Pros
The company does offer health and vacation benefits, but both are below average.
Cons
Salaries for managers, who are expected to work 50-60 hours a week, are meager. Pay for hourly employees is abysmal. Professional standards are rock bottom. The company is based in Palo Alto, Calif., and owns several free weekly local newspapers. But it exercises little oversight over the satellite papers, where the atmosphere is unprofessional and quality journalism is never part of the discussion. It's all about revenue. Manager meetings at my paper focused only on advertising and promotional events. When times were tough, as they have been for the past few years, the strongest editors and department managers were the first to be laid off or demoted. Those who were disorganized, persistently missed deadline and never spoke up for quality were kept on.