NewsGuild-CWA members clocked a lot of overtime during last week’s U.S. midterm elections. (Hopefully you’re filing for it!)
Journalists in 330 Guild newsrooms worked to deliver national and local election results and provide context and scoops. Nonprofit workers in 97 organizations were registering people to vote and supporting campaigns tied to their mission. And workers at 75 labor unions were knocking doors and supporting the will of members in other unions. We even had members running for office. (Congratulations to Washington-Baltimore News Guild Member Aparna Raj, who was elected to the DC Council, and Former TNG-CWA President Linda Foley who was re-elected to the Maryland House of Delegates!)
Good work by everyone this past week!
The bosses at USA Today Co. think it’s ok for some readers to get false information. That’s what they implied when they responded to journalists who expressed concerns that an AI bot being slapped on their websites was making up lies.
Workers at two USA Today Co.-owned outlets in Ohio have withheld their bylines for the past two weeks to protest DeeperDive, an AI “tool” that produces inaccurate summaries of their stories. Management responded by saying they would roll back DeeperDive to “only” 1% of subscribers.
That’s not enough. No one should be getting misinformation from their local news outlets. Some instances of the bot’s sloppiness:
- At the IndyStar, DeeperDive stated that a university employee was fired for criticizing the assassination of Charlie Kirk. The employee had criticized Charlie Kirk, not his assassination.
- At the Akron Beacon Journal, DeeperDive referred to the Cleveland Guardians at the Cleveland “Indians,” a name that has not been used since 2021 and goes against the newsroom’s style guide.
- An AI summary at The Arizona Republic described a university hockey player’s collapse as a “deadly incident.” The player was unlikely to recover, but had not died.
- At The Journal News, DeeperDive replaced the first name of a murder suspect with the name of the journalist who reported the story.
USA Today Co. journalists are calling for the complete removal of DeeperDive. Get that slop outta here! Sign their petition.
We filed an amicus brief in The New York Times’ copyright lawsuit against OpenAI & Microsoft, arguing that the way AI companies scrape journalism without compensation poses an existential threat to local news organizations and great harm to our communities. We joined a brief with Rebuild Local News, the Society of Professional Journalists, the National Association of Hispanic Publications and others. “The stakes go far beyond the economic health of news organizations,” we wrote. “The evaporation of reliable local news causes severe civic, economic, and social harm to communities.”
The Canadian government just committed additional funding for journalism. The promise of $300 million to fund the CBC/Radio-Canada for the next two years will help stabilize Canada’s national broadcaster, which is home to more than 4,000 Canadian Media Guild members. CMG has long advocated for increased and predictable funding as hedge funds plunder newsrooms across the continent.
The government also proposed millions to support hiring and retaining journalists in underserved communities. And they’re proposing a 35% increase in the Canadian Journalism Labour Tax Credit, which was set to expire next month. All of this funding will help media workers in broadcast, print and digital across Canada. It’s encouraging to see the Canadian government invest in Canadian journalism.
Four U.S. states have passed similar journalism jobs tax credits in the past several years, but nothing yet exists at the federal level. The NewsGuild-CWA continues to advocate for journalism jobs and will press next year’s incoming Congress to pass a jobs tax credit.
Workers at Business Insider are fighting for common sense AI protections. They’re asking for human-led journalism, the ability to choose whether they use AI in their work and guarantees that management won’t replace jobs with AI. Management is refusing to agree to those guardrails.
“These principles are vital to a future in which our journalism continues to be accurate, trustworthy, and engaging,” the workers wrote. To support their demands at the bargaining table, sign their petition.
Guild members at Local Progress went on a 24-hour strike to protest management’s refusal to engage in reciprocal movement at the bargaining table. Workers have been without a contract for more than 200 days. You can support them by signing their petition.
U.S.-based workers at leading French newspaper Le Monde went on strike for the second time in two months. The Media Guild of the West filed an unfair labor practice charge last week after management failed to provide a bargaining date since September. The company has also set arbitrary bargaining deadlines and requested to reopen agreements that had been previously agreed upon. The workers had gone on a first 24-hour strike back in September to protest similar unfair labor practices.
New York Times Guild members wore incredible union-themed costumes to the company’s Halloween costume contest. Some of the terrifying outfits included a front page full of AI slop, a wages proposal that doesn’t match inflation and increasing healthcare costs. They definitely won our union’s spookiest costume award!
Washington-Baltimore News Guild member Karen Attiah will not return to the Washington Post and instead opted for a settlement. She was wrongfully terminated a year ago after she did what she was hired to do: offer commentary about America’s gun violence problem.
After she was fired the Guild filed a grievance and in August an independent arbitrator ordered the Post to reinstate her.
“My arbitration win was a monumental victory for unions, for journalists, and for free speech,” she wrote on Substack. “As the last full-time Black columnist in the Opinions section, I recognized how important the win was for Black journalists, especially those pushed out of newsrooms in recent years.”
In the end she said she couldn’t return to the Post without the freedom and institutional support to do the job she was hired to do: use her voice, seek truth and serve readers. She’s moving on with her life and career and thanked everyone for standing with her.
We lost three Guild leaders recently. I didn’t expect to become an obituary writer as Guild president, however, it’s been nice to learn through reporting about the activists who built the great union we have today.
In October, we lost Jim Griffin, who was a research assistant and international representative from 1982 until 1994. Griffin came out of the Lexington Guild and said “the Guild gave me more than I could possibly repay” in a letter when he left. He was 69 years old.
We also lost Northeast Ohio Guild Leader Jack Hagan in October. Sharp-witted with an unfailing moral compass, Hagan brought all types of people together to build the union. Former Guild leader Scott Stephens wrote this tribute. Hagan was 76.
And finally we lost Carla W. Beck, the first woman to be elected local president in the Great Falls Guild in Montana. I dove into The Guild Reporter archives and learned that Beck led the 1974 strike against The Great Falls Tribune and was hauled away by police after a scuffle broke out when a scab punched a striker. Beck was 93 years old.
On Thursday, we’re hosting the fourth module in our Steward Training series, focused on how to turn workplace issues into organizing issues and how to plan collective actions. You can register for the session here.
This Sunday, we’re hosting our Bargaining 101 training, which will cover the bargaining process from initial prep through ratification. The 2.5 hour session will focus on the core responsibilities of bargaining committees but will not cover contract campaign planning and the vital role of contract action teams. You can register here.
In solidarity,
Jon Schleuss
President
The NewsGuild-CWA