You've probably picked up on this by osmosis, but news media is in a truly dire state right now—in a very real sense, it is being killed by people with names and addresses. Just in the past two days we've seen the Conde Nast walkout (in opposition to a proposal to cut 5% of the company's workforce) and over 100 layoffs at the Los Angeles Times; and that just scratches the surface. Since 2024 began layoffs have also hit TIME; Sports Illustrated and Pitchfork have seemingly been consigned to the dumpster as brands; and papers under the purview of hedge funds have seen difficulty being paid on time. All in all, a very bleak situation.
So it's no surprise that a wave of unionizations and new agreements have broken out in the media space. I haven't even had time to cover them all, they've come so fast. CQ Roll Call at the beginning of the year fighting to be recognized by their iconic masthead; the paper in Evansville, IN unionizing as Evansville News Guild; POLITICO's staff winning a new contract; High Country News demanding and not receiving voluntary recognition as HCN Union. And now two Texas publications—San Antonio Report and the Texas Tribune—have joined in.
SA Report is a bit further along in the process here—they went public with their union last week or thereabouts—and says it has 100% support within the newsroom. They've been denied voluntary recognition though and are filing for an NLRB election as of now. Support for unionization is at least 90% for the Texas Tribune, meanwhile, and although management has put out a lukewarm statement they seem more amenable to voluntary recognition than not. Both unions have also put out mission statements which I've attached to this post; the Texas Tribune's I think summarizes the desire of many journalists in these times:
We want to preserve the collaborative and open culture of our newsroom. We want to continue to be a workplace where all employees can build and sustain their professional careers. We want transparent, equitable and sustainable pay. We want to cement many current business practices that make the Tribune a positive place to work, including benefits, flexible working policies and investment in professional development. We want to maintain and improve our commitment to equity and efforts to better reflect Texas’ rich diversity. Finally, we want our employees to have job security — coupled with clear communication and protections for employees should management resort to layoffs in the future.
The Texas Tribune Guild remains committed to producing unflinching, public-service journalism for our readers. Moving forward we are committed to advocating for the workers that make this excellent journalism possible.
