Reporter Melinda Henneberger writes about the touching realism of the Broadway play, "Lucky Guy," about the late tabloid columnist Mike McAlary, and what it says about the value of print journalism. "There is no substitute for knocking on doors. There is no substitute for taking tips seriously....
Hyatt housekeepers are leading a fight against President Obama's nominee for Commerce Secretary, Penn Pritzker. The longtime member of the Hyatt board and heir to the Hyatt fortune, she has "exhibited a broad pattern of labor abuses, including aggressive outsourcing, low wages and the...
The Guild has added its name to supporters of a bipartisan federal shield law bill introduced last week in the U.S. House and promoted during a news conference Wednesday on Capitol Hill. Addressing the secret seizure of AP reporters' phone records, Guild President Bernie Lunzer said, "We are...
The AFL-CIO-Union Plus Dreams of Jobs and Freedom Scholarship is funded by the AFL-CIO and its member unions to help graduating high school seniors realize their dreams of a college education. The scholarships honor the 50th anniversary (Aug. 28) of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom,...
Sue Ogrocki, an Associated Press photographer in Oklahoma and a Guild member, was at Plaza Towers Elementary School on Monday as children were rescued."Parents and neighborhood volunteers stood in a line and passed the rescued children from one set of arms to another, carrying them out of harm's...
After nearly five months of negotiations, the Guild bargaining team has reached a tentative contract with the Seattle Times that includes a 1.5 percent wage increase next year and a lump-sum bonus in 2015. A vote is expected within two weeks; the bargaining team is unanimously recommending...
Outrage over the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of Tea Party and other right-wing groups continues to boil -- yet a potentially more consequential IRS practice has scarcely gained any attention. Over the past few years the IRS has virtually stopped approving 501(c)(3) status for nonprofit news organizations. Given the well-documented decline of traditional for-profit newspapers, nonprofit journalism can be a vital alternative, especially at the local and regional levels. But even when applications for 501(c)(3) status aren't rejected outright, they are stacking up, unacted upon, for months and even years.
Google unveiled a new Google Maps on Wednesday, by far the biggest redesign since it introduced Maps eight years ago. The maps have a cleaner, more intuitive layout. When users who are logged into Google visit Maps, they will see the places they frequently visit highlighted, like restaurants, museums and their home. As the Times puts it, "Like many of Google’s new announcements, the service hovers over the line between useful and creepy."
After a month of fact-gathering, the Chicago Newspaper Guild has filed two unfair labor practice charges against Wrapports because of its recent removal from the Sun-Times bargaining unit of two of the three Sun-Times staffers on the Guild’s negotiating committee.
Nick Katz, a member of the Chicago Newspaper Guild and reporter at the Pioneer Press, died last week in his sleep at age 62. "We were union brothers, devoted Guild members who shared a strong belief that employees should be treated fairly by employers," writes friend Mike Isaacs. "Nick used to tell me of his earlier days working at a factory, when 'union' was a dirty word and when employees were treated as mere cogs in a wheel."
The Bangladesh Cabinet has approved a change to the nation’s labor laws that it says would enable workers to more freely form unions. The proposal, which must be approved by Parliament, would allow workers to join unions without showing the list of union supporters to factory owners to verify their employment. That practice effectively makes it impossible for unions to gather sufficient support to register with the government because factory owners often penalize or fire workers who support unionization.
Poynter reports on "a growing trend among departments to use social media proactively, contacting journalists before they call the cops — though some reporters have worried about cops building their own newsrooms. Online efforts by the police were front and center in news coverage of recent events in Cleveland, Boston and Seattle, making this a good time to look at how such initiatives have affected newsgathering."
Seeking to tamp down “noise” over the possible sale of its newspapers, Tribune Co. CEO Peter Liguori has sent an email to employees Wednesday calling speculation about a transaction premature. “A sale transaction is only one of our possible strategic options, and there are many others,” Liguori said. Some 40 parties have expressed interest in acquiring some or all of Tribune Co.’s newspapers, according to sources close to the situation.
The vast majority of newsroom employees in the Rockford (Illinois) Register Star newsroom have signed authorization cards seeking representation from the United Media Guild. The UMG has asked Register Star to recognize the union and begin collective bargaining, but expects that owner Gatehouse Media will opt for a National Labor Relations Board election this summer.
