Staffers from two dozen newsrooms from California to New York walked off the job on Monday, striking to demand better wages and accusing Gannett leadership of mismanagement. Steven Waldman of the “Rebuild Local News Coalition” joins Geoff Bennett to discuss.
Hundreds of journalists employed by Gannett, the country’s largest newspaper chain, went on strike today.
Staffers from two dozen newsrooms from California to New York walked off the job, demanding livable wages and accusing Gannett leadership of decimating its newsrooms.
We’re joined now by Steven Waldman, chair of the Rebuild Local News Coalition. That’s a nonprofit that aims to advance policies to counter the collapse of local news. He’s also co-founder of Report For America.
Thanks for being with us.
And this walkout, as we mentioned, it includes workers from about two dozen newsrooms, to include The Palm Beach Post, The Arizona Republic, The Austin-American Statesman.
Help us understand the significance of this labor action today.
Steven Waldman, Founder and President, Rebuild Local News Coalition: Well, this is really just a boiling over of this terrible situation that we’re having with the collapse of local news.
In general, around the country, we have seen just a very dramatic retraction of newspapers shutting down, reporters being laid off. And Gannett has really been right in the center of that. They have shed almost half of the newspaper staff in just two years.
And this is the reporters trying to react as best they can to what’s been happening, but it’s kind of a reflection of a bigger problem, which is, America’s local news system is collapsing.
Welp…must be nice to walk out and have enough money to pay bills. Most of us cant afford that luxury.
This is after millions of readers walked out over biased reporting. Papers have to be sold before wages are paid. Get a firm grip on truth in reporting and things will improve.
When they go back to work they should start telling the truth.
Well, they haven’t really been working anyway!