Hearst Corp. offered its first detailed contract proposal Thursday, four months after bargaining started, suggesting all that members at the Chronicle need is a 1.5 percent pay raise in each of the next three years. The proposed 1.5 percent annual pay raises would generate about $800,000 over the proposed three-year term – barely enough to cover half of each year’s annual deficit in workers' current health care program.

As of Thursday morning, nearly 300  Guild members at The New York Times had signed a letter posted Monday to company executives, saying that 18 months after the union's last contract expired, "we stand at the threshold of crisis.... The company's demands are untenable and destructive." “For us, the most important thing is that you end the era of shriveling compensation. Consider the relief that The Times has already won in these talks... It wasn’t luck or brand legacy that allowed this great institution to make the transition to a digital era during an economic collapse. It was the people of The Times, working seven days a week, around the clock,” the letter states.  Photo: NY Guild President Bill O'Meara speaks at a membership meeting Monday.

"Henry Champ was an absolutely terrific journalist, and in that old fashioned Victorian sense, a gracious gentleman," Bjarnason writes, and his career "spanned the evolution of modern journalism."