Two longtime and beloved NewsGuild staff reps retired in 2015 -- Jim Schaufenbil earlier this year and more recently Bruce Nelson. The winter edition of The Guild Reporter offers tributes to them from Guild members and colleagues, memories that had to be edited for space. ...
In a column written for the winter edition of The Guild Reporter, TNG-CWA President Bernie Lunzer takes a look back at 2015 and ahead to 2016, reviewing bargaining, organizing, movement-building and issues of staff and funding. Overall, he is optimistic, pointing to new hires, a strong focus on...
Guild members in Springfield, Illinois, delivered a letter this week to the publisher of The State Journal-Register, telling her politely but firmly that the union is ...
When you picture the person leading contract negotiations for the Newspaper Guild at a 180-year-old Midwestern publication, Nolan Rosenkrans probably isn’t who comes to mind. Rosenkrans is an accomplished education reporter at the Toledo Blade, the president of the local Guild unit, and the co-...
Like many other U.S. corporations, the owners of El Vocero newspaper in Puerto Rico, used bankruptcy as a tactic to try to shed their union and other obligations. But this time, the National Labor Relations Board slammed on the brakes. NLRB Regional Director Margaret Diaz agreed with UPAGRA, the...
In July, after negotiating a new contract with the Philadelphia Guild, Gerry Lenfest, the philanthropist who owns the Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com, celebrated by passing out $1,000 bonuses to his employees. This week, the company announced it's cutting 46 newsroom jobs. What the hell...
U.S. journalists trying to interview Sheldon Adelson about his purchase of the Las Vegas Review-Journal have been met with silence, but a reporter for the Macau Daily Times had no trouble getting in touch with the billionaire casino mogul to discuss his business designs for the Chinese peninsula. During the discussion, touted as an “exclusive interview at a presidential suite” on the 37th floor of St Regis Macao, Adelson downplayed his involvement with his family’s recent purchase of the Las Vegas Review-Journal: "You don’t tell your children what to do, I can’t tell my children what to do. They wanted to buy the newspaper, so they bought the newspaper. I don’t have anything to do with it, I have no financial interest. My money that the children have with which to buy the newspaper is their inheritance. I don’t want to spend money on a newspaper."
Executives at New Media Investment Group (or Gatehouse, its legacy name and the name by which it is still referred to in the industry, given the generic new moniker it picked) can be accurately described as “horrified” — thankfully and properly — by the many missteps involved in selling the Las Vegas Review-Journal to billionaire Sheldon Adelson. Company leadership’s first instinct was to hire a crisis management expert. Now it has come to realize that the problem of Las Vegas could more widely affect the view of whole company.
Janelle Hartman —
December 23, 2015— The NewsGuild-CWA
Two longtime and beloved NewsGuild staff reps retired in 2015 -- Jim Schaufenbil earlier this year and more recently Bruce Nelson. The winter edition of The Guild Reporter offers tributes to them from Guild members and colleagues, memories that had to be edited for space. Here they are published in full. Want to share your own thoughts? Email them to GR editor Janelle Hartman at jhartman@cwa-union.org or share them on our Facebook page, where this story is linked.
Molly de Aguiar and Josh Stearns —
December 21, 2015— CJR
The future of investigative reporting at the local level will not look like its past. We are in what Chris Anderson, Emily Bell, and Clay Shirky have dubbed a “post-industrial” age for journalism. We’ll never be able to replace the institutions we long relied on to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. What we may be able to do, however, is build something new and different.
Bernie Lunzer, President —
December 17, 2015— The NewsGuild-CWA
In a column written for the winter edition of The Guild Reporter, TNG-CWA President Bernie Lunzer takes a look back at 2015 and ahead to 2016, reviewing bargaining, organizing, movement-building and issues of staff and funding. Overall, he is optimistic, pointing to new hires, a strong focus on organizing digital media and locals that are energetic and engaged. "Even on their toughest days, our locals are overwhelmingly strong, resourceful, creative and resilient," Lunzer writes. "It’s a source of pride for me and for all of us at Guild headquarters."
This morning, the CWA Executive Board voted to endorse Sen. Bernie Sanders for president. The decision is based on the results of an online poll open to all CWA members in recent weeks. As is the Guild’s tradition, President Bernie Lunzer abstained from the vote. “We do so on behalf of our many members who cover politics and government. The NewsGuild-CWA takes seriously their need to function with full objectivity. We respect and protect that principle,” the Guild said in a statement.
Guild members in Springfield, Illinois, delivered a letter this week to the publisher of The State Journal-Register, telling her politely but firmly that the union is recommending that members don't participate in an employee award celebration scheduled for Friday. "We believe that resources devoted to events such as this, including the gift cards and other financial rewards, would be better used to grant overall raises to newsroom employees as part of a fair labor contract," Unit Chair Dean Olsen said in the letter, signed by virtually all Springfield members.
The NewsGuild-CWA has a job opening for a sector representative in the eastern United States. Factors in hiring will be depth of experience in one or all of the following areas: collective bargaining, organizing, mobilizing and arbitration. Experience administering a local is required. To apply, send a resume to staffjob@newsguild.org by Dec. 28, 2015.
Here they are published in full. Want to share your own thoughts? Email them to GR editor Janelle Hartman at jhartman@cwa-union.org or share them on our 
recommending that members don't participate in an employee award celebration scheduled for Friday. "We believe that resources devoted to events such as this, including the gift cards and other financial rewards, would be better used to grant overall raises to newsroom employees as part of a fair labor contract," Unit Chair Dean Olsen said in the letter, signed by virtually all Springfield members.