Guild Booth at Excellence in Journalism 2016

Martha Waggoner, Guild International Chairperson and Kevin McGill, News Media Guild members from the Associated Press unit, helped staff a booth at the 2016 Excellence in Journalism conference in New Orleans in September 2016. The conference was a collaboration of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Radio Television Digital News Association.

Newspaper Bins in the Snow in Toronto.

The Year That Was

By Julie Reynolds
Reporter-Editor, dfmworkers.org

For NewsGuild-CWA members at Digital First Media newspapers, the year began auspiciously. In January, a dozen units from the nation’s second-largest newspaper chain joined together in an unprecedented coalition to fight for long-sought wage increases and to launch a national #NewsMatters campaign to raise awareness about the importance of local journalism.

It’s a fight that continues as we enter a new year with nothing less than democracy at stake. Continue reading “The Year That Was”

CWA S-T Steffens Lauds Award Winners, Warns of Threats to Journalism

There has never been a more important time to celebrate and lift up journalism. Lately I’ve been hearing a very chilling notion: that we are entering a “post-truth era.”

Why a post-truth era? We have a president who is prone to taking to Twitter to broadcast plain lies, such as his recent outrageous claim that states permitted millions of people to vote illegally. Continue reading “CWA S-T Steffens Lauds Award Winners, Warns of Threats to Journalism”

Bytes and Bits

Toledo Members Approve One-Year Contract at Toledo Blade

The Toledo Newspaper Guild members ratified a one-year contract with the Toledo Blade. The Blade is a division of Block Communications Incorporated.

The contract includes a bonus, a new compensation plan for advertising sales staff, more vacation time, an elimination of unpaid sick days, and a 401k match for employees for the first time. Continue reading “Bytes and Bits”

In Memorium

Marv Cermak, a columnist and Guild member for the Albany Times Union, died at the age of 84. Cermak left $50,000 to the local. In a story posted on the local’s web site, Tim O’Brien, the president of the Albany Newspaper Guild, said, “We are profoundly grateful that Marv chose to honor his long- standing appreciation of the Guild in this way.” Continue reading “In Memorium”

Union Pride at Dow Jones as Bargaining Enters Third Month

With T-shirts, bulletin boards and lots of solidarity photos on social media, Guild members at the Wall Street Journal and other Dow Jones properties have been doing their all to support the IAPE bargaining team. Talks began in June. Wages are a key sticking point, with the union seeking to offset increases in employees’ share of health care costs. IAPE is asking for a 3.5 percent raise in the first year and 4.5 percent in the following two years, while Dow Jones hasn’t budged above 2 percent.

Nam sollicitudin, dui nec tincidunt accumsan, purus nulla viverra diam, ullamcorper malesuada lectus arcu id massa. Praesent consectetur nulla blandit magna pulvinar, vitae volutpat eros feugiat. Suspendisse egestas risus in elementum faucibus. Proin vitae porta quam, sit amet eleifend magna. Phasellus eu placerat mi. Aenean tempor dapibus varius. Fusce auctor vel leo eu ullamcorper. In posuere, quam nec adipiscing blandit, tortor mi consequat nisi, at faucibus leo arcu ut est. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae.

Guild Members a Force to Be Reckoned With on Pulitzer Day

Janelle Hartman
NewsGuild-CWA

THE now world-renowned photojournalists at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the gifted Buffalo News editorial cartoonist Adam Zyglis and a New York Times reporter, Eric Lipton, who would have made Heywood Broun proud, are among the Guild winners who, as of Monday afternoon, are also Pulitzer Prize winners.

They are joined by scores of Guild members whose newsrooms won Pulitzers for their collective work in the areas of breaking news (The Seattle Times staff); investigative reporting (The Wall Street Journal staff); and international reporting (The New York Times staff).  Continue reading “Guild Members a Force to Be Reckoned With on Pulitzer Day”

Editorial Staff of Law360 Votes Overwhelmingly for Guild

Guild ready for ‘constructive dialogue’

Aug. 24, 2016 – A 92 percent majority of the editorial staff of legal news website Law360 voted for Guild representation in a government-run election on Wednesday, despite an intense three-week management anti-union campaign.

The Law360 staff of more than 130 reporters, editors, and news assistants and apprentices across the United States voted 109 to nine in favor of Guild representation in an election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board. Law360, a fast-growing publisher of legal news and analysis, is owned by LexisNexis Group, a subsidiary of RELX Group.

Continue reading “Editorial Staff of Law360 Votes Overwhelmingly for Guild”