Happy Wednesday! Members of The Appeal Union certainly didn’t take the announcement that management was closing their beloved publication due to financial concerns lying down.
They swung into action, secured a generous severance package for themselves and their coworkers, and negotiated with management to allow them to relaunch The Appeal as a worker-led news outlet.
Continue reading “Newsletter: They didn’t take bad news lying down”
Congratulations to NewsGuild members at The New Yorker, Pitchfork and Ars Technica, who announced Wednesday that a strike has been averted and an agreement in principle has been reached on historic first contracts with Condé Nast, the publications’ parent company.
Continue reading “Newsletter: Strike averted! A victory for us all!”
The last few weeks have been marred by serious attacks on democracy, press freedom and journalists at home and abroad.
We’re outraged by the Belarusian government’s use of a military aircraft to ground a civilian plane and arrest a journalist who was a passenger on the flight and by the Israeli government’s intentional bombing of offices housing the Associated Press and Al Jazeera. We’re also deeply disturbed by the arrest of an American journalist in Myanmar and the ongoing crackdown on the press there since a February coup. These brazen incidents reflect a troubling slide toward authoritarianism around the world.
Continue reading “Newsletter: Journalists under attack”
Hundreds of NewsGuild members rallied in Chicago (right), Orlando (below), Virginia Beach, Hartford and Annapolis on Saturday in an effort to derail Alden Global Capital’s planned takeover of Tribune Publishing. (A Baltimore rally was held in April.)
Continue reading “Newsletter: Some amazing wins”
Today is World Press Freedom Day, and this year’s theme, “Information as a Public Good,” couldn’t be more appropriate. It reflects the severity of the crisis facing journalism and the need to reshape our industry. We cannot let hedge funds and profit-hungry chains run journalism into the ground. News and information are essential to empowering the people to participate in civic life.
Continue reading “Newsletter: The story you’ve always dreamed of telling”
There is so much amazing news from the last couple of weeks!
First up, about 1,000 workers have gone public with union drives in just the last week!
Continue reading “Newsletter: NYT Tech and Insider make a splash!”
Not a subscriber? Click here to sign-up for the Guild’s biweekly email newsletter.
NewsGuild members at The New Yorker, Pitchfork, and Ars Technica voted — with 98 percent support — to approve a strike if negotiations with management of their publications and their parent company, Condé Nast, break down further. The vote came on March 26 after years of contentious negotiations for first contracts at each outlet.
Continue reading “Newsletter: Strike votes, the fight for pro-journalism owners and more organizing!”
Not a subscriber? Click here to sign-up for the Guild’s biweekly email newsletter.
I was honored to testify before a House subcommittee on behalf of our members on March 12 about the extinction-level threat facing local news. I told members of the House Antitrust Subcommittee that in the last 16 years, 2,100 U.S. newsrooms have shut down. And there are half as many newspaper journalists working today as there were a decade ago.
Continue reading “Newsletter: Collective action and testifying in front of Congress”
Not a subscriber? Click here to sign-up for the Guild’s biweekly email newsletter.
Tomorrow, March 9, is Asian American and Pacific Islander Women’s Equal Pay Day. Please join the Guild as we mark the day by joining a Twitter storm at 2 p.m. EST (11 a.m. PT; 12 p.m. MT; and 1 p.m. CT).
Continue reading “Newsletter: So much organizing!”
Earlier this month I wrote about NewsGuild Strong — a union-wide effort to make our union more democratic and member-driven. This is a progression of what I’ve been doing over the last year on the job.
Continue reading “Newsletter: Getting to NewsGuild Strong”