Blog | The NewsGuild

Former International Representative Jim Griffin dies at age 69

Retired International Representative James “Jim” Griffin died on October 19 from a heart attack at his home in Gambrills, Md. at the age of 69.

Griffin was born in 1957 in Chicago to Barbara Johnson Griffin and Hazen J. Griffin, the president of the Service Employees International Union Local 372. His obituary with Donaldson Funeral Homes says celebrations of life are being organized at a later date.

He worked as a news assistant at the Lexington Herald and was the vice president of the Lexington Guild before landing a job as a collective bargaining and research assistant at the Guild’s headquarters in 1982. Nineteen months later he was promoted to international representative.

Newsletter: USA Today’s chatbot is spreading misinformation

We’re fighting a recent attempt to allow broadcast monopolies across the United States, joining a broad coalition to challenge a recent order by the Federal Communications Commission.

Under legislation approved by Congress over 20 years ago, television station owners are currently prohibited from reaching over 39% of the U.S. national audience. When the FCC repealed that rule on October 1, it violated the law and that Congressional mandate.

Consolidation in the news industry is a driving reason we have lost tens of thousands of journalism jobs in the U.S. in the past 20 years. The current FCC has radically shifted to support more consolidation and monopolies, especially ones that are friendly to the Trump administration.

The American Newspaper Guild's International Executive Board: A picture just as the 1940 Convention ended. Seated left to right, Harry Martin of Memphis, Agnes Fahy of Newark, Executive Vice President Milton Kaufman, President Donal M. Sullivati, Secretary-Treasurer Victor Pasche, Don Pinkston of Sioux City; back row, George Wilson of San Francisco,

Eighty-five years ago, this woman showed the Guild how to lead

Since Labor Day I’ve been spending a lot of nights reading through our union’s history with our union’s current fights in my mind. In the pages of The Guild Reporter, I’ve been reading about a remarkable woman who was one of the Guild’s first strikers, a local president, then an international vice president. She was fired for her union activity and fought for years to be reinstated. Eighty-five years later, she offers us some sage advice.

The American Newspaper Guild’s first major strike began one year after it was founded.

It started at dawn on Saturday, November 17, 1934 when 42 members at the Newark Ledger walked out.

One of those strikers was Agnes Fahy.

Journalists in Ohio withhold bylines over journalistic integrity concerns with USA TODAY Co. AI tool

Media contact: Heloise Hakimi, The NewsGuild Communications, hhakimi@cwa-union.org, (202) 679-9394

OHIO — Unionized journalists at the Akron Beacon Journal and Kent Ravenna Record-Courier in Ohio are demanding that their employer remove their names from stories featuring a new AI chatbot being implemented on their publications’ websites. They will be withholding their bylines from stories featuring the chatbot for 14 days, beginning Oct. 28 and spanning across the November 2026 General Election.

The staff cites serious concerns over editorial integrity with the DeeperDive tool used by USA TODAY Co., which owns both newspapers. The chatbot generates AI summaries of the papers’ coverage and was recently added to their publications’ websites. The tool violates the company’s current standards of requiring a “human in the loop” prior to publishing computer generated content online or in print. The workers are demanding the company pause the use of DeeperDive and follow its own AI policies.

“We have the right to withhold our bylines for reasons of journalistic integrity, and DeeperDive’s summaries don’t meet our standards as reporters or the standards USA TODAY Co. claims to follow,” says Akron NewsGuild Unit Chair Tawney Beans. “We don’t want our names on content that doesn’t meet common standards of editorial integrity. Community journalism requires real community members, not AI slop.”

Embarcadero Media Foundation union secures first contract three years after unionizing

Unionized newsroom staff at Embarcadero Media Foundation, a Silicon Valley-based media nonprofit, have won their first contract in a deal that gives members higher salaries and a pay scale that compensates workers for prior experience, improved healthcare benefits and job protections.

Embarcadero Community News Guild, which represents 20 reporters, editors, designers and photo staff, overwhelmingly voted to ratify their three-year contract on Oct. 8. Signed on the eve of the three-year anniversary of the union’s voluntary recognition, the deal follows nearly a year and a half of negotiations.

“This deal is the result of countless hours of work from former and current members and staff at Pacific Media Workers Guild, and we’re proud to see these long sought-after benefits and protections being implemented for our newsroom,” said Julia Brown, Embarcadero Community News Guild chair and a member of the union’s bargaining committee.

Workers of the CommonWealth Beacon form union, win voluntary recognition

Members of the CommonWealth Beacon Guild are thrilled that MassINC, the nonprofit that publishes CommonWealth Beacon, announced that it has officially awarded the union voluntary recognition.

Management informed the Guild on Friday morning following a vote by MassINC’s Board of Directors. All parties involved can now move forward to bargaining over a fair contract in a spirit of collaboration and good faith.

“This is the exact outcome for which we were hoping,” said Chris Lisinski, a senior reporter at CommonWealth Beacon. “We’re honored that MassINC recognizes the hard work of our newsroom and our desire to collectively bargain to make it an even better place, both for ourselves and for all future employees.”

Arizona Daily Star journalists announce union-organizing campaign

TUCSON, Ariz. – Journalists at the Arizona Daily Star announced Thursday, Oct. 15, their intention to form a union with The NewsGuild-CWA and are calling on USA TODAY Co. to voluntarily recognize their union.

The announcement follows USA TODAY Co.’s September 2026 acquisition of the Arizona Daily Star from Lee Enterprises, ending the companies’ longstanding joint operating agreement.

As the newspaper begins a new chapter under USA TODAY Co.’s ownership, the Star’s reporters, photographers and copy editors are calling on their new parent company to demonstrate its stated commitment to local journalism by respecting employees’ collective voice and voluntarily recognizing their union.

NewsGuild joins emergency petition to pause FCC order allowing broadcast monopolies

The NewsGuild-CWA today joined an emergency petition to the Federal Communications Commission demanding a freeze to a recent illegal order that would lead to further media consolidation.

The FCC’s recent order would effectively allow conglomerates and even monopolies to dominate the broadcast landscape. The petition filed by The NewsGuild-CWA and others notifies the FCC of a forthcoming legal challenge to the repeal.

“Consolidation is the main reason we have lost tens of thousands of journalism jobs in the past two decades,” said NewsGuild-CWA President Jon Schleuss. “Media workers and the public lose out when news organizations merge into conglomerates. The FCC’s disregard for the law will inevitably lead to more job losses, less informed local communities and increased costs for every American.”

Workers at the Seattle Times hold signs and banners during their informational picket

Newsletter: We just won at the Supreme Court

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s former owners hit a dead end and must pay back millions to journalists. We won at the Supreme Court.

Our union hasn’t been able to say those words very much over our 93-year history.

But we’re saying them this week after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up management’s appeal of our victory at the appellate court.

This whole saga has been going on for years, and so I wrote up a “mini” timeline:

Guild leaders attend New Local Officers Seminar after a short hiatus

Close to 30 Guild leaders got together this past weekend for the New Local Officers Seminar (NLOS), which hadn’t been held since 2019. The seminar was created in 1982 to train local officers recently elected to their positions.

Over four days, participants learned and shared their experiences on leadership, organizing, bargaining, representation and communications. They dove into the role of local leaders, discussed burnout and learned more about the Guild’s Learn, Do, Teach framework to build capacity. The seminar covered the role of stewards, contract and rights enforcement and an overview of bargaining processes. Attendees also joined sessions on how to build an organizing structure and union communications.