Subscribe to our newsletter right here!
We’ve got two openings at The NewsGuild-CWA right now. We’d love to find Guild members for these roles. Please send folks our way!
Administrative secretary: we’re looking for someone who can assist our staff, run schedules, help keep projects on track, keep track of office finances and directly work with the Guild’s leadership. More info here.
Senior campaign lead: we’re looking for an organizer who’s excited to work with lots of members spread across the continent to help them build effective campaigns and coordinate with other members working for the same company. More info here.
We posted the 2023 per capita increase, based on the Guild’s constitution and average reporter top minimum wages based on the latest contracts across the Guild. The per capita is ticking up to $24.13.
Our folks are still on strike in Pittsburgh and continue to need your solidarity. They are so grateful to all the supporters across the Guild. Many thanks to all the locals supporting strikers directly and thanks to all the members contributing directly to our striker support fund.
In the latest update, striker Andrew “Goldie” Goldstein took a trip to Toledo to hang up “wanted” posters and hand out solidarity signs alongside Toledo Guild members.
Congratulations to all the Guild members who won or were finalists for the top prize in journalism! The Pulitzer Prizes recognized staffers at the Austin American-Statesman, the Washington Post, the Associated Press, the Los Angeles Times, Politico, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Star Tribune, The Atlantic, Reuters, The New Yorker, The Boston Globe, New York magazine, the Detroit Free Press and the Miami Herald.
Congratulations, fam!
And we are just 11 days away from winning at the Federal Communications Commission in our fight against the hedge fund takeover of local news! It’s been a wild ride, so here’s the timeline of events.
- February 2022: Hedge fund Standard General announced plan to take over local news broadcaster TEGNA
- April 2022: We asked several questions about how this takeover would impact local news jobs and market consolidation
- June 2022: We joined NABET-CWA and petitioned the FCC to reject the takeover
- June 2022: We wrote to President Biden asking him to stop the hedge fund takeover of local news
- July 2022: We wrote again to the president and asked him to stand with America’s journalists
- August 2022: We got support in another filing from the United Church of Christ Media Justice Ministry and Common Cause in petitioning directly to the FCC to reject the takeover
- October 2022: Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi called for scrutiny of the takeover
- October 2022: We pointed out that the hedge fund already lost, but didn’t know it yet
- February 2023: The FCC Media Bureau referred the matter to an administrative law judge for further review and for the first time in decades highlights concerns about the impact on local news jobs, consumer prices and private equity’s impact on the erosion of local news
- February 2023: We and NABET-CWA recommitted to fighting the hedge fund takeover of local news
- March 2023: The hedge fund sued the FCC in D.C. Circuit Court
- April 2023: We released a video showing how hedge fund Standard General placed the same op-ed in hedge fund owned newspapers across the U.S.
- April 2023: The D.C. Circuit Court denied two attempts by the hedge fund to run around the FCC review process and said that Standard General did not demonstrate the FCC “has unreasonably delayed in acting on their applications.”
This hedge fund takeover should not be allowed. Standard General has made clear it plans to cut jobs, cut reporting and behave like other hedge funds destroying local news. They’re spending massive amounts of money to buy last-minute support for this deal that, as I said in October, is already dead.
In solidarity,
Jon