Newspaper Guild

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported Aug. 14 that it reached tentative agreements with its 10 employee unions for contracts to run through March 2013. The unions, including the Pittsburgh Guild, represent 737 full-time and 69 part-time hourly employees. Details were withheld pending the contracts’ ratification.

The Washington Post Co. said Monday that proposed federal rules would likely place restrictions on its Kaplan education division, the company’s biggest and most profitable segment. The Post Co. warned earlier this month that changes in federal education policy could hurt Kaplan’s results. Since then, Post Co. shares have lost about a quarter of their value, including a decline of $42.96, or 13%, to $300.52 in morning trading Monday.

With revenue from its June convention falling short of expectations and at least two convention sponsors yet to pay pledges totaling nearly $100,000, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists is preparing to tap into its endowment fund to meet payroll and overhead costs. Other journalism organizations are also facing financial problems, but those at NAHJ appear to be more severe than most.

The Telegram & Gazette, a New York Times-owned and Guild-represented newspaper in Worcester, Mass., said it will begin charging readers today to view some of the local news articles that appear on its web site. The paper is using a metered pay wall that allows readers to view 10 local news articles per month free, but once they cross that threshold they will be asked to buy an online subscription, with options ranging from a $14.95 monthly pass to a $1 day pass.

Tribune Co. Chairman Sam Zell is demanding his share of repayment in the media company’s bankruptcy if lower-priority creditors, emboldened by a recently released examiner’s report, get anything. Zell’s company, which invested $315 million in debt and equity in the 2007 Tribune leveraged buyout, said it expects its debt claims to be repaid if creditors whose trustee is Wilmington Trust Co. get any payment.

Americans continue to express near-record-low confidence in newspapers and television news — with no more than 25% of Americans saying they have a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in either. These views have hardly budged since falling more than 10 percentage points from 2003-2007. The findings are from Gallup’s annual Confidence in Institutions survey, which found the military faring best and Congress faring worst of 16 institutions tested.

Your company just denied your disability claim. What do you do now? How long do you have to file an appeal? And with whom? The Obama administration is planning to upgrade consumer protections for workers and family members covered by health, disability and pension plans, ordering companies to clearly explain decisions on claims and how employees can dispute denials. The basic idea is to require health and other plans to spell out what a worker needs to know to safeguard his rights.

Traditional revenue streams will continue to be challenged for both consumer and trade magazine publishing through the next five years, says media and information private equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson. Overall, VSS predicts that total communications industry spending is on pace to increase 3.5% in 2010 and post a compound annual growth rate of 6.1% between 2009 and 2014, to $1.416 trillion.

News Corp. Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch is embarking on an ambitious plan for a new national digital newspaper to be distributed exclusively as paid content for tablet computers such as Apple Inc.’s iPad and mobile phones. The initiative, which would directly compete with the New York Times, USA Today and other national publications, is the latest attempt by a major media organization to harness sexy new devices to reach readers who increasingly consume their news on the go.

The USPS is asking the Postal Regulatory Commission to approve emergency rate increases in order to help offset a $7 billion deficit this fiscal year, which ends in September. But the rate increases, which would be the third price hike to hit periodicals since 2007, may put dozens of already struggling independent and alternative print publications in jeopardy [as it already has The Guild Reporter].

When Marc Ash, the former director of Truthout, departed that online publication following a successful union organizing drive, his legacy was an annual salary of $212,000, piles of debt and a string of broken budgets. Since then everything has changed: the new director is paid one-fourth as much, there are no more independent contractors, most content is now generated internally — and, not least, Truthout and its Guild-represented employees have their first tentative contract agreement.

I hope it won’t make me sound prematurely aged to say that sometimes the internet exhausts me. That I’m troubled by how frequently I find myself sucked into the blogging vortex of endless linkage, circuitous kvetching, and petty media infighting. I often emerge from these binges hours later, bleary-eyed and less informed than when I started.

In their attack on the union movement, extremist reactionary media outlets increasingly are depicting unions and workers as thugs, Communists and destroyers of free enterprise. Media Matters has compiled these recent attacks and we’re cross-posting some of the watchdog group’s findings here. We urge all unionists to take a minute from pinko thuggery to check it out.

A year after a military coup removed democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya from office, Hondurans are still living under a repressive government — but the U.S. is pushing Latin American countries to join it in normalizing relations with the regionally ostracized nation. And the press has played along, cheering U.S. reversal of its initial opposition to elections held under the auspices of a coup regime.

For the past couple of years there’s been a lot of buzz— some of it generated by the Newspaper Guild — about the so-called L3C ownership model, which theoretically would let papers continue operating as if they were for-profits, but also allow them to accept tax-deductible donations and foundation money. "Theoretically," because no newspaper had actually tried organizing that way — until now.

Sam Zell can’t be made to pay for Tribune Co. retirement fund losses, a judge ruled, rebuffing workers who claim the billionaire caused the company’s employee stock ownership plan to lose value. While the workers sought disgorgement of payments made to Zell and EGI-TRB by Tribune in the acquisition, U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer in Chicago ruled yesterday they can’t because Tribune isn’t directly involved in the lawsuit.

President Obama yesterday signed into US law legislation aimed at protecting American authors, journalists and academics from Britain’s libel laws. The Securing the Protection of our Enduring and Established Constitutional Heritage Act, known as the SPEECH Act, makes libel judgments against US writers in foreign territories unenforceable if they are perceived to counter the First Amendment right to free speech.

The debate over preserving open, equal access to the internet has taken a hard, sharp turn away from the theoretical toward a grim future of toll booths on the information superhighway. Net neutrality is under assault and the consequences are real. The White House, Congress and the FCC must take on a potent, well-financed, politically adroit lobbying force to protect millions of ordinary customers and voters.

Hundreds of journalists marched in downtown Mexico City and thousands joined in other marches across the country Saturday in protest of the escalating intimidation, kidnapping and murder of fellow journalists by organized crime. Journalism in Mexico has been a life-threatening profession for some years now. A total of 67 journalists have been killed here since 2000, according to Reporters Without Borders, making Mexico one of the most dangerous countries to be a journalist.