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LOCAL NEWS

BANG UPDATE

Negotiators gather for first contract push

Unit meets Saturday in Walnut Creek

Karl Fischer and Sara Steffens - Media Workers Guild - 23 Jul 2008

Securing our first contract is the guild's top priority, what we worked to achieve during those tense months of organizing at BANG-East Bay. So don't cheat yourself by not attending our next meeting on Saturday, when we will present our slate of bargaining committee members. Our committee will represent you at the bargaining table -- it only makes sense to be part of voting them in.


National Writers Union backs East Bay workers

Statement of support for Media Workers Guild from UAW Local 1981

National Writers Union - 19 Jul 2008

In a statment of solidarity, the National Writers Union protested the layoff of 29 newly organized BANG-EB newsroom employees, demanded justice be done by the NLRB, and promised to lend "any and all available resources to support our Guild brothers and sisters, including resisting any attempt by BANG-EB or MediaNews Group to use freelance and staff journalists as clubs against each other."


FUTURE OF NEWSPAPERS

Reflections of a former film critic

No easy adjustment to life on the outside

Mary Pols - Alliance of Women Film Journalists - 17 Jul 2008

This March I left my job as a film critic for the Bay Area-based Contra Costa Times, Oakland Tribune and San Jose Mercury News. Along with 101 colleagues, I took a buyout. It was a clear and obvious choice... Not so obvious: why the steady decline in the amount of locally generated criticism in daily newspapers.

BANG UPDATE

MediaNews left no choice but to file NLRB charges

Firings and pay freeze to punish union organizers

Sara Steffens - Media Workers Guild - 16 Jul 2008

We view filing charges of unfair labor practices as a very serious move, and one we had all hoped to avoid at our new BANG-EB Unit. We believe our energy is best spent looking forward. We remain committed to working with our managers to discover new business models, promote quality journalism and secure a contract for our newsroom workers. But given the company's actions, we had no choice but to file a ULP.

NEWS RELEASE

Guild asks NLRB to investigate BANG-EB layoffs

Steffens: 'I think they wanted me out of the newsroom'

Media Workers Guild - 15 Jul 2008

The Northern California Media Workers Guild filed unfair labor practice charges Tuesday to protest last Friday's retaliatory firings of organizers and other anti-union actions against the newly formed Bay Area News Group-East Bay unit of the Guild.The union's charges were filed in connection with the layoff of 29 members of the 230-member BANG-EB bargaining unit, which includes the Contra Costa Times and the Oakland Tribune. Among those targeted was Sara Steffens, newly elected chair of the unit and the main Guild organizer in the Walnut Creek newsroom of BANG-EB.

More local news


Sea of solidarity

Sara

Teamsters lead East Bay port rally

Hundreds of Teamster drivers, environmentalists and their labor and political allies in the East Bay joined a march and rally through downtown Oakland to the waterfront demanding "good jobs and clean air."

About 2,500 marchers pressed the case for a "clean trucks" initiative designed to increase use of alternative fuels and improve the pay and benefits of drivers -- classified in many cases as "independent contractors" ineligible for Teamster organizing.  (See story.)

 


 

NEWS OF THE INDUSTRY

NYT Co. profit off 82% in 2Q

The Associated Press - 23 Jul 2008

New York Times Co.'s second-quarter earnings fell 82 percent from a year ago, when it saw a one-time gain from the sale of a unit, but print advertising continued to shrink and pulled down operating income, the publisher said Wednesday.

Cuts needed, Tribune's Zell says, 'so we can survive'

Lorraine Mirabella - The Baltimore Sun - 23 Jul 2008

Real estate mogul Sam Zell, who took control of media giant Tribune Co. about six months ago, defended yesterday the staffing and page cuts under way at The Sun and its other newspapers as necessary in the worst advertising climate in decades.

As papers struggle, news is cut and the focus turns local

Richard Pérez-Peña - The New York Times - 22 Jul 2008

Almost two-thirds of American newspapers publish less foreign news than they did just three years ago, nearly as many print less national news, and despite new demands on newsrooms like blogs and video, most of them have smaller news staffs, according to a new study.

Advertiser workers protest layoffs

Nina Wu - Honolulu Star Bulletin - 22 Jul 2008

Dozens of Honolulu Advertiser workers held signs and rallied on the sidewalk in front of their offices on Kapiolani Boulevard at noon yesterday over the unexpected layoffs of 54 employees.

The new single-digit newspaper stock

Is this the Big Board, or the Dollar Store? Nearly all newspaper stock prices have shrunk to the single-figure level

Mark Fitzgerald - Editor & Publisher - 22 Jul 2008

Two events on the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday seemed to sum up the woeful state of publicly traded newspaper companies.

Sun-Sentinel cutting news staff 20% -- but not reporting it

Joe Strupp - Editor & Publisher - 22 Jul 2008

Just days after The Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel admitted it was cutting 20% of news staff but not reporting it, The Sun-Sentinel of Fort Lauderdale, another Tribune paper, revealed it was reducing staff under a similar plan.

Allentown paper to cut 35-40 jobs, close bureaus -- redesign coming

Editor & Publisher - 22 Jul 2008

The Allentown Morning-Call is the latest paper to release information about Tribune-mandated job cuts and redesign of the daily.

Don't mourn

Editors at the Columbia Journalism Review have launched a new daily feature, "Parting Thoughts," on the review's Web site. We hope you take it as a chance to skip the woe-is-us stuff and declare a new dedication, maybe something along the lines expressed by this Teamster at a rally the other day in Oakland.

Here's how the CJR folks described the project: "The steady drip of layoffs and buyouts slowly desiccating newsrooms around the country has also produced a reservoir of anger, sadness, fear, uncertainty -- even some cautious optimism here and there -- among reporters and editors who invested years of their lives to print journalism only to be invited out of the business. Columbia Journalism Review has asked anyone so inclined to channel their emotions, not into a rant -- although there might be a bit of that -- but rather into a reflection on what went wrong, and  where we might go from here."


After layoffs: Newspapers get smaller, Pew study finds

Mark Fitzgerald - Editor & Publisher - 21 Jul 2008

U.S. daily newspapers aren't shrinking just their newsrooms, an extensive study released Monday finds. Stories, page count, sections, international and national news are all smaller, too -- and only a minority of editors think online journalism will save their papers.


FUTURE OF NEWSPAPERS

Black Thursday in Baltimore

'Save the Sun'

Patrick Smith Photography.blogspot - 19 Jul 2008

A photojournalist's blog in Baltimore reads like an obit may be next for one of this nation's proudest dailies: "Dressed in black, nearly 200 people gathered outside The Baltimore Sun Thursday to protest 100 job cuts at the company. The rally was a show of force that will not affect the outcome of events to come, but that leaders hope demonstrated to the community what it is losing."

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