Digital First Media Workers

UPDATE: At least two other DFM papers laid off workers this week: the Denver Post announced the layoffs of four Guild-covered employees and at least two managers in inside circulation, while the East Bay Times — whose staff was recently hit with layoffs days after winning the Pulitzer Prize — has laid off two advertising employees.

MONTEREY — The Monterey Herald laid off three news workers Wednesday, leaving an already minimally staffed newsroom stripped to bare bones.

The layoffs come just weeks after The Herald’s staff won five awards and two honorable mentions from the California News Publishers Association for environmental and business reporting, writing, photo illustration and best front pages.

The workers — two longtime newsroom employees and the paper’s obituary clerk — were given two weeks’ notice.

Continue reading “More awards, more layoffs” →

Evan Brandt’s calling

“When I miss a meeting, these days most often due to a threadbare staff, officials literally say ‘The Mercury’s not here, what should we get done?’” —Evan Brandt, reporter at the Pottstown (Pa.) Mercury

November will mark the 20 years since Evan Brandt came to Pottstown, Pennsylvania.

It was November, 1997 when he was hired as a reporter for The Mercury, the smallest circulation daily ever to win two Pulitzer Prizes.

Both Pulitzers were awarded long before Brandt arrived in this economically hobbled rust belt town on the banks of the Schuylkill River, but it does indicate the quality and initiative of the newsroom he joined — at least at the time.

Continue reading “Keeping democracy alive in a rust belt town” →

By JULIE REYNOLDS

In my first week at a new reporting job in 2004, I received a shock while covering a city council meeting in Pacific Grove, California. The city was unveiling a proposed low-income housing plan. The stunning part came when I realized I actually qualified under the salary my newspaper was paying me. I, a college-educated professional working full time, was officially “low income.”

Things haven’t gotten any better for my colleagues in the news business.

A new report by an online rental listing service says that as journalists’ wages have fallen, rents have “increased steadily.” The report, published in the “Rentonomics” section of ApartmentList.com, looked at 10 years of Bureau of Labor Statistics and U.S. Census data, from 2005-2015.

Continue reading “Why we fight” →

NewsGuild units representing 1,500 news workers across the country marked May 3, World Press Freedom Day, with coordinated actions between Digital First Media and Gatehouse Media union members. The actions, which included rallies and displaying desk tent signs and banners, aimed to raise awareness of the growing threat that “vulture” hedge funds pose for the nation’s community newspapers. Union leaders say the newspaper owners’ excessive profiteering threatens journalism at a critical time of politicized attacks on the news media.

Continue reading “A mosaic of solidarity for Press Freedom” →

NEWS RELEASE: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
APRIL 28, 2017

CONTACT: BERNIE LUNZER
PRESIDENT, THE NEWSGUILD-CWA
(202) 434-7175

WASHINGTON, D.C. (April 28, 2017) — A broad coalition of 1,500 unionized news workers will conduct a joint day of action on May 3 — World Press Freedom Day — as part of a national campaign to protest the corporate-led assault on quality journalism.

The coordinated effort by NewsGuild members will span 29 newspapers owned by GateHouse Media and Digital First Media. It will support the fight for quality journalism at those papers and highlight the damage wrought by draconian cuts in their newsrooms and other departments. Continue reading “Guild workers at Digital First Media and GateHouse Media stand together against profiteering owners on World Press Freedom Day, May 3” →

Digital First Media rewards prize-winning work with layoffs

SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA — Digital First Media, owner of the Bay Area News Group, plans to move copy desk work to Southern California, triggering 20 more layoffs from a shrunken roster of 92 Guild-represented employees in the East Bay.

The announcement came only a week after the East Bay news staff was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for “relentless” breaking news coverage of the deadly Ghost Ship warehouse fire in Oakland.

Continue reading “The price of a Pulitzer” →

Financial managers at Alden Global Capital didn’t need to go far when searching for a place to park a few hundred million dollars of pension funds held on behalf of news workers at The Mercury News and Denver Post.

In fact, the fund managers decided the best choice was right in front of them: They invested the San Jose and Denver pension dollars in high-risk hedge funds controlled by their own company.

Continue reading “Newspaper chain DFM invests millions of pension dollars with its hedge-fund owner” →