Along with the local staffing cuts, Gannett initially rolled out the Kewaunee County News in a tabloid-style publication as the megacorporation went “on the cheap” with less space for news and sports, before trashing the tabloid after only about a year of existence. The so-called “broadsheet” format that now appears also illustrates Gannett’s preference for superficial journalism.

The year before Frank Wood sold out the newspapers he owned in Northeast Wisconsin to Gannett, former Door County Advocate editor Warren Bluhm, who is now the opinion editor for Gannett’s Green Bay Press-Gazette, described the Gannett Corporation as “the print equivalent of the Wal-Mart-style companies that swoop in, gobble up locally owned businesses and crush what’s left of local competition with predatory pricing and adherence to corporate formulas. Lord help any community that is ‘blessed’ to have its local flavor absorbed by Gannett.”

While I held in high regard a number of the staff members who remained before Gannett’s “launching” of the Kewaunee County News, it is the megacorporation’s misguided management that has tainted what appears locally. For example, I witnessed how certain editors prefer being cozy with certain sleazy people in power, rather than publicly holding them accountable for disgraceful deeds.

To put it simply and nicely, it was because of Gannett’s sleazy practices that I sought out employment elsewhere after more than seven years being a journalist for the former Algoma Record-Herald, Kewaunee Enterprise and Luxemburg News.

When I wasn’t hampered by the heavy hand of Gannett’s misguided management, however, I enjoyed covering issues of interest to people in Kewaunee County. Individuals from across the political spectrum praised my election-related coverage, for example.

I worked most of 2007 as a reporter in Wisconsin’s Northwoods, before returning to Northeast Wisconsin in early 2008 to begin another better-paying job than what I had in approximately 2 1/2 years working in the Gannett Empire.

In 2007 I filed a labor standards complaint against Gannett with the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development after the megacorporation resorted to smear tactics against me. The DWD found Gannett violated state employment regulations after improperly releasing false accusations about me contained in personnel records I disputed.

While Gannett claims to promote journalistic “diversity,” the megacorporation arguably turned the newspaper market in Northeast Wisconsin into the Green Bay Press-Gannett, Kewaunee County Gannett, Door County Gannett, etc., etc. Hopefully other information sources, such as blogs on the World Wide Web, will provide true diversity by covering in-depth what Gannett would rather suppress or superficially present.