A MESSAGE FROM NEWSPAPER GUILD-CWA PRESIDENT BERNIE LUNZER

The Guild continues to work hard to save journalism and news organizations. Many locals are extremely busy, not only renegotiating contracts, but also fending off bankruptcy or using alternative approaches to survive. At the national/international level we are working diligently to play a major role in saving the news organizations we represent. It’s hard work for a lot of reasons.

Some think this is just a phase that media must go through – a creative self-destruction. We think too much will be lost if we just sit back and watch. There’s also a debate on whether government should play a role. Dan Rather has called for President Obama to get involved, and we think that would be a good thing. Yes, the media MUST always be independent of government, but that doesn’t mean there can't be public investments.

We’ve been involved, either directly or through other organizations, with efforts to promote a new form of low-profit corporation called an L3C. Many states have allowed for this and we’d like to see it enacted at a national level. It allows for-profit operations, with stated social goals, to use non-profit investments from foundations. We’ve also been supportive of the non-profit bill pushed forward by Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland. It’s also possible that media organizations could get tax benefits just for employing journalists. We’ll proceed carefully on all of this, and make sure that all of our members understand and are supportive of what we do. But doing nothing is not an option.

While we don't know which model will work, we fundamentally believe the media operations that work with their employees will be the strongest. We are pursuing joint committees. Working with locals, we'll be appealing to owners to start talking about ways to solve common problems and improve the product. For instance, many operations are still top-heavy but starved for the employees whose work fills the paper or website. Every local needs to find ways to push into discussions of the business.

Newspapers continue to be the bedrock of the news cycle – where the real research and hard news begins. We’re not naïve. The digital shift is real, and we’re also working to represent smaller, focused web-only operations. But the goal of local news, which represents the true diversity of the community, can still be met. There is a place for blogs, citizen journalism, crowd-sourcing and the like. While some see it as supplemental to what we do, we recognize we must provide resources for these new workers. How do we move this forward?

Much of our focus has been on the failed business model of the large, debt-laden, hierarchical corporation. We are pursuing other alternatives -- ESOP’s, Co-ops, low-profit and non-profit models. We are doing this by fostering committees in all of our communities and by working to change laws where necessary, as I said. We have spoken to senators and congress folk. We have talked with DOJ and even the NAA about our issues.

The biggest threat right now is broad anti-trust exemptions that would support the current newspaper model at the expense of real innovation. We are not opposed to working with the industry where they are serious about building new models. But there are some basic things that have to be included -- some guarantees of basic coverage; goals of what the product should be; genuine employee, front-line worker “voice” in decision making; and working on new product and business model ideas. We want guarantees that anti-trust exemptions won’t just lead to continued evisceration of staff, pensions and other benefits, along with more hollowing out of the product.

On this last point, broadcasters, specifically Fox and Gannett, are now “pooling” staff to cover events within markets. This is not the real pooling where access is restricted for some legitimate reason. This is about saving money on staff. They are arguing that it allows for more coverage. We don’t know that to be true. We have complained that it is a blatant violation of anti-trust, and are working with NABET to pursue this. Again, would we reject all this out of hand if it really beefed up coverage and saved jobs? Of course not. But we have seen very little indication from either print or broadcast that their real goal is anything but fattening the bottom line.

An important part of this discussion is about advertising. If any for-profit papers are going to survive, digitally or in print, they’ll need to resurrect real advertising strategies. The erosion of real ad support for small advertisers is rarely discussed. There are many strategies that could allow for pulling new advertisers into our products, but not enough time or energy has been spent on this. The basic idea is that we can compete, even with the web, if the right tools are in place as we create advertising web opportunities of our own.

The most controversial issues are how much product is available for free and what is permissible “aggregation.” For the most part we believe Google has gotten a free ride off our content. It must be called on this and has to find a way to share the wealth. We are skeptical about charging for material online, but we also know that some of the money from paid search should be coming back to us. This debate will heat up dramatically. It won’t solve the real structural problems. But that additional piece of revenue, which we are due, could make a big difference.

It is the argument about where the line is drawn between fair use and “fair share.” This is heating up because Google and others are beginning to sell display advertising against the paid search that lives off our product. There is also a problem with sites like Huffington Post that go way beyond referencing a story, borrowing substantial portions and causing web users to never go to the source site. This use of our information gives us no revenue.

There is a future for news. We can play a vital, reasoned role in this. We can use our union as a strength, and make the shift. We need to continue to talk with each other, and be proactive in all of our communities. You can be proud of what your union is doing, but know that it ultimately is your involvement that makes it work.