According to the Everett NewsGuild, the new owners of the Daily Herald in Everett, WA want to inflict financial punishment on the paper’s unionized journalists for failing to meet unreasonable story quotas.
The journalists now urgently seek public support in their fight against these measures, which will inevitably degrade the quality of information this outlet can deliver.
As part of ongoing contract negotiations, Herald management has repeatedly proposed wages far below the cost of living in Snohomish County. They’ve paired those low wages with a $1-per-hour raise only for employees who consistently publish two to three stories per day. In other words, workers who miss the quotas would receive smaller paychecks.
The Everett NewsGuild reported on Nov. 30th that Carpenter Media offers new journalists just $20.50 an hour, which is $0.26 above Everett’s new large company minimum wage, going into effect on July 1st.
Herald workers are rejecting this unacceptable proposal and asking supporters to submit letters to the editor to the Herald before their next bargaining session on Wed., Dec. 11. Supporters should send letters to letters@heraldnet.com.
Everett NewsGuild members urged the public to use their letters to tell Carpenter Media Group:
- Management’s latest proposed wage minimum of $20.50 per hour, or $42,640 per year, falls far below the wage local journalists need to afford to live in the communities they cover. MIT’s living wage calculator estimates a single person with no kids in Snohomish County needs to earn $29.59 an hour, or about $61,500 a year.
- Tying wages to ridiculous story quotas punishes journalists for failing to meet arbitrary requirements. Harsh quotas incentivize stenography over real journalism. Herald readers want meaningful coverage, not bylines at any cost.
The wage proposal is not the first time Herald management has disregarded the value of its workers. Carpenter Media Group laid off half of the Herald’s newsroom staff this summer. Now, as journalists scramble to do more with less, Carpenter plans to hold their pay hostage to new, grueling quotas.
“This would essentially spam the front page of the Herald website with worthless content while good stories go untold,” said Jordan Hansen, a Herald reporter and Everett NewsGuild member. “Management has little respect for the work its newsroom actually does and this only serves to drive that point home. I question how this stands alongside ethical journalism and I’m not sure it can.”
Quality local journalism is more important than ever as the number of news outlets across Washington continues to shrink. The state has lost 20% of its newspapers since 2004, according to a 2022 report from the League of Women Voters of Washington. Sen. Maria Cantwell’s office reported in 2020 that Washington newsrooms lost 67% of their workers from 2005 to 2020, a higher share than the 59% loss nationally.
Carpenter Media, based in the South, owns more than 100 papers in the U.S. The company has continued its shopping spree and become one of the largest newspaper owners in the country, all while showing a pattern of acquiring local newspapers only to slash their staff.
Here in the Northwest, Carpenter bought about two dozen Oregon publications under Pamplin Media Group, the largest media company in the Portland metro area, and began layoffs there this summer. The company now appears poised to slash more jobs at other Oregon newspapers.
December 6, 2024
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