Free Press and News part of US Today?...

[Al Publican]

I worked for the Free Press in the '70s and though living in Oregon now, I still look at the Free Press and News websites several times a week. I notice a USA Today link on the Free Press banner.

Are the two Detroit dailies still separately owned or are they now single business entities?

[313WX]

Gannett Publishing Company, the owner of the company [[Detroit Media Partnership) that controls the business operations for the Detroit Free Press & Detroit News, also owns USA Today.

While their business operations have been combined, they still have separate editorial staffs. The editorial staffs themselves actually work for separate media companies.

[Honky Tonk]

Gannett Publishing Company, the owner of the company [[Detroit Media Partnership) that controls the business operations for the Detroit Free Press & Detroit News, also owns USA Today.

While their business operations have been combined, they still have separate editorial staffs. The editorial staffs themselves actually work for separate media companies.

True, but their sources are the same. A lot easier to control the masses when the media message is one.

[wilderness]

I worked for the Free Press in the '70s

You would not recognize the 'joint', or their business methods.
I left in '93, three years after the implementation of the JOA, and the two papers were going through massive payroll reductions.
The strike came a few years later and there were even more payroll reductions.
I've been told [[although I'm no longer in contact with active employee's) that the carriers deliver NEWS, FREEP, USA, NY Times and even other publications [[not to mention customized advertising deliveries).
All the little neighborhood circulation offices were eliminated after 1990 and circulation offices were moved to large warehouse [[combining many offices and former divisions). One may only expect that similar reductions in staff were introduced in the two former large buildings downtown.
Much of the advertising printing was moved [[and redesigned) for both publications to a new building on the property at Sterling Heights.

[douglasm]

I think his confusion was the same as mine, looking at the websites from Washington.....the state. Both The News and the Free Press use the Gannett template for their websites, I assume because of the JOA. I don't know a great deal about Digital First Media/21st Century Media...the owners of the News....but I almost get the impression that newspapers are a sideline for them.

[iheartthed]

I think his confusion was the same as mine, looking at the websites from Washington.....the state. Both The News and the Free Press use the Gannett template for their websites, I assume because of the JOA. I don't know a great deal about Digital First Media/21st Century Media...the owners of the News....but I almost get the impression that newspapers are a sideline for them.

It seems to me like there is more cross-publication content sharing between freep.com and usatoday.com than either does with detnews.com.

[Augustus]

I think it's a little tricky. They have separate writers and editorial staffs but the same management. Gannett owns the Freep but I don't think they own the News anymore. The News appears to be owned by MediaNews Group.

But I think somehow they have the same Gannett website interface because the management company they share is the one that is affiliated with Gannett.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

[mtburb]

Augustus, Digital First acquired Medianews a while ago. This means the News is now owned by Digital First, making it a sister publication to the local News-Herald here in the Downriver communities.

Yet, however, the News still uses the Gannett website template, because Gannett is the one controlling the JOA. Also, the News and the News-Herald continue to maintain separate headquarters-the News is still in the old Federal Reserve building at Fort and Shelby, the News-Herald is still at the office building Heinz Prechter built for them back in the 80's at I-75 and Northline in Southgate.

[Scottathew]

They're all leveraging the same horrible web design where a news story opens up over a page and the comments open up in a mere sliver going down the left-center of a story.