Hot Girl Media Summer: Gannett Journalists Stage A Walkout
Could this be the summer of organized labor in media?
Hundreds of journalists staged a walkout on Monday at two dozen local newspapers across the country. Media workers at the Arizona Republic, the Austin American-Statesman, the Bergen Record, the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, and the Palm Beach Post — all local news outfits owned by Gannett — say they are underpaid and overworked, and are taking aim at the company’s chief executive.
The strike is the biggest labor action ever to take place at Gannett, which is also the largest newspaper publisher in the US, and was organized to occur on the same day as the company’s shareholder meeting. The News Guild, representing more than 1,000 Gannett journalists, criticized CEO and board chairman Mike Reed, saying his compensation of $3.4 million in 2022 was too high when newsroom employees are struggling to make ends meet. “Several NewsGuild-CWA members are housing insecure,” the union wrote in a letter sent to Gannett shareholders in May.
“Gannett has created news deserts everywhere you look,” Peter D. Kramer, a reporter for the USA Today Network told the Times. “That’s Mike Reed’s Gannett.”
Joe Strupp, a reporter for the Asbury Park Press in New Jersey tweeted, “We have been negotiating for two years and have seen no valid offer from management.”
Something’s gotta give, right? Media workers at local and national publications, in print and digital media, are feeling the tight squeeze of greedy bosses and diminishing newsrooms. But it’s also an exciting time in media, at least from a labor standpoint.
May the media workers of the world continue to build labor power in what is shaping up to be a summer of writers’ strikes!
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