NewsGuild-CWA President Jon Schleuss testified on Wednesday in support of Maryland HB51, a bill that would require news organizations to provide 120 day notice to workers and the labor department before any sale can go through. The legislation mirrors a part of a bill passed in Illinois last year that became law this month.
Schleuss said the legislation would give us time. “This bill would give us a 120 day period to slow things down and try to find alternative owners so we’re not just gobbled up by the next private equity fund that’s going to destroy a great institution in our communities.”
“The constantly changing ownership has been a major distraction for journalists who just want to do our jobs reporting the news and seeking the truth,” Schleuss said to the Maryland House’s Economic Matters Committee. “The financialization and consolidation of the news is destroying the entire industry.”
“We’ve lost more than 43,000 newspaper journalist jobs, which is undermining our democracy directly,” he said. “It’s critical now that we stand and support local journalists and local newsrooms by slowing down the consolidation of the news industry.”
Schleuss pointed to the “Save Our Sun” campaign launched by Guild journalists to try and find an alternative owner when vulture fund Alden Global Capital was buying up stock in Tribune Publishing, the former owner of the Sun. Alden eventually rebuffed efforts by Stewart Bainum, who wanted to purchase the Sun and convert it into a nonprofit. He later launched the Baltimore Banner.
Then last year Alden sold The Sun to Sinclair Executive Chairman David Smith.
The bill would require both print and digital news organizations provide 120-day written notice to employees and representatives of employees that will be affected by the sale, to the Maryland Department of Labor, the governing body of the county that will be affected by the sale and to any nonprofit in Maryland that’s in the business of buying local news organizations.
If notice isn’t given, the sale can’t be completed.
Maryland House Delegate Mary Lehman, a former journalist, sponsored the bill and said she’s trying to address the loss of newspapers nationwide. “Since 2005, nearly 3,000 newspapers have shut down,” she said, referencing Northwestern University’s State of Local News Project.
“More than half of the counties in the United States have either one or no local news outlet,” she said.
She emphasized the impact this has on low-income communities stating that, “When lower income or rural communities lose their local newspaper, they are much less likely to get a replacement one.”
Other panelists who spoke in favor included Steve Waldman, the founder and president of Rebuild Local News, Sarah Walton, the chief philanthropy officer at The Baltimore Banner and Rafael Lorente, the dean of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland.
Separately, the Guild wrote in support of HB74, which would modernize the requirement for legal notices to be published in print or digital news sources. HB74 was introduced by former Guild President Linda Foley and is backed by the Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association, It ensures that legal notices would continue to be published by independent news sources and not relegated to a government website.