Updated June 19, 2020 – Members of The NewsGuild-CWA participated in a Town Hall meeting to discuss fighting racial injustice in our newsrooms on Thursday, June 18.
Watch the video HERE.
The Town Hall featured activists who helped organize the inspiring resistance at the New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Brief presentations were followed by a discussion of how we can advance the fight for justice and create structural change where we work and in the Guild.
How can the Guild seize the moment to improve diversity, fairness and inclusion at work? How can we address the targeting of journalists by police? How should we respond when our employers fail to live up to journalistic standards, publish inflammatory falsehoods, or express (or ignore) racial bias?
Panelists:
Chao Xiong, a reporter at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune who covered the protests extensively. A law enforcement officer fired rubber bullets at the car he was riding in, striking the side of the vehicle.
Jazmine Hughes and Davey Alba, who helped organize a rebellion after the New York Times published an op-ed by Sen. Tom Cotton titled, “Send in the Troops.”
Michaelle Bond and Jonathan Lai, who helped draft a letter protesting an offensive headline in the Philadelphia Inquirer. They also organized more than 40 journalists to call in “sick and tired.”
Michael M. Santiago and Zack Tanner, who, along with dozens of colleagues protested a decision by management at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to sideline journalists from covering George Floyd protests after Alexis Johnson posted a satirical tweet.
Nader Issa, a reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times and co-chair of the Sun-Times NewsGuild, who helped negotiate ground-breaking diversity language in a contract signed this spring.
Adrian Harewood, a News Anchor at Ottawa News @ 6 and host of Our Ottawa, a weekly TV current affairs magazine in Canada.
Stay tuned for follow-up on this important topic.