Gannett Layoffs Under Way, Looking Bad

The Gannett Blog – a renegade blog run by a former newspaper journalist – has become an indispensable source of information for people who work for the Gannett media company. This week the blog is in hyperdrive as Gannett managers swing the year-end layoff ax across the company's newspaper division. Gannett publishes 85 daily papers including USA Today. Here's the blog's layoff tally by newspaper. Today the count stands at 655 jobs cut.

It's a sign of the times that so much information about the travails of the Gannett chain is coming from this blog. The Gannett Blog seems to be trying to publish as much information as possible, even unverified facts. The comments are rich with anonymous tips from company insiders. Reading the blog requires some skill at weighing what's true, what's guesswork, and what's probably wrong.

With that caveat, the rumor mill says three photographers were cut at the Arizona Republic in Phoenix, one photographer at The Tennessean in Nashville, and one photographer cut at The Journal News in the Hudson Valley of New York. There are also non-specific comments like this one: "The bureau photographer with a newborn baby was called on his day off and laid off over the phone."

The takeaway is that times are pretty bad at Gannett newspapers – something backed up by the company's last financial statement, which showed an 17.7% year-over-year drop in publishing advertising revenue.

Related: See a visual display of newspaper layoffs on the Paper Cuts map.

Related: E&P/AP: Gannett Cuts 206 Jobs at 6 New Jersey Papers , Battle Creek Paper Cutting 50 Positions -- And Closing Press