The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) reports that journalists were due to hand out thank you letters to the people of West Yorkshire today.
“NUJ members from the Yorkshire Post, Yorkshire Evening Post and Leeds Weekly News want to show their appreciation for the support they received during thirteen days of strike action over compulsory redundancies.”
“A motion of no confidence has been passed in a senior Trinity Mirror executive by journalists in Newcastle,” reports HoldTheFrontPage.
“National Union of Journalists members at ncjmedia met yesterday to discuss last week’s departure of regional MD Steve Brown.
“The NUJ chapel passed a resolution saying it had no confidence in the ability of Trinity Mirror Regionals MD Georgina Harvey to lead the company.”
The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) is itself not immune from the current downturn and has announced the need to cut four posts, as part of plans to save the union £500,000 a year.
National broadcasting organiser, Paul McLaughlin, will take voluntary redundancy, and be replaced by Sue Harris, who currently handles the magazines, books and PR sectors.
One admin position in Ireland is to go and the role of research and information organiser.
The latest update to the MEN Media / National Union of Journalists negotiations, is given in a joint statement from MEN Media / NUJ.
MEN NUJ mother-of-chapel, Judy Gordon, told Journalism.co.uk:
“Our chapel is pleased to have saved five jobs under threat at the MEN, but bitterly disappointed that 11 of our journalists will still be made compulsorily redundant, along with 18 volunteers, five other editorial compulsories and 35 colleagues from the weeklies who have opted to go. It’s going to be hard to pick up the pieces of these massive changes, but we are determined to do the best we can for those who are leaving, those who remain and those weekly staff who will be joining us at Deansgate in the future. We have great faith in our journalism and believe the Greater Manchester public does too.”
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In today’s MediaGuardian, City University of New York (CUNY) journalism professor Jeff Jarvis writes that that foundations will not take over newspapers, à la Scott Trust / Guardian relationship. He told Journalism.co.uk: “It is an empty hope for white knights to save news from inevitable change and business reality. But he says: “We’ll see foundation and public support able to fund a decent number of investigations.”
Yesterday, Journalism.co.uk published comments from New York University (NYU) professor, Jay Rosen, and ProPublica’s managing editor, Stephen Engelberg, as well as from Jarvis in a feature looking at the sustainability of ‘lump sum’ funded journalism – they all said that the point was not to look at ‘one solution’ but at a hybrid of funding opportunities (an issue picked up by Julie Starr here.)
US-based ProPublica, funded by the Sandler Foundation, for example, employs full-time journalists to conduct investigations which are then supplied to other media bodies. Journalism.co.uk raised the point with some of the NYJournalism interviewees (fuller features forthcoming) that similar foundation funding is a bit trickier to come by in the UK: just what would a UK version of ProPublica look like and could it be funded?
Would the equivalent of ProPublica work over here? Or, for that matter, something in the mould of Spot.Us, New America Media, the Huffington Post Investigative Fund, or the Center for Public Integrity?
Last week the Guardian’s Stephen Moss mentioned Paul Bradshaw’s new project, HelpMeInvestigate.com in his giant G2 feature on the troubled regional newspaper industry. It’s a proposal not quite on the scale of ProPublica, which has an annual operating budget of $10 million, and it’s seen success so far, making it to third stage of the (American) Knight News Challenge 2009 and it awaits news of further progress.
How about existing organisations in the UK? There’s the Centre for Investigative Journalism with its annual summer school, but it doesn’t run and supply investigations in the way ProPublica does. There’s MySociety which can help journalists with stories, but is not designed as a primarily journalistic venture.
Author of Flat Earth News, Nick Davies, has previously told the Press Gazette (which has just announced its last issue) about his idea of models of ‘mini-media’.
“It may be that we are looking at funding mini-media or a foundation that will give money to groups of journalists if they can pass the quality threshold,” Davies said at an National Union of Journalists (NUJ) event in January, as Press Gazette reported.
“The greatest question in journalism today is what will be our ‘third source’ of funding,” Davies told Journalism.co.uk last week.
“If advertising and circulation can no longer pay for our editorial operation, we have to find this third source.
“I suspect that place by place and case by case, the answer to the question will be different, a matter of wrapping up whatever package of cash is possible, using donations or grants or sponsorship or micropayments from foundations, rich individuals, local councils, businesses, NGOs, universities – anybody who can understand that the collapse of newspapers is not just about journalists losing their jobs but about everybody losing an essential source of information.
“And in an ideal world, central government would lead the way by setting up a New Media Fund to provide seed money to help these non-profit mini-media to establish themselves and to find their particular third source.”
So could a third source-funded model work? And what shape would it take? It’s a question Journalism.co.uk will continue to ask. Please share your thoughts below.
The Guardian News & Media (GNM) editor-in-chief, Alan Rusbridger, has made his ten per cent pay cut public, following public comments by the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) about Guardian executive bonus payments at a time when cuts are being made at regional newspapers within the Guardian Media Group (GMG).
Earlier this week the NUJ published a full page advert in the Guardian which said there were “devastating staff cuts to service the ongoing expansion of the Guardian – which is losing many millions but still paying executive bonuses.”
An article published today on MediaGuardian.co.uk reports that Rusbridger is not part of the GMG bonus scheme and had last year informed the Scott Trust, owners of GNM’s parent company GMG, of his plans to take a pay cut.
The article states that Carolyn McCall, chief executive of GMG, had told the company’s remuneration committee in January that she would not take a bonus for the 2008-9 year.
“”Ordinarily such information would only be made public when GMG’s annual report is published in the summer. However, as the group’s two most senior executives, and in light of recent comments by the NUJ, they felt it was appropriate to inform the [union] chapels,” a GMG spokesman said.”
As part of the pay freeze announcement in February GMG said that it would not pay financial performance bonuses for the financial year 2008-2009, ‘which form the larger part of overall bonuses,’ it continues.
“But its remuneration committee – which consists of independent directors and the chair of the Scott Trust – decided that bonuses based on the achievement of personal objectives could be paid.”
GMG has suspended its bonus scheme for this financial year, the article reports.
The UK parliament’s Human Rights Joint Committee has published the following advisory, as part of today’s release of its March 3 session’s minutes:
“Effective training of front line police officers on the role of journalists in protests is vital. Police forces should consider how to ensure their officers follow the media guidelines which have been agreed between ACPO [Association of Chief Police Officers] and the NUJ [National Union of Journalists], and take steps to deal with officers who do not follow them.”
The committee came out in support of journalists covering protests, stating that they are entitled to carry out ‘their lawful business’ and report on how demos are handled by the police free from state intervention, unless this is deemed ‘necessary and proportionate’.
In his evidence to the committee, NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear, said guidelines agreed by the union and ACPO were useless, because officers dealing with journalists and protests are not aware of them.
Vernon Coaker MP added that the NUJ has been invited to attend demonstrations with the police to suggest possible changes to procedure.
Evidence was given to the committee last year as part of its inquiry into”
The Manchester Evening News National Union of Journalists Chapel has passed the following motions at a mandatory meeting held today, and sent this email to GMG Regional chief executive, Mark Dodson.
To: Mark Dodson
Cc: Paul Horrocks; Jim Banham; Carolyn McCall; Liz Forgan
Subject: MEN NUJ chapel resolutions
Dear Mark,
At a very well attended, mandatory meeting earlier today, the MEN NUJ chapel unanimously passed the following resolutions:
“Journalists on the Guardian and Observer in London have backed colleagues on the local titles in their group who are fighting against massive job cuts and almost certain compulsory redundancies,” reports the National Union of Journalists.
“A joint meeting of NUJ members from the two national titles unanimously agreed a resolution that said: ‘When the chapels in Greater Manchester, Surrey and Berkshire decide on a course of action, we will support them,'” the release states.
“With a week to go until the NUJ’s parlimentary lobby over local media cutbacks, more than seventy UK MPs have signed a motion on the issue,” the National Union of Journalists reports.
“The parliamentary petition regrets job cuts at profitable local media and calls on the government to give state support only in return for guarantees on investment in journalism,” the release continues.