July 31, 2019 – Newsroom employees at Crosscut and KCTS 9, part of Cascade Public Media in Seattle, voted 16-0 to unionize with the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild, Local 37082 of The NewsGuild-CWA.
Workers said they organized to fight for pay that keeps up with the cost of living, to preserve quality, in-depth journalism, and to push back against a troubling increased focus on click goals and quotas. Continue reading “Crosscut Workers Vote Unanimously to Unionize”
July 27, 2019 – NewsGuild-CWA members at the Providence Journal and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette voted overwhelmingly to approve proposed contracts in separate votes Wednesday, ending years of difficult bargaining with GateHouse Media, the private equity fund that controls their newspapers. Continue reading “Providence, Worcester Guild units approve contracts with GateHouse”
Continue reading “Plain Dealer Guild unit honored by Society of Professional Journalists”
July 24, 2019 – More than five months after announcing their union drive, the journalists of BuzzFeed News officially won recognition of their union, the NewsGuild of New York has announced. A neutral party verified that a majority of staffers elected to be represented by The NewsGuild-CWA after reviewing cards signed by more than 90 percent of eligible employees. Continue reading “Finally! BuzzFeed News Union wins voluntary recognition”
By Evan Brandt
July 24, 2019 – Sometimes, shouting into the wilderness gets results.
Last week I took a pilgrimage to Washington, D.C. to take part in a press conference announcing the introduction of the “Stop Wall Street Looting Act.”
To be clear, I had not read the proposed legislation and I was not there to endorse it
This OpEd by Julie Reynolds was published by Newsweek on July 18.
July 18, 2019 – When I first became a reporter at the Monterey Herald in 2004, it was a feisty and robust local newspaper covering a midsize California county. We did what local news is supposed to do: We investigated sky-high water rates, exposed investment scams and held public officials to account.
Then the New York “vulture” hedge fund Alden Global Capital took over our chain, Digital First Media, in 2012. Since then, scores of papers across the country have been stripped for parts under Alden’s chop-shop approach to the businesses it touches.
It’s true that before Alden, we had layoffs and downsizing. But we also knew who our owners were. We knew they were in the news business and that they understood the ethics and responsibilities that go with running a newspaper.
Under Alden’s tenure, though, layoffs and attrition accelerated at breakneck speed. Instead of a story a day, reporters scrambled to crank out two or three because there were fewer and fewer of us. The office supplies vanished, and we had to buy our own pens, calendars and manila folders. Then the hot water in the bathrooms was turned off. The gutters were never repaired, and staff creatively arranged house plants to try to soak up the leaks. Then, as with most newspapers in the Digital First chain, the presses were dismantled and our buildings sold.
But far worse than the effect on workers was Alden’s effect on the communities we served. Entire towns in our coverage area became “news deserts.”
Our bureau closed in Salinas, the county seat and the largest city in the region. A towing scandal in the town of King City went unreported for a year—until half the police department was arrested—because we could no longer cover most of our county. Other papers in the chain also lost entire beats and sections, and the venerable Oakland Tribune shut down after 142 years in print.
Since I left the Herald in 2015, things have gotten even worse. Friends there tell me deadlines are now 2 p.m. because the paper is copyedited, designed and printed in a “hub” more than five hours away. This means City Council votes and even high school sports scores rarely make it into the print edition.
We’re just starting to see the effects of this deliberate downsizing. Some research shows that residents living in U.S. news deserts pay higher interest on municipal bonds, pay more taxes and may even experience more corruption in local government.
Like some other private equity firms, Alden has no interest in turning a struggling business around and appears to care little for the communities that are hurt when their watchdogs go away. Instead, it employs a strategy of stripping news organizations’ real estate and other assets, laying off staff at twice the national rate and profiting handsomely.
According to NewsGuild President Bernie Lunzer, “Alden has played a particularly destructive role in local journalism. Motivated only by greed, it has depleted newsrooms, eliminated beats, and made it virtually impossible for local papers to fully tell the stories of their communities.”
Whether we get our news on paper or a smartphone, Americans need and expect it to be gathered by journalist dedicated to informing the public. As more communities become news deserts, we’re seeing more and more opinion passing as news.
We are speeding toward an abyss of disinformation and ignorance, but it’s not too late to stop.
Hedge funds must be held accountable, and even more so when they control the news. When private equity buys a company to add to its portfolio, workers and communities are left in the dark. They don’t know who owns the company, don’t know how much debt was used to make the purchase or who is obligated to repay it. They don’t know who has responsibility for their successes or failures or who controls their pensions.
The Stop Wall Street Looting Act unveiled Thursday by Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts addresses these unknowns.
The legislation places limits on compensation to executives in companies owned by private equity and prevents big payouts when workers receive nothing during the bankruptcy process. It also gives priority to severance pay during bankruptcy. It eliminates the so-called “carried interest loophole” whereby the money extracted from both the companies they own and their limited partners is taxed at a low rate.
Most importantly, the Stop Wall Street Looting Act makes private equity ownership much more transparent. It directs the Securities and Exchange Commission to collect information. The names of general and limited partners will be known, as will the ownership percentages. The amount of debt used to finance the purchase will be known. The private equity firm’s other portfolio companies will be known.
Photo: Speaking at a press conference announcing introduction of the Stop Wall Street Looting Act, Julie Reynolds says hedge funds must be held accountable.
July 22, 2019 – The NewsGuild-CWA has joined the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and a coalition of more than three dozen media organizations in opposing proposed changes to the EPA’s Freedom of Information Act regulations. In a July 9 letter, the coalition urged the Environmental Protection Agency to suspend implementation of the rule and to provide a public comment period of no fewer than 60 days. Continue reading “NewsGuild joins Reporters Committee and others to argue for revisions to EPA’s proposed FOIA policy”
By Bernie Lunzer, NewsGuild President
July 10, 2019 – The Vindicator’s June 28 announcement that it will close its doors in August – making Youngstown the nation’s biggest city without a daily newspaper – demands the attention of every journalist and every freedom-loving American.
As an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer notes, the Vindicator has played an important role in maintaining civility and democracy in Northeastern Ohio as far back as the 1920s, when its reporting helped oust the KKK from the region.
No more. Beginning in August, with no one to hold them to account, it will be open season for corrupt politicians, unscrupulous business owners and proponents of hate.
Without the Vindicator, who will tell the stories of the laid off auto workers of nearby Lordstown? Who will report on the neighborhoods and schools and businesses of Youngstown and the region? Who will unmask the lies of hate-mongers?
The NewsGuild-CWA was officially notified of the impending closure by the Vindicator’s publisher, in accordance with the WARN Act, the day the information was made public.
And because workers at the Vindicator are represented by The NewsGuild, the local will have the opportunity to bargain over the effects of the closure and secure severance for its approximately 60 union members.
But severance pay is no substitute for a job. And it’s of little use to a city and a region that desperately needs truth-telling.
The demise of the Vindicator crystallizes the urgent need for new media strategies. The Pew Research Center reported in March that newspaper advertising has declined 67 percent since its peak in 2005. Meanwhile, tech giants like Google and Facebook, which offer no original news content, reaped as much as 60 percent of all U.S. digital ad revenue in 2018. At the same time, hedge funds like Alden Global Capital are stripping assets from their properties at the expense of journalists and news coverage.
Newsroom jobs have declined by almost half over the last 15 years and the term “news deserts” has taken hold to describe communities without local newspapers. This year the news industry has suffered the worst job losses since the 2008 Great Recession, despite very low employment generally.
Unfortunately, however, the Pew study found that more than 70 percent of Americans think their local news media are doing well financially. Educating readers about the state of the business clearly must become a priority.
Sadly, there is currently no proven business model for media on any platform – print, print-and-digital or digital-only. Even prominent online-only publications like BuzzFeed News and Huffington Post have endured staff cuts over the last year.
While some national papers such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post seem secure, most local news organizations are struggling. Some regional papers appear to be strong, such as the Star-Tribune in Minneapolis and the Boston Globe, but most seem shaky.
Nonetheless, publications that deliver news in print and online are still the primary source for news throughout the country. Investment is urgently needed, but without a change in the business model it won’t always solve the problem. (The Orange County Register, for example, was purchased in 2012 by a New England investor who immediately added staff but who failed to adapt to the economic changes facing the new industry. Within four years the Register was bankrupt, re-sold and left with fewer journalists than before the original sale.)
For more than a decade, The NewsGuild-CWA has explored media policies that will encourage sustainable local journalism. We have participated in co-ops and employee stock ownership plans. We have sought out new owners in Denver, which was pillaged by Alden, St. Paul and other locales, but haven’t been able to persuade the hedge funds to let go.
Some responses are already taking hold. There are efforts to break up Google, Apple and Facebook using anti-trust law, although that could take years. ProPublica’s offer to expand its local reporting network to Youngstown, while admirable, cannot replace a full-fledged news publication.
There are also efforts to enact laws to encourage experimentation. Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA), whose district includes the area covered by the Alden-controlled Contra Costa Times, has introduced a bill that would allow non-profit media organizations to receive advertising income while remaining tax-exempt. Other politicians are considering tax credits and other changes.
But these are initial, exploratory steps. We believe it is time for industry leaders, analysts and workers to address the crisis in a more unified and systematic way.
Journalists are being attacked on all sides – forced to fight for their jobs, seek new owners, pursue new business models and sustain the attacks of politicians who benefit from calling great journalism “fake news.”
In the midst of the most challenging time for journalists since the Great Recession, throughout North America, journalists are unionizing in record numbers. The NewsGuild-CWA is committed to fight on all fronts for quality journalism and good jobs. Regardless of the platform, sustainable journalism must thrive if we expect democracy to survive.
July 8, 2019 – Journalists of Crosscut, a nonprofit news site covering the Northwest, and KCTS 9, Seattle’s local PBS affiliate, have signed onto a union organizing effort in overwhelming numbers. Continue reading “Journalists of Crosscut, KCTS 9 announce union organizing campaign”
This article by NewsGuild International Chairperson Martha Waggoner was first published on June 27, 2019, by Poynter.
July 3, 2019 – It happened more than 50 years ago, but Peggy Simpson remembers the details clearly.
After the excitement of the early days of the trial of Jack Ruby, covered by male reporters, she had handled the daily grind. She would work the overnight shift at the Dallas bureau of The Associated Press, go home to shower and head to the courtroom. But on the day the case of the man accused of killing President Kennedy’s assassin went to the jury, she arrived to find another reporter in her seat – a man. Continue reading “Readers of AP’s articles were getting virtually all their news from one group: white men.”
