You may have heard about the salary freezes and wage cuts at media companies like the NYTCo (NYSE: NYT), Gannett (NYSE: GCI) and Dow Jones (NYSE: NWS). But that’s not the full story: A new report says that overall, newspaper salaries have actually been on the rise. E&P’s Jen Saba cites a study of 400 papers in the U.S. and Canada by the Inland Press Association that found that newspaper wages rose an average 2.1 percent from 2008 to 2009. To be sure, the gains were concentrated in a few areas, such as graphics and on newspaper websites. “Interactive producers” saw their pay jump 13 percent, while those in “new and alternative business development” are making 5 percent more than the year before. Salaries for new reporters and editorial-page editors didn’t move up at all.  Considering the wave after wave of layoffs in the media industry, it’s natural to ask: are new graduates of the nation’s journalism schools finding work? Daily Finance’s Jeff Bercovici finds that j-school grads at two relatively elite New York schools are doing pretty well. Since graduating last month, 197 people, or 64 percent, of the 306 Columbia University j-school students who have left have lined up work within their chosen profession, a rep for the school says. However, that might not necessarily mean actual paying jobs, as it includes internships, fellowships and continuing ed. The Columbia rep tells Bercovici that the 64 percent is higher than last year, and some students have gotten job offers from places like The New York Times, NPR, CNN. Meanwhile, CUNY’s Graduate School of Journalism is claiming that 60 percent of the 45 j-school grads who finished last December now have full-time editorial work, while another 15 percent are doing internships or have been getting steady freelance work. Rafat adds: Couple of counter-points here: First, it is misleading for Bercovici to take two “elite” NYC J-schools and extrapolate from that “as bad as things are in the media industry, J-school grads are, far more often than not, finding jobs.” Reality is, speak to even a smattering of J-schools outside of the main cities, and it will become amply clear that the job market even for fresh graduates remains dismal, at least in the traditional reporting jobs. Secondly, it is important not to brush off the “internships, fellowships and continuing ed” numbers from Columbia because that data helps shed light on the real number of grads who got full-time paying jobs. Also, the better statistic would be to find out the nature of students going into these programs, whether the trends are moving more towards students who have some prior experience in journalism and want to get additional skills (and a shelter from the cruel economy), or these are undergrads. A list of the right questions to ask is here in a comment on a previous Forbes.com story. Cynical tone, yes, but ignore that.

You may have heard about the salary freezes and wage cuts at media companies like the NYTCo (NYSE: NYT), Gannett (NYSE: GCI) and Dow Jones (NYSE: NWS). But that’s not the full story: A new report says that overall, newspaper salaries have actually been on the rise. E&P’s Jen Saba cites a study of 400 papers in the U.S. and Canada by the Inland Press Association that found that newspaper wages rose an average 2.1 percent from 2008 to 2009. To be sure, the gains were concentrated in a few areas, such as graphics and on newspaper websites. “Interactive producers” saw their pay jump 13 percent, while those in “new and alternative business development” are making 5 percent more than the year before. Salaries for new reporters and editorial-page editors didn’t move up at all.  More j-school graduates that you might think are actually finding jobs, at least in New York. More after the jump Considering the wave after wave of layoffs in the media industry, it’s natural to ask: are new graduates of the nation’s journalism schools finding work? Daily Finance’s Jeff Bercovici finds that j-school grads at two relatively elite New York schools aren’t having too tough a time. Since graduating last month, 197 people, or 64 percent, of the 306 Columbia University j-school students who have left have lined up work within their chosen profession, a rep for the school says. However, that might not necessarily mean actual paying jobs, as it includes internships, fellowships and continuing ed. Still, the Columbia rep tells Bercovici that those figured were as of May 28, and that a number of other students have gotten job offers from outlets like The New York Times, NPR, CNN. Plus, the rep says the 64 percent figure is higher than last year. Meanwhile, CUNY’s Graduate School of Journalism is claiming that 60 percent of the 45 j-school grads who finished last December now have full-time editorial work, while another 15 percent are involved in internships or have been getting steady freelance work. Rafat adds: Couple of counter-points here, if you will: First, it is highly misleading of Bercovici to take two “elite” NYC J-schools and extrapolate the conclusion—“as bad as things are in the media industry, j-school grads are, far more often than not, finding jobs”, he says—based on it (we changed our headline a bit to reflect that). Reality is, speak to even a smattering of J-schools outside the main cities, and it will become amply clear that the job market even for fresh graduates remains dismal, at least in the traditional reporting jobs. Secondly, it is important not to brush off the “internships, fellowships and continuing ed” numbers from Columbia because that would show the real number of grads who got full-time paying jobs. Also, the better statistic would be to find out the nature of students going into these programs, whether the trends are moving more towards students who have some prior experience in journalism and want to get additional skills (and a shelter from the cruel economy), or these are undergrads. A list of the right questions to ask is here in a comment on a previous Forbes.com story. Highly cynical tone, yes, but ignore that.

The national online ad sales alliance quadrantONE, long an ad network for newspapers, is slowly branching out. Recently, it signed up D.C.-focused news site Politico as its latest member. The deal only covers the Politico site itself, and not its 60-member ad network. While Politico technically operates a small newspaper—it’s free with a circ of about 25,000 in the Capitol Hill area and comes out three days a week when Congress is in session—the addition of the site to its client roster is seen as a way of quadrantONE broadening its reach beyond traditional dailies. I talked with Andy Ellenthal, the former DoubleClick exec who became quadrantONE’s CEO nearly a year ago, about the move beyond newspaper websites, why some people still confuse quadrantONE with the Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) Newspaper Consortium, and how the latter half of this year is looking for the ad-sales alliance. The Q&A begins after the jump paidContent: Yahoo’s alliance is more about driving a two-way flow of local and national online content and ad sales. quadrantONE has always tried to position itself as strictly national in terms of ad sales. Does the introduction of Politico and its newspaper sites heighten or soften that position? Ellenthal: The reason we exist is to pull the content together in a way that’s appealing for national advertisers. We’re competing on the national level against Yahoo News and CNN. That’s where Politico adds an extra layer of content and greater attractiveness for users and national advertisers. We do kind of get bucketed into this local ad sales playing field—and we will do spot buys if an insurance company, for example, wants the 25 top markets. But we want to be competitive across the entire national platform. Everything else is extra. PC: The company opened its doors in February 2008 and you came on in July. Even though you don’t have much to compare it to, how have been affected by the pullback in ad spending? AE: If I had a five-year track record, things might look differently. The reality is, we’ve had this platform turned on for a year and our salesforce has been around in a full capacity only since Q3. So every month is actually an improvement. Even the auto advertisers, which includes General Motors and Ford, continue to be one of our largest categories, along with retail, travel, insurance and casual dining. Packaged goods in an area that we expect to grow, despite the lingering recession. We want to be in a position where we have a good blend of advertisers and where we’re not overly dependent on one or even a small handful of categories. In August and September, financial services was looking like that was going to be a particularly important area for us. But with the collapse of the financial markets last year, that quickly turned south. If we had been betting solely on that, that could have been a problem. But we never went that route. Still, we do want to be ready for when the financial sector comes back. PC: The companies that helped create quadrantONE—Tribune Company, Gannett (NYSE: GCI), Hearst Newspapers and NYTCo (NYSE: NYT)— have spent the past year making deep spending cuts. Have the challenges affecting those companies begun to impact quadrantONE? AE: I can’t talk about the company’s financials, but being small—we employ fewer than 30 staffers—certainly helps. As far as our backers are concerned, right now, it’s about demonstrating traction in the marketplace and bringing new advertisers to our affiliates. We are self-sufficient in so many ways and we’re not dependent on someone else’s services to operate our business. That said, we have no plans to hire additional staff until at least 2010. We had been doing a fair bit of hiring up to this point. But it’s not just the economy; I never liked to hire after June anyway. It’s hard to take in employees as you get into Q3 and Q4, as things get busier and it’s harder to make sure people get absorbed into the company in the best way. And we’re pretty set right now as it is.

The national online ad sales alliance quadrantONE, long an ad network for newspapers, is slowly branching out. Recently, it signed up D.C.-focused news site Politico as its latest member. The deal just covers not just the Politico site itself, but its entire 60-member ad network, which includes The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Denver Post, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer as well as Reuters. While Politico technically operates a small newspaper—it’s free with a circ of about 25,000 in the Capitol Hill area and comes out three days a week when Congress is in session—the addition of the site to its client roster is seen as a way of quadrantONE broadening its reach beyond traditional dailies. I talked with Andy Ellenthal, the former DoubleClick exec who became quadrantONE’s CEO nearly a year ago, about the move beyond newspaper websites, why some people still confuse quadrantONE with the Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) Newspaper Consortium, and how the latter half of this year is looking for the ad-sales alliance. The Q&A begins after the jump paidContent: Yahoo’s alliance is more about driving a two-way flow of local and national online content and ad sales. quadrantONE has always tried to position itself as strictly national in terms of ad sales. Does the introduction of Politico and its newspaper sites heighten or soften that position? Ellenthal: The reason we exist is to pull the content together in a way that’s appealing for national advertisers. We’re competing on the national level against Yahoo News and CNN. That’s where Politico adds an extra layer of content and greater attractiveness for users and national advertisers. We do kind of get bucketed into this local ad sales playing field—and we will do spot buys if an insurance company, for example, wants the 25 top markets. But we want to be competitive across the entire national platform. Everything else is extra. PC: The company opened its doors in February 2008 and you came on in July. Even though you don’t have much to compare it to, how have been affected by the pullback in ad spending? AE: If I had a five-year track record, things might look differently. The reality is, we’ve had this platform turned on for a year and our salesforce has been around in a full capacity only since Q3. So every month is actually an improvement. Even the auto advertisers, which includes General Motors and Ford, continue to be one of our largest categories, along with retail, travel, insurance and casual dining. Packaged goods in an area that we expect to grow, despite the lingering recession. We want to be in a position where we have a good blend of advertisers and where we’re not overly dependent on one or even a small handful of categories. In August and September, financial services was looking like that was going to be a particularly important area for us. But with the collapse of the financial markets last year, that quickly turned south. If we had been betting solely on that, that could have been a problem. But we never went that route. Still, we do want to be ready for when the financial sector comes back. PC: The companies that helped create quadrantONE—Tribune Company, Gannett (NYSE: GCI), Hearst Newspapers and NYTCo (NYSE: NYT)— have spent the past year making deep spending cuts. Have the challenges affecting those companies begun to impact quadrantONE? AE: I can’t talk about the company’s financials, but being small—we employ fewer than 30 staffers—certainly helps. As far as our backers are concerned, right now, it’s about demonstrating traction in the marketplace and bringing new advertisers to our affiliates. We are self-sufficient in so many ways and we’re not dependent on someone else’s services to operate our business. That said, we have no plans to hire additional staff until at least 2010. We had been doing a fair bit of hiring up to this point. But it’s not just the economy; I never liked to hire after June anyway. It’s hard to take in employees as you get into Q3 and Q4, as things get busier and it’s harder to make sure people get absorbed into the company in the best way. And we’re pretty set right now as it is.

The national online ad sales alliance quadrantONE, long an ad network for newspapers, is slowly branching out. Recently, it signed up D.C.-focused news site Politico as its latest member. The deal just covers not just the Politico site itself, but its entire 60-member ad network, which includes The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Denver Post, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer as well as Reuters. While Politico technically operates a small newspaper—it’s free with a circ of about 25,000 in the Capitol Hill area and comes out three days a week when Congress is in session—the addition of the site to its client roster is seen as a way of quadrantONE broadening its reach beyond traditional dailies. I talked with Andy Ellenthal, the former DoubleClick exec who became quadrantONE’s CEO nearly a year ago, about the move beyond newspaper websites, why some people still confuse quadrantONE with the Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) Newspaper Consortium, and how the latter half of this year is looking for the ad-sales alliance. The Q&A begins after the jump paidContent: Yahoo’s alliance is more about driving a two-way flow of local and national online content and ad sales. quadrantONE has always tried to position itself as strictly national in terms of ad sales. Does the introduction of Politico and its newspaper sites heighten or soften that position? Ellenthal: The reason we exist is to pull the content together in a way that’s appealing for national advertisers. We’re competing on the national level against Yahoo News and CNN. That’s where Politico adds an extra layer of content and greater attractiveness for users and national advertisers. We do kind of get bucketed into this local ad sales playing field—and we will do spot buys if an insurance company, for example, wants the 25 top markets. But we want to be competitive across the entire national platform. Everything else is extra. PC: The company opened its doors in February 2008 and you came on in July. Even though you don’t have much to compare it to, how have been affected by the pullback in ad spending? AE: If I had a five-year track record, things might look differently. The reality is, we’ve had this platform turned on for a year and our salesforce has been around in a full capacity only since Q3. So every month is actually an improvement. Even the auto advertisers, which includes General Motors and Ford, continue to be one of our largest categories, along with retail, travel, insurance and casual dining. Packaged goods in an area that we expect to grow, despite the lingering recession. We want to be in a position where we have a good blend of advertisers and where we’re not overly dependent on one or even a small handful of categories. In August and September, financial services was looking like that was going to be a particularly important area for us. But with the collapse of the financial markets last year, that quickly turned south. If we had been betting solely on that, that could have been a problem. But we never went that route. Still, we do want to be ready for when the financial sector comes back. PC: The companies that helped create quadrantONE—Tribune Company, Gannett (NYSE: GCI), Hearst Newspapers and NYTCo (NYSE: NYT)— have spent the past year making deep spending cuts. Have the challenges affecting those companies begun to impact quadrantONE? AE: I can’t talk about the company’s financials, but being small—we employ fewer than 30 staffers—certainly helps. As far as our backers are concerned, right now, it’s about demonstrating traction in the marketplace and bringing new advertisers to our affiliates. We are self-sufficient in so many ways and we’re not dependent on someone else’s services to operate our business. That said, we have no plans to hire additional staff until at least 2010. We had been doing a fair bit of hiring up to this point. But it’s not just the economy; I never liked to hire after June anyway. It’s hard to take in employees as you get into Q3 and Q4, as things get busier and it’s harder to make sure people get absorbed into the company in the best way. And we’re pretty set right now as it is.

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New York, Feb 8th (TradersHuddle.com) - Shares of Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE:GCI) closed the trading session at $13.53 below calculated support at $14.12 breaking the stock technically, raising concerns by investors, as the move might trigger more selling.

Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE:GCI) is an international news and information company that pub. Read More --

BloggingStocks: Newspaper giant Gannett (GCI) owns a controlling influence in CareerBuilder.com. This online job-seeking portal is sure to see big revenue in the coming months as the employment picture brightens up and most human resource departments post their open ... Read more

BloggingStocks: There have been no problems selling big-ticket ads for this weekend's broadcast of Super Bowl XLIV. And with good reason -- this has been one of the best years for football on television, with viewership up across the board. The recent NFC and AFC ... Read more

On Monday, newspaper publisher Gannett Co., Inc. (GCI: sentiment, chart, options) reported a fourth-quarter profit of 72 cents per share, surpassing analysts' expectations for 64 cents per share...(Read More)

New York, feb 4th (TradersHuddle.com) - Shares of Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE:GCI) are trading very close to calculated support at $14.12 with current price action closing at just $14.61 places the stock price near levels where traders will start paying attention.

Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE:GCI) is an international news and information company . Read More --

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