US website Bangor Daily News reports that an 18-year veteran journalist has sued his former boss after he was fired over an email about same-sex marriage.
BANGOR, Maine — Larry Grard, an 18-year veteran reporter at the Morning Sentinel newspaper fired in November 2009 after his employer discovered that he responded to an e-mail from an organization that favored same-sex marriage, has sued MaineToday Media in U.S. District Court.
TNW Media reports that a former editor of the now-closed Rocky Mountain News in Denver, Colorado surveyed his former journalists to find out what they are now earning. Most of them are earning less than they did when they worked for the paper, which shut two years ago.
146 of the paper’s 194 journalists responded to Temple’s survey which found that 67% of them now earn less than in their old job at the Rocky Mountain News, with 57% saying that they now earn “Much less” than in their old job.
Full story on The Rocky Mountain News at this link
Three weeks on from the announcement that the BBC would cut 360 jobs as part of a 25 per cent cut to its online budget, Paul Bradshaw looks at three things the corporation has done for online journalism.
1. Web writing style
The BBC’s way of writing for the web has always been a template for good web writing, not least because of the BBC’s experience with having to meet similar challenges with Ceefax – the two shared a content management system and journalists writing for the website would see the first few pars of their content cross-published on Ceefax too.
Even now it is difficult to find an online publisher who writes better for the web.
Journalists at the Newsquest-owned Bolton News voted yesterday to strike in protest against an ongoing pay freeze.
Twenty-one NUJ members took part in the ballot, with 16 voting in favour of strike action, the union said in a release.
NUJ deputy general secretary Michelle Stanistreet said: “Newsquest and its American owners have been relentless in their pursuit of higher profits at the expense of journalists.
“The growing anger amongst journalists throughout the group and their determination to bring the company to the negotiating table is clear.”
Newsquest has suffered a series of strikes in recent months as a result of its ongoing pay freeze and relocation of production staff.
The company brought the pay freeze to an end at the end of last year with a 2 per cent pay offer, but only for certain titles. In contrast, staff across titles in Wales, Gloucestershire, and the South Midlands were recently asked to take a week’s unpaid leave in order to help control costs.
Meanwhile, NUJ members working for Johnston Press in Sheffield have called off planned strikes after reaching a deal with management over plans to cut production jobs at a centralised “editorial hub” in the city.
The Sheffield hub produces pages for a range of Johnston Press titles in Sheffield, Doncaster, Chesterfield and North and Mid Derbyshire and South, West and North Yorkshire.
Our reporter Rachel McAthy is at the protests outside the BBC World Service offices this afternoon. Members of the National Union of Journalists are demonstrating against budget cuts announced today at the service which will result in the loss of 650 jobs as well as the closure of numerous language services.
Listen below to Mike Workman, the chair of the BBC World Service branch of the NUJ, speaking at the protest:
More to follow…
Today is the first day that local title the Brighton Argus has been subbed from Southampton, following a controversial move by publisher Newsquest to centralise news subbing operations and lay off the paper’s Brighton-based subs.
And today’s edition brings with it a typo perfectly emblematic of the staff’s complaints that local papers need subs with local knowledge.
From today’s BRIGHTEN Argus…
Two journalists have won claims for unfair dismissal and sex discrimination, it was reported yesterday, with a tribunal ruling that they were axed from their jobs at Sky “because they were mothers with young children”.
The Guardian reports that BSkyB now faces a £200,000 payout to Natalie Stone and Victoria Waterson.
The pair were overlooked for a new position of video producer, which was given to the then senior Sky executive Mike Taylor’s personal assistant, Dee Lakhan. Taylor, head of networked media at Sky Movies, had a “mindset adverse to pregnancy and maternity leave”, the tribunal found.
Both journalists are now seeking compensation for loss of earnings and injury to feelings, the report adds.
A report by the Press Association of Madrid claims that at least a quarter of Spanish journalists have lost their jobs and two thirds have experienced a pay reduction since the start of the economic crisis, according to a post on the Shaping the Future of the Newspaper blog based on reports by the Spanish media.
The 2010 Annual Report of the Journalistic Profession also suggests that there has been an increase in the number of journalists not working from 5,155 in 2009 to 5,564 while the average salary has dropped by €5,000 to €30,000 in the last six months, the report adds.
Out of these people, 66 per cent were found to be women.
Protests at Newsquest-owned titles across the country continue this week as members of the National Union of Journalists at four more centres vote in favour of strike action.
According to a release from the NUJ today, members at Newsquest Blackburn, Bradford, Bolton and York have all voted for indsutrial action.
The new votes follow two days of strike action carried out by members at the Brighton Argus and Southern Daily Echo this week, the second round of industrial action for both titles.
Union members are taking action against a continuing pay freeze, redundancies and closure of the pension scheme to future accrual.
More than 90 per cent of members at Newsquest Bradford voted in favour of strike action in a recent ballot while all voters supported action short of a strike, the release adds.
All NUJ members who took part in the ballot at Newsquest Blackburn have voted overwhelmingly for strike action and action short of a strike. NUJ members at Newsquest Bolton have also voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action.
… NUJ members at Newsquest York today voted overwhelmingly for strike action and action short of a strike.
According to the release the newspaper titles within these centres includes:
NUJ members at Newsquest Warrington as well as members at the Herald, Sunday Herald and Evening Times in Scotland have also voted to ballot for industrial action.
The NUJ parliamentary group this week launched an Early Day Motion in support of NUJ members at Newsquest, calling on the company to “enter into meaningful discussions with the union at all levels to resolve the disputes by protecting jobs and investing in journalism”.
Former Brighton Argus deputy editor Frank le Duc guest posts on Jon Slattery’s blog about the recent strikes at the Argus and other Newsquest titles, and about the challenges facing regional publishers from new local competition.
The difficulty for companies like Newsquest is that their profits are not coming from a resurgence in advertising revenues but a ruthless cutting of costs.
Newsquest has used a salami-slicing technique which has its limitations. You can slice the salami only so many times before there’s no meat left.