Violence against journalists continues to be committed by the United States government.
The Chicago Guild joined others in suing Immigration and Customs Enforcement for attacking journalists. The suit was filed yesterday and comes after repeated clashes between protestors and ICE agents at a facility in Broadview. Federal agents targeted several Guild members while reporting on the clashes despite being visibly identified as members of the press.
The Chicago Guild joined NABET Local 41, the Chicago Headline Club, the Block Club Chicago, the Illinois Press Association and individually named journalists and peaceful protestors.
“Our members have a right, protected by the First Amendment, to do their jobs and report the news,” said Andy Grimm, president of the Chicago News Guild. “They should not be targeted, injured or arrested for doing their jobs.”
The groups are represented by lawyers from several groups, including the ACLU of Illinois.
Chicago’s suit follows our similar lawsuit against ICE in Southern California after agents shot our members with rubber bullets and pepper ball rounds. We got an injunction last month. Read the latest suit here.
Last week federal agents in New York City also attacked journalists. Agents grabbed and shoved journalists in a hallway outside a New York City immigration court, sending one to the hospital.
The NewsGuild of New York demanded that New York’s immigration courts take immediate action to prevent similar attacks from happening in the future.
IAPE, our local that represents workers at the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones, also condemned the attacks.
“The fundamentals of a free press require that journalists and media outlets exercise First Amendment rights and obligations to cover taxpayer-funded police activity,” they said. “It should go without saying that journalists performing this valuable work need to be able to do their jobs without worrying whether they will be assaulted by law enforcement.”
Last month, more than 700 of you sent in comments to DHS over its plan to radically reduce the time foreign journalists can spend in the United States. I submitted longer comments that highlighted how the proposed change would conflict with the First Amendment, chill reporting, set U.S. journalists up for retaliation overseas, create an unjustified short duration and reduce the number of working journalists at a time when journalism jobs are at a historic low. And we joined a larger coalition of media organizations calling for DHS to drop the proposed changes, led by the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press.
Cascade PBS is eliminating its written news and investigations operation, laying off nine Guild journalists, an early career fellow, and four editors and planning to shutter the newsroom on October 31 — ending nearly two decades of watchdog reporting.
Executives are blaming the job losses on the cuts to public funding for PBS and NPR. The Trump administration and Congress rescinded billions of dollars of support this summer and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) was forced to close at the end of September.
However, just 10% of Cascade’s budget came from the CPB.
And Cascade PBS executives are refusing to cut their pay to save jobs and local reporting.
Executives did not have to eliminate the newsroom and its unionized members. CEO Rob Dunlop earned more than $500,000 in 2024 and the organization paid more than $2 million to its executive team in total. Of its nearly 140-person staff, Cascade PBS eliminated only five positions outside the newsroom.
Also consider donating to their GoFundMe to support the journalists.
Workers across Maine’s largest newspaper network just won a landslide union victory, unionizing with the News Guild of Maine and expanding our ranks in the Pine Tree State by nearly 50 workers.
In a 34-1 NLRB election, reporters, photographers, designers, ad reps and business staff at the Sun Journal, Times Record and weekly papers across southern and western Main voted to join their colleagues already unionized at the Portland Press Herald, Morning Sentinel and Kennebec Journal in Augusta.
The victory unites more than 200 workers across the Maine Trust for Local News under one union, ensuring equal pay protections and stronger job security company-wide.
Under nonprofit ownership, the Main Trust for Local News could be a roadmap for sustainable journalism. Workers know sustainability must include them.
“[The] vote count confirms what we already knew: Our coworkers want to join the News Guild of Maine,” said Guild President Megan Gray. “They want to have the same voice and the same bargaining power as their peers across the company. Today, they won those rights in a landslide.”
One of our members lost his home, his two cats and most of his possessions in a devastating fire. Jim Moodie is a journalist who’s worked at the The Sudbury Star in Ontario for nearly 15 years. He lost two of his beloved cats, both rescues, in the fire, along with his work phone, laptop, voice recorder and all of his clothing and furniture. Jim shunned social media and the cloud and relied on external hard drives to save his writings. Unfortunately those too were lost in the fire. His friends and other members are helping Jim rebuild and find a new place. Please join me in donating to support Jim.
Journalists at the Everett Herald have ratified their first contract, securing just cause protections, guaranteed raises, remote work options and stronger job security. The win comes after years of organizing and multiple fights with new owners Carpenter Media, which attempted illegal layoffs and later attempted to tie raises to a drastic increase in workload, requiring reporters to publish two to three times more stories per day.
Herald journalists pushed back with a three-day walkout, a subscriber support campaign and a boycott threat — forcing management to back down and negotiate.
“This means more job stability for all of us after a rocky few years, and I am beyond excited,” said photographer Olivia Vanni, the only remaining worker from the original organizing committee.
Signal Ohio’s nonprofit newsrooms in Akron, Cleveland and Columbus have officially unionized after winning voluntary recognition from management. More than 80% of staff signed union cards to form the Signal Ohio News Workers Guild — including 100% of the organization’s full-time reporters — but management fought the effort every step of the way.
Management stalled recognizing the union for weeks and hired notorious union-busting firm Jackson-Lewis. Management tried to divide the small newsroom into three separate bargaining units to weaken workers’ power. But workers fought back with a letter writing campaign, a lunch walkout and a public campaign that drew community support and media attention. Facing that pressure, management finally backed down and did the right thing.
Now, nearly 30 staff across the state are moving to the bargaining table to negotiate their first contract.
Unionized workers at the American Nurses Association (ANA) are ramping up pressure for a fair contract. The ANA Guild, represented by the Washington-Baltimore News Guild, has gone public after management declared an impasse and imposed its own unpopular wage plan — a proposal nearly 90% of the union members rejected that would do away with guaranteed raises in the third year. Workers are demanding management return to the table and bargain in good faith, instead of walking away and empowering a manager accused of months of bullying behavior.
The message is simple: stop bullying, start bargaining!
Show your solidarity by signing their petition now and follow them on Bluesky and Instagram.
Lee Enterprises ends The Buffalo News’ Monday print edition in a move described as “sad, but not unexpected” by the Buffalo Newspaper Guild in a statement last week. The company has reduced printing days as smaller papers for years, and now it’s coming for its largest properties.
Members criticized Lee Enterprises for “slashing anything and everything” in a desperate push to cut costs regardless of whether those cuts endanger its newspapers’ ability to cover their communities. While other companies like Cox Enterprises are investing heavily in digital transitions, Lee has delivered “poorly functioning, cookie-cutter” online platforms that frustrate readers and fail to replace lost print revenue. Buffalo members said readers deserve better.
The Buffalo Guild also hosted a community conversation on “The Future of Local Journalism” with journalists from local TV, radio stations and a local nonprofit newsroom alongside Guild leaders. These conversations are so important to have—our readers can be mobilized to support us when we demand better working conditions that improve local journalism.
PBS is now showing Stripped for Parts: American Journalism at the Crossroads, the documentary about ruthless vulture fund Alden Global Capital. The film exposes how Alden has gutted local newspapers across the U.S. and shows how journalists, backed by The NewsGuild, are fighting back to save local news.
You can stream it now on PBS or watch it on your local PBS channel.
This is our fight against hedge funds murdering local news — don’t miss it!
Do you want to sharpen your skills at the bargaining table? Applications are open for the NewsGuild’s Bargaining Bootcamp, a five-module course designed to build bargaining strategies and prepare members to lead contract fights.
It runs on Tuesdays at 7:30pm ET, beginning October 21st and continuing through December 16th. Apply by October 8th.
This training is open to Guild members who want to play a bigger role in their next campaign — don’t miss the chance to learn, practice and build your power alongside other Guild members.
Solidarity,
Jon Schleuss,
President, The NewsGuild-CWA