(New York) Several hundred journalists and employees of the first group of the American regional press, Gannett, are on strike and on Monday to demand a reinvestment in the “decimated” coverage of local information and the departure of the boss of the company. in trouble.
At the call of the NewsGuild-CWA press union, there are “more than 1,000 employees […] twenty newsrooms from California to New York “who are protesting on Monday and, for some, possibly on Tuesday, according to a statement from labor organizations.
Gannett’s beachhead is the newspaper network USA Today.
The group, which also controls The Palm Beach Post in Florida or The Arizona Republicwas acquired in November 2019 for around $1.2 billion by New Media Investment Group (also known as GateHouse Media), to form a juggernaut of more than 250 local publications.
But since that merger, “newsrooms have been emptied, local news coverage has been curtailed, and Gannett’s share price has fallen nearly 70%, far more than competitors like the New York Times and Lee Enterprises,” thundered NewsGuild-CWA.
Professional organizations denounce the “mismanagement” of Gannett CEO Mike Reed, who has “demoralized newsrooms, making it impossible for reporters to take advantage of resources to produce quality journalism”.
Mr. Reed is also accused of having “decimated local news coverage across the country and cut journalists’ salaries and benefits”.
The latter have since Friday asked the shareholders gathered Monday at the headquarters of Gannett in Virginia, in the suburbs of the capital Washington, to vote no confidence against Mr. Reed.
“Under Mike Reed, Gannett became radioactive for investors. Reed doesn’t care about a long-term strategy for the business of investing in (its) reporters,” NewsGuild-CWA President Jon Schleuss protested in a statement Friday.
But “despite the blockages in some of our markets, there will be no disruption and we will continue to provide trustworthy information to our loyal readers”, reacted in an email to AFP a spokesperson for Gannett.
While the group has reduced the payroll of its publications by 20% according to the unions, the management intends to “preserve journalism and […] provide fair and equitable wages and benefits to (its) valuable employees”.
Once thriving and extremely diverse, the regional and local daily press in the United States has suffered terribly from successive crises, in particular because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Newsrooms in this country, which is very committed to the freedoms of the press and expression, lost some 30,000 journalists between 2008 and 2020 (from 114,000 to 85,000 people) according to a study by the Pew Research Center from 2021.