tony Windsor (Seaford Star) are storytellers…real down to earth stuff…stories and commentary that I just love to read. We need human interest stories and words of wisdom and funny observations so that we can balance those sorts of things with the serious and often depressing news. The comics and Style Files and Sunday crossword puzzle and Jeff’s column are all important and meaningful and looked forward to. They are to me – and I bet they are to a lot of other readers also.
And this is how accountability and the access of information slowly dies.
Jeff Gentry’s columns were ALWAYS the best read in the entire NewsJournal. To me he was the Garrison Keillor of Delaware. His stories weren’t about “nothing” as some numb nuts wrote earlier in these comments. They were about ordinary life, something a lot of us lead, and something thats relatable to all of us. They will be missed immensely and are, in a word, irreplaceable. Best of luck Jeff, you deserve so much better than the NewsJounal!
I just think it’s a sad day when the NJ has to lay off !? one of the few highlights of the paper. My 86yr. old mother really enjoyed, and looked forward to his column every Sunday, as did I. She has received the NJ for about 50yrs. and is considering canceling the paper. My husband and I have received the paper for 33yrs and are considering the same. Good job News Journal!!!
Jeffrey Gentry will be missed by many of us. Downsizing is one thing but removing excellent writers, editors & investigative reporters is simply foolhearty. Very shortsighted.
Part of Jeffrey Gentry’s appeal has been his humanity. He let us in on his life, warts and all. He has always been self deprecating, finds the humor and absurdity in everyday occurrences, and masterfully weaved his experiences and those of others into compelling narratives. That is the mark of a talented writer. News Journal, you failed to anticipate how much you have upset people, many of whom are longtime subscribers. I’m pretty disgusted right now.
I will miss Jeffrey Gentry’s column in the News Journal. Please reconsider the decision to end the column and bring him back!
I will miss Jeffrey Gentry’s column. He’s a talented writer, whose writing style included warmth and humor. I always looked forward to reading his column. It was a great way to start my day.
The quality of the News Journal has been steadily declining over the years. The only reason I still subscribe to it is that it is our only local paper! Don’t know how much longer I can justify being a subscriber.
I can’t say I’ll miss Gentry all that much. Although I was touched by the stories of his mother and imagined my own life, one day, without my mother.
But, sometimes Gentry wrote about nothing which isn’t surprising seeing as Journalism has become a cannibalized art. It’s no longer about reporting news, it’s sensationalizing fact AND fiction instead. Trumps fabled “Media” isn’t so fabled depending on who you watch. Remember the movie Wag the Dog? And that’s the point – Few people read beyond the first two graphs of story. Even fewer buy the news when it’s free from radio stations and yahoo. If you clear your cache and cookies, you can even hack the NJ online site once you run out of free stories. And if you’re ultra-lazy you can just turn on the television where news is created out of nothing. Nothing. Print journalism is dead. I knew it the day I graduated from UD with an English/Journalism degree. Four years of tuition wasted.
Good Luck Gentry. I admire you for trying to hone your craft despite the brackish bs from the business side of Gannett. You did well son. I’m sure you mother would tell you that.
Jeffrey did a lot more than write a column. He was an editor, who had a lot to do with getting the morning paper to press. All of those responsibilities will now either have to be done by others who already had too much to do or will fall through the cracks. TNJ was already suffering. I expect quality will suffer even more now.
Gannett itself will not be “going concern” in three years. So they were being cut sooner or later. I think the bigger question is, who will buy the NJ assets out of foreclosure? My hope would be someone local.
https://www.thestreet.com/story/13871753/1/gannett-s-bankers-can-look-to-yellow-pages-bankruptcy-for-caution-on-tronc.html
I understand the outcry over Jeff Gentry’s departure. It’s good that some here recognize that his planning and editing responsibilities were significant, and quite important to delivering a struggling product to our doorstep (or our laptops) every day.
What’s unfortunate is that we didn’t have this kind of noise over the departures of Cris Barrish, Jeff Montgomery, Maureen Milford, Adam Taylor, Beth Miller, Kevin Noonan, Merritt Wallick, Jill Fredel, Mike Chalmers, Eric Ruth, Nichole Dobo, Al Mascitti, et al., et al., et al. …
Some took buyouts, some saw the light and left on their own, and others just got the ax. But each of those departures, and many more whose names I’ve overlooked, have left the NJ a mere shell of the strong newspaper it once was.
I worked at The News Journal back when Jeff was in the Sports department, and he was an invaluable asset to the paper and an invaluable mentor to me, personally.
If journalists like him no longer have a place in today’s media world, then the very idea of “journalism” means much less today than it did in the past.
Cris Barrish, oh, how I remember Cris and his wife. Cris chronicled his beautiful wife’s struggle with cancer. His columns were so compelling and heart-breaking. I remember being captivated as a teenager and 20 something by their journey and their willingness to share it with all of us. It’s stayed with me all these years later.
The NJ is a shell of newspaper. They can’t see the forest for the trees. If all of the content is reprint from USA Today and Delmarva News, the readers will quit reading and the advertisers will have no one to advertise to thus they will quit buying ad space and in the end, we will all have another shuttered building in the county.
I give the NJ 10 years tops. By then, Gannett will have killed it.
Mediawatch … Thanks for the comments. I believe they are spot on, especially about all the previous losses. The biggest part of the loss of all those people is what it did to the younger journalists in the newsroom. The loss of Barrish, Montgomery, Milford, Miller and all the others you mentioned and didn’t stripped the institutional and local knowledge away from the very people who needed it most. I learned a lot from those people and editors now long gone from TNJ. I am sorry the new reporters and digital producers will not get the same benefit I did. I will miss the newsroom and the excitement of deadlines and good stories. I will miss sharing my columns about nothing to some people, about life to others. But I will not miss what the newsroom has become. I truly hope it can find itself again in this new world. I will be cheering my former coworkers on, hoping they succeed.
I, too, have been saddened and angered by the recent “downsizing” by The News Journal (read: Gannett), in particular, the AXING of Jeffrey Gentry. I have been hanging with TNJ through their various downsizing/(?adding USA Today- REALLY?!)/ slashing/ etc. for the sole reason of supporting a “home town” paper that would feature such a fine and down home writer as Jeff Gentry. Not only did he regale us with tales of his home, family, and foibles, but those tales invariably tied into the “bigger picture” of our American life. As the daughter of a local paper columnist, I greatly appreciated not only his pearls of wisdom, but also his fine editing craft! Folks, the loss of Jeffrey Gentry, and others of his ilk, will cost us all dearly in the long run. Gannett- you can keep your USA Today, and your substandard editing going forward- I will no longer be a party to it!
Diane S. Clemens
I have always wanted to get the hometown paper. But it’s getting so bad. The loss of all these fine professionals may truly be the last straw for me after 42 years as a subscriber. If Gannett doesn’t give a you-know-what about the quality of the Wilmington newspaper, why should I subscribe? Pathetic. I’ve been through similar downsizing, outsourcing, off-shoring, and it all eventually results in a crappy product that fizzles away. Why is it necessary to destroy a good thing?
Gannett doesn’t give a f@&ck about anything other than tonight’s closing stock price.
Has anyone on this site commented on the Bloom energy article , or did I miss it??
The Bloom article had the potential to be great. But the “expert” source quoted in the article is from a guy who’s also worked for Cato. In other words, he has a point of view, and it’s very conservative. The article failed to note that affiliation. They simply said he works for a nonprofit. That is true, but they should have included more information.
That’s the kind of thing a good editor would ask. And the NJ doesn’t have any good editors left. 🙁