The idea came from an employee during one of the paper's "Transformative Change" meetings. To make a long distance call, you'll need a personal authorization code. Implementation of the new program expects to save the Sun-Sentinel $100K a year. Maybe the plan will save a job or two over time. (end of post)
Read More......Edited— The special shareholder's meeting to consider and vote on a proposal to adopt the Merger Agreement and approve the merger is next Tuesday in Chicago. There's 127,330,754* shares of common stock outstanding and if you are still holding some ...
Can't find your copy of Schedule 14A – 200+ pages of info on the shareholder meeting, Board recommendation and Merger Agreement? Jump on the Tribune's website here and click on the second form, DEFM14A (July 13).
Scroll down the left rail and you'll find the Table of Contents (page 5) where you can then locate your topic of interest. For example: Q&A about the Special Meeting and the Merger is on page 14. How to vote your shares held in the Tribune Employee Benefit Plans: page 18. What happens if the merger isn't completed: page 63. The effect on the overall vote an abstention, a broker non-vote or just plain failure to vote? page 85
You won't find lender financing guarantees there. But the Credit Agreements must be secure because Zell says its a go.
* Number of shares outstanding at close of business July 12, excluding shares held by subsidiaries.
Yeah, we keep hearing that.
Shares closed at $25.28, but word is (still) that the $8.2 billion in financing needed to complete the deal is in place.
Meanwhile, there's a meeting in LA Thursday where Zell will be a special guest. (LAObserved, scroll down to find the post.) It should be a very, very interesting meeting for future employee-owners.
Oh but wait. The meeting's only for the executive types.
Well, there is the shareholders meeting next week ...
UPDATE: Tribune disputes the analysts, plans "to go ahead with the sale and that it expects to remain in compliance with the terms of the financing commitments." Like we said, we keep hearing that.
The DJ union (IAPE) is set to return to the bargaining table Wednesday with hopes it can resume "serious and constructive" bargaining for a new contract with the company tomorrow.
In advance of the meeting, reporters and editors emptied DJ newsrooms in New York, Boston, Chicago, Washington, Los Angeles and Dallas to talk about how to get their message to the new owner "that its 'investment' in Dow Jones must include a quality contract" for union members.
Here in the U.S. newspapers have outsourced maintenance, accounting and billing, human resources, call centers, and recently ad production departments, none of which according to the companies, are part of the core business. But editorial is the sacred core of the business, right?
Apparently not. The current seismic newspaper industry environment has forced companies to implement similar cost-cutting measures in editorial functions.
Media companies in other countries will be watching to see if New Zealand's largest daily, which began outsourcing editorial production work Sunday to a subsidiary of Australian Associated Press, can make it work. (FYI: Murdoch's News, Ltd. owns a 45% share of AAP)Starting Sunday, 20 full-time sub-editors at contractor Pagemasters New Zealand will be "operating on an extension of APN's 'Cyber' computer editorial production system" at a site 20 minutes from the paper's editorial offices.
The Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union that includes New Zealand journalists, said the move will erode the quality of news coverage because stories will be handled by copy editors not familiar with local issues.
Employer business decisions such as these threaten the product and jobs. Having a union gives employees the right to engage the company over outsoucing plans and to offer alternatives that may help the company achieve its goals while perserving journalists' jobs.
Lisa Chedekel and Matthew Kaufman (left), of the Hartford Courant clinched the 2006 $5000 award, named for The Newspaper Guild's founder, for their four-day series* “Mentally Unfit, Forced to Fight’’, an examination of the U.S. military’s approach to mental health problems within the military. The reporters found that troops were sent into combat despite suffering from post traumatic stress trauma, depression and bipolar disorders and that diagnosis and treatment in the field was negligent at best.
“The Courant series happily lives up to another Broun legacy,’’ said the Guild contest judges in their announcement of the award. “In publicizing the little-known plight of mentally ill soldiers, the paper helped prompt new legislation addressing the flaws in the military’s mental health system…’’
TNG-CWA members and supporters from other labor unions and the media celebrated the journalistic award winners at the annual Freedom Award Fund Banquet, held May 3—World Press Freedom Day—in Washington, D.C.
Heywood Broun founded the American Newspaper Guild (now The Newspaper Guild) in 1933 and was a crusading columnist for the Tribune and The World in New York from 1912 until his death in 1939. He also wrote frequently for The Nation and The New Republic, as well as Harper's, Bookman, American Mercury and Collier's.
Broun is best remembered for his reporting on social issues and his passionate championing of the underdog and the disadvantaged. He maintained a steadfast belief that journalists could help right wrongs, especially social ills. The annual Broun Award is awarded for outstanding work by a journalist, especially work that helps correct an injustice.
Matt Lait and Scott Glover (right), reporters for the Los Angeles Times, won the 2005 Broun Award for “A Case of Doubt” — their review of a 20-year-old murder case** that was so painstaking it forced the prosecutor in the case to question the evidence he had used.
* NPR interview
** AJR story
A plan to consolidate editorial functions of the six-paper Alameda Newspaper Group (ANG) and the five-paper Contra Costa Newspapers, could mean the end of the Newspaper Guild unit at one of the entities, union leaders fear. “I think he wants to get rid of us,” Doug Cuthbertson, executive officer of the Northern California Media Workers, said about MediaNews CEO Dean Singleton. “The group we represent would be a minority of the [combined] editorial staff and they believe they could withdraw representation.”
In a Call to Action to other MediaNews Guild members, ANG members wrote in part "Our union, which we have fought almost 20 years to maintain, is under attack. Our long-won right to collective bargaining, it seems, is being ignored. Our voice in our own future is being threatened. We are outraged, and we are fighting - hard. If the company denies our existence, we must deny them their right to do so."
Related: IndyBay.org's take on MediaNews' success that is "based on aggressive cost controls, rather than journalistic excellence.”
* UPDATE: Guild disputes withdrawal of recognition during consolidation process
A public hearing with FCC commissioners scheduled for Sept. 20 will give the public an opportunity to weigh in on media consolidation and changes being considered under the FCC media ownership rules.
In a release today from Free Press.net: In Chicago, the cross-ownership rules have taken center stage as the FCC considers whether to allow Sam Zell, the new owner of the Tribune Co., to hold onto the Chicago Tribune as well as WGN-TV and WGN-AM. When the cross-ownership ban was instituted in 1975, the FCC "grandfathered" the Tribune's ownership of these outlets.
Among the local and national groups urging its members to attend are Broadcast Engineers Union I.B.E.W Local 1212, Communications Workers of America and The Newspaper Guild-CWA*.
"It's time for the FCC to stop pretending that media conglomerates like the Tribune Co. are local businesses that serve local communities," said Linda K. Foley, president of The Newspaper Guild-CWA. "In this age of media consolidation, the FCC should not only continue its rule banning cross-ownership of newspapers and broadcast stations in the same market, the commissioners should reconsider the multiple waivers of the ban granted Tribune Co. over the years."
*The Guild represents employees at the Chicago Sun-Times.
Proxy Governance, an independent proxy advisory and voting firm, recommended today that shareholders approve Zell's $8.2 billion deal.
According to AP, the firm "views the acquisition as Tribune's best option after a comprehensive evaluation of strategic options."
Tribune shares closed today at $26.96. (end of post)
In an interview prior to moderating last night's AFL-CIO's Presidential Candidates Forum, MSNBC's "Countdown" host, Keith Olbermann said the News Media Guild * saved his career years ago after a boss who'd returned from a liquid lunch "fired me on the spot and said 'you don’t give the managers no lip. You get your stuff and get out of here.'”
"If that firing had held I might not have been able to continue in broadcasting."
How was the Guild able to get Olbermann reinstated? He was covered by a union contract that provided protections against discharge without just cause. The union contested his dismissal and prevailed, which allowed Olbermann to continue on in his chosen career.
*The Media Guild was formerly called Wire Service Guild and is a local of The Newspaper Guild-CWA.
In an interview with The Boston Globe, Chris Mackin, founder and president of Cambridge, Ma-based Ownership Associates and a Newspaper Guild consultant, said the recent action by the Dow Jones union in evaluating alternative options to the News Corp bid is notice to the investment banking world that "unions can be savvy participants in the process and can influence events". (end of post)
Read More......A bit off topic but worth sharing: Minneapolis journos at the Star Tribune and Pioneer Press got energy boosts Saturday night and Monday in the form of very big boxes of treats from The Roanoke (Va.) Times newsroom. Here's why.
*More about the care packages from E&P (end of post)
Regulatory approval will be no "slam dunk" for Murdoch's deal.
"It's interesting to hear the 'experts' claim the transaction faces no regulatory hurdles," said Michael Copps, a Democrat on the FCC. "Not so fast! This deal means more media consolidation and fewer independent voices, and it specifically impacts the local market in New York City."
Copps said the FCC "should immediately conduct a careful factual and legal analysis of the [News Corp.] transaction to determine how it implicates specific FCC rules and our overarching statutory obligation to protect the public interest."
On a related note, yesterday the FCC unveiled 10 new studies on media consolidation and its plan to give the public a 60-day comment period. The studies are drawing criticism from consolidation critics, including Consumers Union and Free Press.
The paper is eliminating zone coverage that will eliminate 8 jobs. The company is offering a buyout package of one week's pay for every year of service up to 6 years and 3 months paid COBRA coverage.
Guild leader Brent Hopkins blogs at The Paper Trail:
... today is a terrible day. Once again, MediaNews' corporate moneyhounds have put profit ahead of people and good journalism, and that's horrible for everyone involved. While the overall job loss should be relatively minor, that doesn't matter much when it's your job that's eliminated.Recently, Dean Singleton's MediaNews Group (flagship paper is The Denver Post) has expanded his MediaNews empire in California (41 properties)and is merging some and closing other newspaper operations in the San Francisco Bay area and just completed a massive staff slash at the San Jose Mercury News. Read More......
Linda Foley, president of The Newspaper Guild-CWA, expressed disappointment with the deal yesterday, but said the future editorial impact on the Journal "is an unknown ... If News Corp. didn't get the message that that is important, then they are not listening. We're going to continue to hold their feet to the fire." More responses at E&P.
* DJ union leadership's message to members:
For the record, IAPE's focus is unchanged: This union exists solely to protect your interests. Everything we've done over the past two years has been designed to win you the contract that you deserve.(end of post) Read More......
That effort continues.
The employees of Dow Jones are the most important asset of this company — and that's true regardless of who owns Dow Jones & Company. IAPE will continue to do everything it can to ensure that the employees of Dow Jones are recognized and rewarded for their contributions — the very contributions which make Dow Jones & Company worth $5 billion.
