2017

From The Daily News | After a tough, three-year battle, NewsGuild of New York journalists at Thomson Reuters ratified a new contract Thursday evening. The deal will remain in effect through December 2020, and it covers roughly 400 reporters, producers and other staffers, the Guild said.

You don’t need me to throw statistics at you about how influential social media is for news organizations and individual journalists. But I will anyway. A Cision study from this year found that “90 percent of respondents use social media for work at least once a week and 48 percent could not successfully complete their work without social media.”

On Dec. 6, 2017, members of the New York Times unit of the NewsGuild of New York, the union that represents close to 3,000 media professionals working in the New York City metro area, voted to approve a new contract with the New York Times.The previous contract had expired in March 2016.

On Sunday, the Meredith Corporation announced that with the financial backing of Koch Equity Development the company will acquire Time Inc. There is a never an appropriate time to sell a trusted journalistic institution to a conservative-backed private equity corporation.

What is A.O. Scott’s critique of the news business? It needs “fewer meetings,” and a stronger “sense of adventure” to start, Scott said in an email interview as part of our “10 Questions” series. Oh, and “no more whiteboards.”

From CJR: Across the media landscape, as consolidation and technological advancements drive rapid change, a mainstay of 20th century labor battles is having its moment. Staffers from numerous outlets, both legacy print and digital-only, are unionizing. 

From the Daily News: For 29 years, Grant Glickson commuted into the city to get to his job at The New York Times. Since January, his trip from Long Island into Times Square has remained almost exactly the same, but with one key difference: The office he occupies is a few blocks up from his old employer, and where he once dedicated himself to paginating The Times, he is now focused on getting a new contract for the reporters whose work fills the paper.

Whether it’s been with The Nation, where she is a senior editor, Dissent, the book she co-edited with Jacobin’s founder Bhaskar Sunkara, “The Future We Want: Radical Ideas for the New Century,” or elsewhere, Leonard has leant her talents to promote ideas that make people’s lives better, including in the area of labor rights. We wanted to get to know Leonard a bit better by asking her these 10 questions. 

Hopefully you’ve noticed that the Guild is ramping up its programming efforts. From media mixers to classes that improve your tech skills, our local is working hard to engage members and help you develop the ever-evolving skills required of media professionals.

The app store of any smartphone can be an overwhelming place, and if you’re a media professional, you don’t have time to sift through the thousands of apps that could make your job a lot easier. For people like you, here are eight of the most effective apps for journalists and other media professionals.

Nominations are now being accepted for Consumer Reports' Unit Chair. 

The Guild is looking for an experienced, self-motivated organizer to work primarily on media organizing drives in the NYC metropolitan area.

From the Pew Research Center: People deal in varying ways with tensions about what information to trust and how much they want to learn. Some are interested and engaged with information; others are wary and stressed.

Raised in Guilford, Connecticut, a suburb outside of New Haven, Jack Dickey came to the Big Apple to attend Columbia University. He started as a staff writer for Deadspin, then moved onto TIME and is now at Sports Illustrated. 

For just about six years, member Sindhu Sundar has reported legal news at one of newest shops, Law360. Having relocated from Singapore to the Big Apple, Sundar enrolled in the graduate NYU Journalism program, which, she noted, marked an irrevocable career change. (After all, she studied mechanical engineering at the National University of Singapore.)

Guild member Bill Hooper's grasp on Time Inc.'s history is more than personal. It's almost paternal.

Protest signs have a way of going straight to the heart of a matter, cutting extraneous words to convey information in a way that’s clear and concise, but never dull. They’re poster-board illustrations of what copy editors do on a grand scale every day, meticulous work that is as vital to journalism as reporting itself.

Leading a union of journalists is a unique challenge in the arena of labor advocacy, where nothing is as powerful as solidarity.

Following a letter sent yesterday from copy editors to Times management, reporters join the fight to save copy and photo editor positions and protect the New York Times' brand 

With jobs on the line, Guild members express their frustration with the treatment, lack of transparency and overall betrayal of Times’ management. 

"Standing up for freedom means that journalists, no matter what government officials might do, must get the news, report it, and deliver it to the public," said Grant Glickson, NewsGuild President. 

For NewsGuild Members: Rules for the nomination and election of 8 positions as delegates to the 2017 CWA convention and 12 positions as delegates to the 2017 TNG-CWA convention. 

The United States Senate is attempting to censor journalism and democracy's greatest safeguard - free press. 

Reuters NewsGuild members, in their third year without a contract, boost job actions nationwide. 

Guild President Grant Glickson asks, "Why would the New York Times want to join the sorry parade of other American newsrooms that have cut out the last, best line of defense against errors: The newsroom copy desk and the eagle-eyed editors who staff it?" 

From NewsGuild President Grant Glickson: "The announcement today that The New York Times will be offering buyouts and eliminating editors — including the Public Editor — is devastating for our members and grave news for the state of journalism."

On June 6, 2017, during the Guild’s Membership Meeting, Francis “Frank” Reynolds, NewsGuild Unit Chair at The Nation Magazine, will be awarded the 2017 Thomas M. Keenan NewsGuild of New York Service Award. 

The NewsGuild of New York stands with Chris Villani and the dozens of journalists at the Boston Herald who have shuttered their twitters to protest this misguided and arbitrary punishment.

An agreement reached by The Newspaper Guild of New York and the New York Times Company in August 1997, marked the first digital news organization to be unionized in the country. 

Reporter Luciana Lopez has been at Reuters since 2009, after a stint at the Oregonian in Portland. Get to know Lopez a bit better with our 10 questions.

The Roosevelt Institute, a think tank bringing together multiple generations of thinkers and leaders to help drive key economic and social debates, has agreed to voluntarily recognize staff members’ decision to unionize and the selection of the NewsGuild of New York to be their collective bargaining representative.

The barrage of lies and slander raining down on America’s journalists is having unintended consequences for the perpetrators: Subscriptions are soaring as news organizations pour resources into political and investigative reporting.

Did you know that as a member of the NewsGuild, you have free access to training tools provided by Lynda.com and KelbyOne.com? The CWA provides full access so you can keep your skills current, with continued training in computer programs like Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere, Adobe Photoshop, Excel and many more. 

The staff of the Roosevelt Institute, a think tank founded to honor and advance the vision of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, has moved to unionize. The Institute’s employees have submitted a petition for voluntary recognition to senior management, indicating their intent to unionize with the NewsGuild of New York, CWA Local 31003.

PRESIDENT’S CORNER – Grant Glickson, the Guild’s new president, looks at the formidable challenges facing unions and journalists today, but reminds people that both are survivors: “No matter how much opposition we’ve faced, we are still here. As unions, we are still organizing and educating and building networks of solidarity… And journalists are still overcoming whatever obstacles get in the way of investigating, reporting and publishing stories that hold government to account.”