Newspaper Guild

Moody’s Investors Service said Wednesday that it has lifted its rating on The New York Times Co. on its expectation that its revenue declines will slow as the economy recovers. Moody’s said it changed its rating on the publisher to "stable" from "negative" on the belief that the Times’ newspaper advertising revenue will still fall in the high single digits in 2010 but will "moderate" as the year progresses and "stabilize" in 2011.

The AFL-CIO, hoping to tap into public anger at Wall Street, is planning two weeks of protests aimed at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and the country’s five other largest banks, with 200 events covering all 50 states starting March 15. “Wall Street has become a symbol of greed run amok, and what labor is doing here is seeking to demonstrate that it is speaking for working families generally, union member or non- union member,” explained labor professor Harley Shaiken.

The current jobs crisis is unusually severe not only for the high level of unemployment, but also for the amount of time it is taking workers to find new jobs. Today, the median length of time a laid-off worker spends unemployed is almost five months, longer than any other time on record. The median 19.4 weeks that laid-off workers spent unemployed in February has more than doubled from a median of 8.4 weeks at the start of the recession in December 2007.

The Asper family is attempting to regain control of the newspaper assets that slipped from their grasp when their media empire crumbled last year under $4-billion in debt. The Aspers have emerged as one of about six finalists chosen for the short list of bidders for CanWest LP, which includes bids from B.C. newspaper magnate David Black, Vancouver-based community newspaper publisher Glacier Media Inc. and a proposed buyout led by National Post executive Paul Godfrey.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is seeking leave to appeal a lower court’s ruling that allowed Shaw Communications Inc. to proceed with its bid to purchase a controlling interest in Canwest Global Communications Corp., alleging that the restructuring process has been "corrupted." The Wall Street investment bank said the restructuring of Canwest is "error-infected," and is asking the Ontario Court of Appeal to "intercede now before it is too late to put this restructuring back on course. . . ."

Reporters have always kept an eye on other reporters. For a journalist, the only thing more interesting than what you are working on is what your competitor is working on. But what if watching your competitor becomes your whole story? More and more inside the echo chamber of mediated Manhattan, there are now published reports about what other reporters might be doing. On the web, it takes nothing more than a rumor, or even a rumor of a rumor, and a push of a button to pull back the blankets on somebody else’s work.

There is a widespread myth that search engines have taken profits away from news websites. A few months ago, Rupert Murdoch said: “Google has devised a brilliant business model that avoids paying for news gathering yet profits off the search ads sold around that content.” The reality is that news is a lousy business. Period. Even Google doesn’t make money on it. For example, if you Google the phrase “afghanistan war,” you’ll notice there aren’t any ads on the page.

The other shoe is about to drop at BusinessWeek — or Bloomberg BusinessWeek, as it’s been officially known since the financial news giant bought it last October. Shortly after taking over the 80-year-old magazine, Bloomberg pruned its staff by a reported 30%. Sharp as those cuts were, the new owners made it known that there would be another round of downsizing, and sources say that round will commence Thursday.

When the Bay Area News Project launches its website in late spring or early summer, it will be just the latest — and perhaps the most ambitious — nonprofit venture among a string of similar start-ups. Now all it must do is figure out how to provide coverage for a nine-county region, starting with only 15 employees. From San Diego to Minneapolis to Austin, Texas, and points beyond, nonprofit web newcomers have broken stories, carved out new niches and injected a bit of optimism into an embattled profession.

Facing massive cutbacks and "unconscionable" slashes in compensation, Reuters reporters took to the streets at noon March 5 in downtown Washington, DC, determined to win their fight for a fair contract. As a giant inflatable union rat drew attention from lunchtime commuters, the workers blasted, "They say cutback, we say fight back" through their bullhorns and waved signs reading, "Reuters pay cuts equal quality cuts" while they circled the sidewalk.

Tribune Co.’s Virginia newspaper plans to outsource the editing and designing of much of its content to the newsroom of its corporate flagship, the Chicago Tribune, in a bid to reduce costs and focus resources on local coverage. "I’m sure they can produce something plausible in Chicago to run in those papers, but it’ll be just ever so much more out of touch with readers," said Alan Mutter, a former Chicago Sun-Times city editor who’s now a Silicon Valley-based consultant.

Steven Waldman, senior advisor to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, believes there is no harm in the decline and fall of broadcast outlets and newspapers — so long as there is something immediately set to replace their useful function of delivering news and civic information. Waldman is charged with coming up with a report to the commission on the state and fate of the media in the midst of radical change.

The Akron unit of the Northeast Ohio Chapter of The Newspaper Guild has avoided a possible union strike by ratifying a three-year agreement with the Akron Beacon Journal. The agreement includes a 2.11% decrease to base pay, a reduction in the work week to 37.5 hours from 40 and a week of unpaid vacation in 2010. The contract also has layoff protection for the next 18 months, with wages and hours reverting back to previous levels if a notice is given.

From a glitzy new office in downtown Washington, the ideological war over the media is fully engaged. Six years after its founding to counter what it said was “conservative misinformation,” Media Matters for America employs a staff of 70 that spends 19 hours a day monitoring newspapers, magazines, broadcast and cable television, talk radio, and the Internet to counter reporting or commentary it deems to be inaccurate or biased.

Gannett Co.is providing more than $40 million to help finance the Honolulu Star-Bulletin’s purchase of The Honolulu Advertiser, which Gannett owns, according to an executive involved in structuring the deal. The sale is expected to result in the merger of the two rival newspapers and significant layoffs. "I’m shocked that Gannett would be financing the deal," said Wayne Cahill, administrative officer for the Hawaii Newspaper Guild.

Hundreds of employees of Honolulu’s two daily newspapers gathered at Washington Middle School yesterday to sort out their options in the face of the proposed purchase of The Advertiser by the rival Star-Bulletin’s owner. Workers from six unions at the two-hour meeting heard their leaders exhort them to press hard for a contract by the time the deal is consummated, and to take a strong stand to preserve their jobs.

To succeed more in unionization drives, the nation’s unions must tie their organizing efforts and their goals for a first contract together, says the AFL-CIO’s new Organizing Director. “Every organizing drive from the very beginning has to be a drive to get a first contract. The old model of organizing, then wishing and hoping the employer would come to the (bargaining) table isn’t working,” Elizabeth Bunn said.

This morning’s Bureau of Labor Statistics employment report showed 36,000 payroll jobs lost in February, with unemployment remaining at 9.7%. But the underemployment rate rose from 16.5% to 16.8%, and the long-term unemployment rate — the percent of the labor force that has been unemployed for more than six months — dwarfs even the recession of the early 1980s, which was marked by extremely high unemployment.

Although Leonard Asper has resigned as chief executive officer of CanWest Global Communications Corp., he is not yet willing to let go of the company founded by his father and continues working on a potential bid to stay on as a key investor in CanWest. But because the company and its board have supported a recent deal to bring in cable giant Shaw Communications Inc. as a 20% investor, Asper’s rival bid is now in conflict, essentially forcing him to step down as CEO.

A group of Tribune Co. creditors have sued the banks behind the Chicago-based publisher’s 2007 leveraged buyout, saying the $8 billion in loans they arranged for the deal doomed it to bankruptcy. Wilmington Trust Co., the agent for bondholders who are owed $1.2 billion, filed the lawsuit Thursday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., against JPMorgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, Citibank, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley.