Today's Top Stories

Check Out ROC's 2013 Diners' Guide to Ethical Restaurants

It's here: The (Guild-represented) Restaurant Opportunities Centers United's annual guide to eating out ethically, telling you which restaurants are doing a lousy job with pay and benefits and which ones are worth your support as a diner. The guide looks at 150 of America's most popular...

Solidarity Works! Fired Cablevision Workers Reinstated

All but one of the 22 CWA members at Brooklyn Cablevision who were fired in January are back on the job. Through email, Facebook, petitions and rallies, more than 100,000 people showed their support for the workers, who have been trying for the last year to negotiate a fair contract after an...

Unions Happy With Obama's Choice for Labor Secretary

From CWA to Jobs with Justice, labor organizations are applauding President Obama's choice of Tom Perez to head the U.S. Department of Labor. In a statement Monday, CWA called him an "inspired choice" whose "experience reflects a fervent devotion to working families." Official White House photo...

Petition: Stop California's Fee-for-Records Bill in Its Infancy

California's Administrative Office of the Courts has written a bill that imposes a $10 fee each time someone requests a court file -- a fee that would also apply to journalists, who regularly request dozens of such documents as part of ordinary beat reporting. Public records already are prepared...

Pew State of the News Media 2013: Challenges Intensify

Here's the good news out of Pew's 2013 report on the state of the news media: newspaper circulation is hodling steady, and even growing on Sundays. But the bad news is that, “There are more signs than ever that the reduced reporting power in the news industry is having an effect and may weaken...

Albany: Without Us, New Press Would Print Blank Pages

The Newspaper Guild of Albany is thrilled about the new press that will display our work like never before. We congratulate the Hearst Corp. for making this major investment at a time when many others are abandoning daily delivery. At the same time, the Hearst Corp. has not shown a similar...

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CJR Column Mentions The Simpsons

A second look at SEO

Karen Stabiner — March 3, 2011 — Columbia Journalism Review

In the beginning was the word -- and the headline writer, who worshipped at the church of the active verb alongside the layout artist, who defined the significance of a piece based on where it sat on the page. In the end, or what seems like it to some journalists, there is search engine optimization, which redefines what matters based on a set of Google algorithms.

Was Helen Thomas Too Old to Speak Her Mind?

Society of Professional Journalists beset by internal strife stemming from Helen Thomas snub

Michael Miner — March 3, 2011 — Chicago Reader

Old age is a shipwreck, said Charles de Gaulle. And if Helen Thomas, 90, has hit the shoals, so has the Society of Professional Journalists, the 101-year-old organization to which she belonged until she resigned in anger and anguish in January. Journalists like to think they're better than a lot of other people, but they act just like everyone else when their only response to criticism is to circle the wagons.

Torstar reports higher profits and revenues

Madhavi Acharya-Tom Yew — March 2, 2011 — Toronto Star

Torstar Corp., publisher of the Toronto Star, reported higher profit and revenues in the final three months of 2010, driven by growth in media operations and ongoing efforts to control costs. Torstarâ€™s revenue was $416.1 million for the three months ended Dec. 31, up 5.4% from the fourth quarter of 2009. Pre-tax earnings for the fourth quarter were $71.5 million, up $1.9 million from the year-earlier period.

Why Isn't Obama Standing With Protesters in Wisconsin?

Rose Ann DeMoro — March 2, 2011 — AlterNet

Many of us recall the pledge made by candidate Barack Obama in Spartanburg, S.C. on November 3, 2007 when he declared: â€œUnderstand this. If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain, when Iâ€™m in the White House, Iâ€™ll put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself. Iâ€™ll walk on that picket line with you as President of the United States because Americans deserve to know that somebody is standing in their corner.â€ Weâ€™re waiting.

Collective bargaining a human right

State proposals violate international labour laws.

— March 2, 2011 — Human Rights Watch

Proposals in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, and other states to strip public workers of collective bargaining rights violate international labor rights standards, according to Human Rights Watch, which points out that international law on the right to bargain collectively applies in both private and public workplaces. Collective bargaining is recognized as an international human right and has been endorsed by the U.S.

How Democrats Can Become Relevant Again

Robert Reich — March 2, 2011 — http://robertreich.org/post/3591689800

Republicans offered Democrats two more weeks before the doomsday shut-down. Democrats countered with four. Republicans held their ground. Democrats agreed to two. This is what passes for compromise in our nation's capital. Democrats have become irrelevant. If they want to be relevant again they have to address the explosion of income and wealth among America's super-rich and the dramatic drop in their tax rates.

The Liberal Media Strikes Again

William Rivers Pitt — March 2, 2011 — truthout

The events that have been unfolding in Wisconsin, culminating in this past weekend's national displays of support and capitol showdown, stand tall among the most remarkable popular uprisings in modern American history -- so, of course, the liberal "news" media have taken a complete pass on covering it. The sun came up on Monday morning to find every TV "news" network, as well as every newspaper outside of Madison, covering the Oscars wall-to-wall with nary a mention of Wisconsin.

On Strike from the Huffington Post

Bill Lasarow — March 2, 2011 — visual art source

When we were invited to become a Huffington Post blogger last year I understood that the company paid nothing. Yet we are now going on strike. For now, at least, no more content from us will appear on the Huffington Post until two demands are met: first, a pay schedule must be proposed and steps initiated to implement it for all contributing writers and bloggers. Second, paid promotional material must no longer be posted alongside editorial content.

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