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Wanted: A website for investigative journos

6/23/2009 3:53:53 PM

From T. DENNIE WILLIAMS, freelance investigative reporter: Isn't it amazing how all those in charge of newspapers, televised and radio news as well as magazines and Internet news sites bemoan the dearth of investigative reporting due to more than a professional recession? Yet none of those publishers, editors, news managers or broadcast or Internet news directors with the resources seems to be interested in creating fair opportunities for freelance investigative reporters!

Thousands of experienced reporters have been bought out or laid off in the past five or more years! Think about the loss of those decades of journalistic experience! How or when will it ever be harnessed again? Isn't that the creative power which intimidates government and corporate corruption on all levels of society? So without it where is the news policing power to help protect the public?

In four years of freelancing after 39 1/2 years of news reporting, I have had some success in moving my investigative stories, mostly into one Internet site, only to be paid pittance for months and months of work (averaging $300 to $400 a story). Meanwhile, I have spent frustrating weeks and months attempting to place my stories with competitors elsewhere.

Either no editor answers emails or phone calls, or when they do, their lack of effort in reading the stories or the suggestions is simply incredible. To top it off and explain themselves, some editors even insult the story or the writer. But afterward the story appears elsewhere on the Internet and spreads to more than a dozen other websites sometimes with enthusiastic commentary from readers.

The editors or news directors are all too busy with their own agendas and their diminutive favorite cadre of handpicked or fame picked reporters that they can't find the time for a freelancer Yet indeed they advertise their sites as welcoming freelance writers.

It has become so notoriously bad a market for experienced freelancers that some laid off and bought out reporters in New Jersey started their own Internet site and are mostly working for FREE!!! Amazing! In the meantime, what are all those media owners, news executives, publishers and editors making?

It's time for a change! Some charitable journalist or media fanatic with the funds and resources needs to start a website promoting investigative freelance reporters nationwide! That site could quite easily create a list of outstanding investigative reporters nationwide - complete with their resumes, special abilities and past stories. It could then attempt to pair those reporters up with news media not only locally, but nationwide, and even internationally. Who is up to this critical task?! If there is no one stepping forward, then this country is in for some prolonged periods of expanded government and corporate corruption WALL TO WALL! [Permalink]

Salon's "stinker"

6/16/2009 4:03:02 PM

From BOB BATEMAN: Full Disclosure: I really like Salon.com. I've been reading them for years. They had a nice article about my last book and the controversy surrounding that work. And hell, I even met my wife on their dating site. So this really does not give me any pleasure...but standards are standards.

Is it just me or did the editors over at Salon.com just let a real stinker get through? Wait, "get through" isn't right, because they actually highlighted the story. It is an alarmist article which essentially recycles the contents of a July 2008 FBI report about racists who have served in the military since 9/11, but does so while hyping the threat and hiding the proverbial �rest of the story.'

The article, by Matt Kennard, is entitled "Neo-Nazis are in the Army now." Essentially what this story boils down to is just some really dysfunctional fear mongering, catering to their target audience, and very selective use of lurid anecdotes (all of which were researched by other people), and a single face-to-face interview with a real live racist. The sloppiness comes in the details, or more specifically the numbers which are skipped by Mr. Kennard, suggesting once again the validity of Twain�s commentary on statistics. At the core of the story is the FBI report that focused on the period since 9/11 and found 203 people who claim prior military service among the morons of the racist movements. Of course, once noting that number Kennard turns up the temperature. As Kennard wrote, "Because the FBI focused only on reported cases, its numbers don't include the many extremist soldiers who have managed to stay off the radar."

Where he got the "many" is open to interpretation, since he does not cite any source for that statement. But, if you follow the link and go read the FBI report, here's the real kicker. That 203 people comes out of a total veteran population of almost 24,000,000. Somehow Kennard never gets around to mentioning that second number.

Moreover, he never notes that it is 203 people who merely claim military service among the hard core racist movements. "Claim" is a significant word in this context. As the many reporters who interviewed Jesse McBride know, it's easy for people to claim military service in order to advance an agenda. In this context, where claiming military experience has a direct social benefit in those twisted organizations for those who do so, it is safe to say that the percentage of those making false claims might be fairly high.

But the bottom line is still the numbers. Let's get this clear: The total reported, uncovered by the FBI, was 203 out of 24,000,000. Somebody want to do the percentages on that please? My calculator does not have enough zeroes. Basically it works out to about one racist out of every 120,000 veterans.

As for Iraq/Afghanistan figures, the FBI report noted that only 17 of those racist veterans claimed that experience. Note again, the significant term is "claimed." (Jesse...?) Not substantiated, just claimed. OK, so 17 out of the roughly 2,000,000 who have served in theater?

Again, how did the editors at Salon.com come to think that this is a serious news story? One racist veteran of Iraq/Afghanistan for every 117,000 people who have served there? The same FBI report states that there are between 10,000 and 15,000 hard-core racists in the country today. Taking the lower estimate, this means that one out of every 30,000 Americans is a hardliner neo-nazi, or roughly five times the rate that can be found in the Armed Forces. (That number would be even higher if you discounted children from the general population figure.) Yes, racists and neo-nazis advocate militaristic behaviors and ape the real military. Yes, some of the racists and neo-nazis would like some of their followers to join the military for the training. But 203 out of 24,000,000 just does not seem like a terribly high rate to me, and certainly not one that would justify a full article. [Permalink]

Full disclosure, please

6/15/2009 5:29:39 PM

From ERIC ALTERMAN: Let me get this straight: Howard Kurtz, who draws a regular paycheck from CNN, but is described in this chat exclusively as a "Washington Post staff writer and columnist" offers the lamest possible defense of CNN, not once but twice, regarding Iran but nowhere in the chat does he bother to inform readers that he is in the pay of the network whose dereliction of duty he sees fit to defend.This is not "the appearance of a conflict of interest." This is an actual conflict-of-interest. This is "Conflict of Interest 101." And yet we are supposed to take seriously his admonitions--and those of his employers--with regard to journalistic ethics of bloggers and other reporters. Excuse me, but I am baffled as to why. [Permalink]

The Sunday Twitter

6/15/2009 5:26:31 PM

From LEON FREILICH: Subject -- NYT.

THE SUBTRACTIONS

"Escapes" is gone along with "City"--

The Times is getting leaner and fitter;

How long before the Sunday paper's

Delivered in the form of a Twitter?

Leon Freilich

[Permalink]

NYT looked bad on "The Daily Show"

6/11/2009 5:40:48 PM

From ROBERT P. LAURENCE, television critic, SanDiego.com: Why DID the Times editors allow the Daily Show into their offices? What did they expect?

All I can think of is that Bill Keller had never seen the show. But he should have made a point of watching it before agreeing to allowing the clowns into the factory. And if he did watch it, and agreed anyway, then there's no explanation.

Remember the old advice against getting into a pissing match with a guy who buys ink by the barrel? Here's one modern corollary: don't expect fair treatment from the comedian who makes the final cut of the tape. [Permalink]

In defense of NYT's Darlin

6/8/2009 12:36:48 PM

From DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Michael Arrington and Jeff Jarvis, respectively lawyer and journalism professor, are in high dudgeon over Damin Darlin's Sunday column, but after reading all three men I cannot find ANY evidence to support the complaints. I do find some straw men, though.

Darlin's article strikes me as a model of rounded, fair journalism and it includes important historical context, which the two critics ignore. If Jarvis, who has some authority on this, wants to write a detailed recitation of why he thinks otherwise that focuses on what Darlin wrote, rather than what Jarvis wishes he had written, that could be informing.

(Disclosures: I have spoken with Jarvis briefly a few times, certainly for more time than I have spent talking to Darlin, whom I could not pick out of a crowd of two, and have read many pieces by both of them; I never heard of Arrington or his website until Darlin's column drew my attention to it because of the smiling photo of Arrington.)

Arrington writes that that Darlin told him he was doing a column "on different ways news organizations approach reporting rumors."

Darlin's column does just that.

Here are words Darlin wrote that both Arrington and Jarvis fail to give fully when context is crucial:

He [Arrington] is at ease, even high-minded, in explaining the decisions to print unverified rumors. Mr. Arrington and the other bloggers see this not as rumor-mongering, but as involving the readers in the reporting process. One mission of his site, he said, is to write about the things a few people are talking about, "the scuttlebutt around Silicon Valley." His blog will often make clear that he's passing along a thinly sourced story.

He did agonize a bit before publishing the post about Twitter and Apple. In fact, he waited five hours. But in the end, he decided, "it was interesting and it didn�t hurt anyone to write about it."

This squares perfectly with Arrington, who in his complaint writes that "If we post something we think is rough, we say so. If we think it's absolutely true, we signal that, too, while protecting our sources." Further, Darlin explains to the NYT reader -- who may not be familiar with the inside baseball of verification standards and their evolution -- the point of view of Arrington and others who share his view.

There is no condemnation in what Darlin wrote, just description, contrary to Arrington's assertion that the piece was an "attack."

The notion that this was an attack is absurd. And the suggestion that the NYT is so petty that is singled out Arrington's website for this imagined attack suggests that Arrington's real problem is finding a hat of such immense proportion that it will fit.

That Arrington choose to report something that he did not believe was true is a worthy subject in any examination of journalism in any medium. Arrington does not dispute this. This is also the very issue that Darlin told Arrington he was writing about.

Nowhere does Arrington deny the key words Darlin wrote concerning two posts (at Gawker and TechCrunch) by people who "suspected the rumor was groundless when they wrote the items."

If that was all that Darlin wrote I would join Arrington and Jarvis in their criticism. But Darlin went on to give context and explanation about different attitudes on when to publish, including whether posting an item one suspects is untrue can be valuable if it provokes debate and does not harm. That, too, is a topic that NYT readers may now be discussing thanks to Darlin.

Equally meritless is the assertion, mostly by Jarvis, that Darlin was holding anyone else to the standards of his newspaper (or, for that matter, any quality newspaper). Jarvis writes of evolving, rather than fixed standard. Darlin does, too, including quoting Professor W. Joseph Campbell. Darlin described standards, different standards, and gave them context.

Finally, Darlin ends on a note that -- contrary to being an attack -- suggests sympathy for the blogger views on posting the unverified. I read Darlin's closing as encouraging readers to think about how traditional quality newspaper verification standards can become so calcified that their journalism can end up being little more than regurgitating the official version of events drawn from press releases. [Permalink]

A lot of envy

5/26/2009 6:32:31 PM

From JOHN MAGGS: Subject: Tom Friedman Angst. We're an envious breed. Reporters are envious of columnists, editors and domestic reporters are envious of those who get to travel overseas. We're envious of other journalists who get more recognition, more acclaim, and more Pulitzers. We're envious of someone who publishes a book, especially when it is well-received, and more than especially when it earns millions of dollars for the author. Perhaps the envy is compounded if we think that the fabulously successful books and poorly written and glibly shallow.

We are also envious of anyone, anywhere who is rich, especially those who married into it, and especially when those who married into it also happen to be so fabulously successful that their work alone earns another fortune. And finally, we are envious of anyone who is so confident and successful and insulated from the cares of the world that he seemingly wouldn't know or care whether a single speech was going to earn $75,000.

Direct all this envy at one person, and that's a lot of envy. [Permalink]

Too much back-scratching

5/19/2009 4:13:28 PM

From GENE KRZYZYNSKI: If David Gregory is wondering why the audience of "Meet the Press" has eroded to below 3 million, he might consider putting himself in an outside-the-Beltway viewer's shoes and rewatching Sunday's round-table segment.

The panel was all white, mostly middle-aged male and uniformly dyed-in-the-wool establishment. Pretty much par for the course. But what made this installment especially grating was the repetitious plugola for one middle-aged white male's new book and for another's newly redesigned magazine that just so happens to be rolling out (punctuated by a show-and-tell of a front-page newspaper profile from Manhattan). Back-scratching is indeed a familiar sound on Sunday mornings, but does it have to be so loud?

The fact that media elites are full of themselves as celebrities and marketers is neither new nor likely to change. What could change, though, are the demographics and dynamics of a format in which they feel compelled to put it on such blatant display. [Permalink]

NPR says Voice story about film critic is wrong

5/13/2009 10:06:56 AM

From ANNA CHRISTOPHER, NPR media relations: The Village Voice piece that you're linking to is full of inaccuracies. Bad reporting (or a complete lack of reporting) has turned this story into one about NPR's supposed ill treatment of Nathan Lee, which is completely fabricated.

If you're curious, the parts of the Village Voice's article that are completely untrue:

--NPR sent Nathan Lee the edited text of his review prior to publication, and he agreed to the edits.

--NPR also gave Nathan the option to not publish the review, or to publish the review as edited (without the names). He would be paid in full either way. Because he believed the issues the film raises are important ones, Nathan agreed the best course would be to remove the names and publish his review. He requested that his byline by removed, and a note be added explaining the absence of the byline.

--Nathan's byline was removed by NPR at his request, prior to publication of the article on Friday. The article was posted to the NPR.org homepage where it remained for many days.

--NPR removed Nathan's comment to NPR.org only after speaking with him, and with his explicit approval. Nathan agreed that his comment, which named the names edited out of the review, broke NPR's previous agreement with him and ran counter to the NPR policy in question. At that time, NPR offered, again, to take down the review, which he declined. [Permalink]

Annual DC insanity

5/12/2009 4:15:42 PM

From BILL COOKE: If anyone in the Washington media is interested, here's a view - albeit naive - from the edge of the Everglades of the White House Correspondents Dinner.

A bunch of highly paid and self important journalists attend a dinner where they know "the food is widely regarded as bad," according to Howard Kurtz.

They listen to the president read jokes he didn't write.

And listen to a comedian they know will make them squirm in their seats; and that many attendees will have to apologize for the next day on cable shows.

All who attend know these things will happen because they endure this sort of thing year in and year out.

Einstein once defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

And last, I am reminded of an interview I saw years ago with a journalist - whose name escapes me - who covered the Supreme Court for the Baltimore Sun. He said he wouldn't even go to a dinner party if he knew someone he covered was going to be there. [Permalink]

Bravo to the Newhouses, but...

5/8/2009 1:20:12 PM

From DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: The difference between skilled management that applies a scalpel with care when cutting is necessary, and managements that wield meat axes, is shown by the memo from George Arwady, publisher of the Newark Star-Ledger. Arwady he instituted what might be called progressive pay cuts -- 5 percent of the first $40,000, 10 percent of the next $40,000 and 15 percent above that.

Bravo to the Newhouses, who own the Star-Ledger, for keeping their heads in this crisis and acting thoughtfully.

The only question is why the progressive pay cut structure did not continue, but topped out at $80,000.

For a publisher making, say $400,000 per year the pay cut would be
$48,000 or 13.5%, but if just one more tier were added, 20 percent on
salaries above $120,000 then the pay cut for a $400,000 job would be
$68,000 or 17.5 percent.

Still, other publishers, as well as Guild and other worker leaders, should take note of how this Newhouse newspaper designed these cuts, which will be more effective than across-the-board cuts if they minimize damage to worker morale and thus encourage optimal productivity.

Journalists should also note how deep the health care cost cuts are, which are not proportional to salary.

The $80.11 per week charge for a quarter of family health insurance
coverage translates into $16,663 a year for the total plan. That means
a $40,000 salary costs 41 percent more than that when health care costs paid by the employer are added. In Canada and Europe health care costs far less because it is provided through more efficient, universal models that treat health care just as we do public education, law enforcement, local roads and fire fighting -- as societal costs.

On the theory that news is what happens to an editor, perhaps one benefit to the loss of jobs, pay cuts and reductions in health care benefits will be penetrating coverage of the economiucs of health care instead of the namby-pamby superficiality endemic to health care reportage.

And bravo, George Arwady, for imposing progressive wage cuts. [Permalink]

Virgin Mary image is comforting to one journalist

5/6/2009 3:09:54 PM

From JONATHAN TILOVE: I used to be a regular reader, but quit last year when the news got so unrelievedly grim.

I have never written you before

But that was before I saw the Virgin Mary.

I have been a reporter for more than 30 years, most of them at the Newhouse bureau in Washington. When they announced last year they were closing, I was rescued by The Times Picayune, which took me on board as a second Washington correspondent. In November, when the Newhouse bureau shut its doors, four of us - survivors from Newhouse - moved into some empty cubicles in the Cox bureau on Capitol Hill, a beautiful office with a lot of extra space. Within weeks of arriving, Cox announced it would be closing its Washington bureau in the spring.

Last week, the four of us, like hermit crabs, moved into empty cubicles in another beautiful newspaper office in Metro Center, subletting space from Hearst Newspapers, which sublets from McClatchy, which took over the office when it bought Knight Ridder.

On Monday evening, May 4, I went back to the Cox office to pack the rest of my boxes and clean out my cubicle. And there it was, on my desk, a coffee stain in the image of the Virgin Mary.

I was a little surprised. Why me? I'm Jewish.

But I have some ideas why I might have been chosen.

* My wife's uncle, the holiest man I ever knew, was a Roman Catholic bishop with a special devotion to Mary.

* Our house has its share of Mary art.

* My wife (who lost her job when Newhouse closed) and I visited Fatima on our honeymoon to Portugal. We stayed an extra day because we were so fascinated by the scenes of devotion, and, for me, a collector of odd postcards, a treasure trove to choose from, including a priceless 3-D twitching Jesus.

* I write for New Orleans, which no doubt would appeal to Mary on all kinds of levels.

* Perhaps, most crucially, I provided the medium for the appearance of the coffee-stain Madonna by allowing the remains of a cup of coffee to slowly leak out of a paper cup and then only casually blotting up the spill with an old notebook.

I am still not sure what it means, but I confess that amid all the layoffs and furloughs and forced relocations, seeing the image comforted me. As it has been written, "When I find myself in times of trouble, mother Mary comes to me ..." [Permalink]

Subject: The often-late NYT

5/6/2009 11:36:06 AM

From ROBERT P. LAURENCE, TV critic, SanDiego.com: Having lived in Brooklyn for a year now after moving from San Diego, I can testify to one thing wrong with the New York Times. I guess this is old news to longtime New Yorkers and past complaining about, but to me it's striking every day. The Times is not committed to covering what happens in New York today.

We take the Times at home, and I buy the Daily News two or three times a week at our local bodega. And almost every day, the News has a local story the Times has missed, and may or may not catch up with in the next two or three days. Sometimes it takes a week or more, when the Times, having missed the event itself, gets around to writing a think piece on the meaning of it all.

Just two examples this week illustrate the point. Sunday at Madison Square Garden, Bruce Springsteen and several other musicians celebrated Pete Seeger's 90th birthday. The News ran the story with a picture on Monday morning. The Times ran it Tuesday.

Monday night, the Yankees-Red Sox game was postponed 90 minutes or so by rain. Several hundred fans were told by Yankee Stadium people that the game was canceled, so they left the Stadium. Then they learned the game was being played, but because of the stadium's no-return policy, they couldn't get back in. The News had the story in detail, with interviews with the people and pictures, Tuesday morning. The Times story ran Wednesday, relying not on interviews from the scene but on e-mail messages it had received later from fans.

I know, I know, the events happened too late to make deadline. Then fix the deadlines. [Permalink]

Conventional PR won't work for the Times

5/6/2009 11:25:09 AM

From TREVOR BUTTERWORTH: Hell's bells, Catherine Mathis, a "charm offensive" is not going to work on hacks. Nor, for that matter, will a posse of cutesy labrador puppies, all running from ye olde corner store with a copies of the Times in their teensy, tiny mouths to an array of happy, diverse, breakfasting families, do the trick.

Forget conventional PR! If some bratty journalist gives you a whack, whack back with obscene, jaw dropping disproportion: knee him in the groin, pull what's left of his hair out, tell him he writes in cliches, and misuses the semicolon, and stomp on his iPhone! A hack is like a bully, and charming a bully is a bit like reasoning with a psychopath or writing a novel on twitter. For the tough cases, go Dada. Hire a team of actors, in full costume, to follow Michael Wolff as if he's Robin Hood and they're his merry men. Have them camp outside his house. For a week. The less sense it makes, the more unnerving and annoying it will be. Promise Wolff that every time he says something unfair about the Times, you'll dream up some fiendishly absurd way to punish him. He'll get the message *eventually* (and you might get a movie deal).

My point is, defending the brand means exacting respect, and that will come from fear not charm. Reporters should hear the dread words "Catherine Mathis on the phone for you" and quiver, much in the same way as Bertie Wooster did on hearing the name of Aunt Agatha, "the one who chews broken bottles and kills rats with her teeth." [Permalink]

Journalism isn't dead

5/4/2009 8:39:34 AM

From SEAN SCULLY: RE: Charlie Munger. You know, three weeks ago, I would have agreed with Charlie Munger, that newspapers were dead and nothing that could replace them would be half as good. I watched as my old friends and colleagues at Media General were bumped off en mass, and I though That's it, journalism is dead. But I have decided I am wrong. Maybe newspapers are dead (and this makes me sad), but how long must journalists be tied to the delivery vehicle? How is it that a dead industry can produce an IRE award for Voice of San Diego? A Pulitzer for Politifact? Newspapers had a great run, half a millennium, which is pretty much astonishing, but the death of the broadsheet daily - or the glossy magazine, or the 6 p.m newscast - doesn't mean that journalism is dead. It's only as dead as our lazy, unimaginative behinds let it be dead. You want to see something that's just as good as a newspaper? We can do it - this is not rocket science, people. We know how to do the journalism, whatever the platform we deliver it in. You've got the money, we've got the journalism talent. Call me, Charlie - we'll do lunch. [Permalink]

The Buffett Academy of Expensive Ideas

4/24/2009 4:32:52 PM

From JOHN MAGGS: Alex Jones' proposal has given me an idea. To make an historic contribution to democracy, I propose that Warren Buffett peel off a couple billion dollar notes from that billfold of his and endow a new institution of educators and thinkers and forward-looking gurus whose sole purpose will be to generate ideas for how billionaires should best spend their money. It has become obvious to me that the nation suffers from a deficit of sensible thinking on this point. For example, a number of proposals have been made for billionaires to make a strategic investment in individual, money-losing newspapers, a sunset industry in the digital age. After squandering decades and milking their customers for 20 percent profit margins, newspapers that failed to reinvent themselves will be preserved in amber, just fine the way they are. An even better idea would be to lavish a couple billion on one of the only news outlet that doesn't seem threatened by the news media depression -- The News Hour. It is a great show, and PBS would cut the legs off of Barney before it ever let it fail. Government which bankrolls public television certainly won't either -- it is the only chance for subcommittee chairmen and OMB propeller-heads to get on televison. Instead, lets put all that money to work thinking up some really good ideas at, well... let's call in the Buffett Academy of Expensive Ideas. I volunteer to be the first dean. [Permalink]

Hey, this is show biz!

4/22/2009 6:11:27 PM

From ELON GREEN: Subject -- A Peter Kaplan memory. For my first few bylines as an Observer staffer, I chose to include my middle name. It was not as pithy as Jennifer 8. Lee's, but, I reasoned, it was distinctive.

This lasted for several weeks, until I was called into Peter Kaplan's office and told that the byline was unacceptably cumbersome.

"Kid," said Peter, "this is not a bar mitzvah invitation. It's show business."

Thereafter I used the initial.

--Elon R. Green

[Permalink]

Misunderstood issue

4/17/2009 1:56:01 PM

From ROBERT A. JORDAN: retired Boston Newspaper Guild president: Of all the issues involving the New York Times' recent threat to shut down the Boston Globe unless the 13 unions at the newspaper agree to $20 million in concessions � including $10 million from its largest union, the Boston Newspaper Guild -- perhaps nothing has been more misunderstood, or more misrepresented, than the "lifetime job guarantee" held by a number of veteran employees at the Globe.

Contrary to many media reports and readers' views, the "lifetime job guarantee" has not been a privilege or a "perk" for some Guild union leaders and a group of higher-salaried employees in the Guild unit. Rather, it was among several important agreements reached 16 years ago after more than three years of difficult, often contentious, negotiations between Globe management and the Boston Newspaper Guild (then the Boston Globe Employees Association). Nor is it, as some reports have mockingly described, "The Book of Life."

In addition, the job guarantee in the 1993 contractual agreement, which replaced the more inclusive No Layoff clause for all full-time employees, was given only to all full-time employees (nearly 700) hired prior to Jan. 1, 1992 -- including custodians, security guards, clerks, messengers and other blue-collar workers as well as employees in editorial, advertising, and business.

Today, after years of retirements, buyouts, and other reasons for leaving the Globe, the number of employees with the job guarantee has been reduced today to a reported 170 full-time employees among 700 current employees in the unit.

When the Globe came to the bargaining table at the opening of contract negotiations in late 1990, one of its first key demands was to rescind the No Layoff clause that had been in the contract since the 1980s. This demand caused much concern and fear among more than 1,200 blue-and white-collar employees, most of them with good or excellent work records, who suddenly felt they were facing layoffs despite the Globe�s strong profitability during those years. /CONTINUED

Misunderstood issue

4/17/2009 1:54:27 PM

As President and Chief Negotiator of the Guild unit when the Lifetime Job Guarantee, among other key issues, was negotiated, I can bear witness that these fears did not begin with the Globe's demand that the contract's No Layoff clause be removed.

A few weeks earlier, Globe management filed a Unit Clarification Petition with the National Labor Relations Board, seeking to exempt, or remove, 25 unit positions affecting more than 130 employees from union jurisdiction, creating concerns among these employees that they would be without job protection and thus subject to layoffs at the whim of management. With this move, which many both within and outside the Guild saw as a direct assault on the Union, the Guild unit�s leadership and its members quickly realized that the upcoming negotiations would be for much more than a fair and reasonable contract. It would be a battle to save hundreds of jobs, and perhaps save the Union itself.

There was also a strong rumor throughout the Globe during these negotiations that the Globe wanted to get rid of the No Layoff clause and reduce labor costs to make the newspaper �more saleable� to a potential buyer. Despite the Globe's denials, the rumor continued to grow.

In fact, during the last year of these intense negotiations, Globe management called a meeting of the Unions to announce that the New York Times and the Boston Globe had reached a "merger" agreement that would not significantly impact either newspaper�s operations. Of course, several weeks later in 1993, the rumor became fact: The New York Times had purchased the Globe for $1.1 billion. This announcement, after strong Globe denials, served to increase the Union�s distrust of the Globe at the bargaining table.

Nonetheless, the more than three-year battle resulted in a tentative agreement at the end of 1993 that the union membership ratified in early 1994. The "lifetime job guarantee", under which all full-time employees can still be discharged for just cause, was the Globe's compromise offer to the Union as a replacement for the No Layoff clause for all full-time employees that had been in the contract at least since the 1980s. But this issue was only part of the epochal history of these negotiations. /CONTINUED

Misunderstood issue

4/17/2009 1:53:21 PM

Under this contract, ratified by the Guild's membership in early 1994, the Guild unit agreed to the Globe's proposal to replace the No Layoff Clause, which originally covered all full-time hires at the newspaper, with the "lifetime job guarantee", given only to all full-time employees hired before January 1, 1992, (which numbered nearly 700 full-time Guild unit employees out of 1,200 full-time and part-time employees). Of course, the Union had to fight for more than a year to improve the Globe's original job guarantee proposal to the point where it gave adequate job security to all pre-1992 full-time hires.

The Guild unit, while working out an acceptable job guarantee list, had agreed after many bargaining sessions, to at least two other high priority Globe demands, which gave the company the right to implement:
A two-tier wage system, under which all new full-time and part-time employees in the advertising and business areas would be hired under a lower wage scale.

A new subcontracting agreement which allowed the Globe to outsource non-editorial functions in the bargaining unit that would be more expensive than purchasing these functions outside the Globe, provided no person would be displaced as a direct result of such subcontracting.

The Guild unit also agreed to a number of smaller Globe demands in exchange for more contributions to the joint Taft-Hartley health fund for full-time employees in the Guild unit. (Health benefits for part-time workers were achieved in the next contract.)

At the beginning of these negotiations, it became clear that the Globe wanted to change virtually every page of the contract that expired a few months earlier. But in the end, despite strong doubts on both sides early in the process, a collective bargaining agreement was finally reached, and the issue of unilaterally attempting to 130 employees from union jurisdiction was resolved. In essence, this battle for a fair and reasonable contract shows that the job guarantee was won the old-fashioned way � the Union earned it.

Today, more than 16 years later, the issue of the lifetime job guarantee, along with seniority and other contractual agreements, is again at the forefront of a bitter dispute, this one between the New York Times and the Globe unions. Unless the unions give up $20 million ($10 million from the Guild unit) in concessions, including removal of the lifetime job guarantees and giving up all seniority regarding layoffs, the New York Times vowed to shut down the Globe operation.

Although a potential shutdown of the Globe was very remote back in 1993, when it was showing a strong profit, the Globe and the Guild unit toward the end of its contract talks agreed to the following language, just in case:

"In the event of a dramatic and apparently irreversible downturn in the Globe�s business, the parties will meet to discuss what reductions, if any, are necessary to the no-layoff list." The language goes on to say that these discussions may include Union proposals of alternatives to the no-layoff clause to reduce labor costs other than through reduction of the no-layoff list. Absent an agreement, arbitration was to be the next step to resolving the issue.

Of course, given the New York Times' current threat to shut down the Globe in 30 days unless the involved unions agree to its demands, the Globe�s owners have virtually ignored this contractual effort to amicably resolve such conflicts. Ironically, as these harsh demands are made, rumors persist that the Times is trying to sell the fiscally bleeding Globe, a reminder of the early 1990s sale rumors during the Globe�s concession demands.

Perhaps the Globe's owners in New York can look back 16 years and realize that even the most difficult issues, as this one certainly is, can be resolved to everyone�s benefit. That is, if they come to the table bringing not threats, but good ideas, and a resolve to work with, and not against, the Unions to save the livelihoods of many loyal hard-working employees who are still trying to put out a newspaper in a building shaking from a fiscal earthquake they did not create. [Permalink]

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