GateHouse Media touts move to centralized design, copy editing

In an article on its website, GateHouse Media touts the beginning of its move to completely centralizing the copy editing and design functions for its hundreds of newspapers, including The Carthage Press, Neosho Daily News, and Pittsburg Morning Sun.

The design and copy editing for the company's larger newspapers will be done in Illinois, while the local newspapers will have those functions handled from Boston.

The official launch of the Design Houses in Rockford and Boston is another big step GateHouse Media is taking to develop true multimedia newsrooms,” said David Arkin, vice president of content & audience. “The launch of the new Saxotech system allows our newsrooms to be more efficient than we ever have been before when it comes to the creation and distribution of our content. Having a group of copy editors and designers in two centralized centers puts significant talent and focus around our print products while allowing our newsrooms to be zeroed in on great storytelling for our print and online readers.”

The company's initiative has cost jobs at its newspapers across the nation, and has continued the process of stripping institutional memory from the newspapers. If GateHouse officials truly believed what they are saying about allowing the newsrooms to zero in on great storytelling, they might start hiring reporters to tell those stories. Instead, GateHouse newsrooms are operating with barebones staffs as the company continues to chisel nickels and dimes away from its billions of dollars in debt.