Unionized employees at The Honolulu Advertiser are gearing up for the next contract bargaining session, on May 19, between the Newspaper Guild and management, the iLind.net blog says. "Basically, all newsroom staffers are exercising their right to refuse the optional task of shooting, editing or otherwise producing videos for use on Honoluluadvertiser.com,'' the blog quotes an unidentified union member saying. "This task was taken on voluntarily by newsroom staffers as part of the Advertiser’s ‘digital transformation,’ but given the complete lack of respect for that effort on the part of the company (as evidenced by their lousy contract offers and unwillingness to bargain seriously), the environment of cooperation is taking a turn for the worse."Got a Gannett-related blog or other website to recommend? Use this link to e-mail your reply; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the green sidebar, upper right.
[Hat tip, to a reader for pointing me to iLind; image: this morning's Advertiser, Newseum]
Alright! There's one Gannett paper taking a stand. Although what's the worst that can happen? I wouldn't mind losing my job in paradise. Go for it folks!
ReplyDeleteVideo surely won't save us (journalism), but it is and will continue to be a vital storytelling tool in the future media "toolbox." I guess I'm torn in my feelings about this...
ReplyDeleteDo the folks at Honolulu have a point about everyone's digital efforts not truly being appreciated by the company? Do I applaud them for taking a stand on those grounds? Yeah. Across the company, we're all working our butts off to try to make this work... often with less staffing, equipment, and resources than we need.
But looking in the long-term, is this really the wisest thing to be striking against? No, it's not. All strikes of all forms take some tolls on both sides, but I see this hurting employees a lot more.
I pose a hypothetical: If you were an employer whose employees refused to participate in new initiatives you felt were vital to your company's survival, would you keep them? Or would you find other enthusiastic journalists who would?
Rarely do I side against the on-the-street journalists in all of the gripes catalogued on this blog... I think they're usually in the right, but this is not one of those cases. Do I think the lack of appreciation and reward for our efforts is a raw deal? Absolutely. It sucks. We're doing our darndest to help transform this outdated business plan of journalism.
But hey... a lot of significant things in our lives and our careers go unnoticed, unappreciated, and unrewarded. It ain't right, but it's a fact of life.
So strike all you want against the future of journalism... when all is said and done, will you have the multi-platform journalistic skills to continue your current position or another one elsewhere of your choosing?
I agree with Anon 7:42.
ReplyDeleteThings are so bad there you have to strike against, against, being taught a new skill? Huh? I understand fully that the training is lackluster and wanting, but at least go through the motions. Maybe the video skills Gannett makes you acquire can be used in another job, in another company, somewhere down the line.
I strongly disagree with Mr. Yesterday and anonymous at 7:42 a.m. You have to actually work in one of these pressure cookers to truly know what it means to have this video b.s. shoved down your throat.
ReplyDeleteIn this case, you're being forced to become a videographer while you're also being forced to write more with fewer resources. But yet there's no overtime. Fewer co-workers are around to produce the necessary news, let alone any enterprise stories. There's less time to edit, write and fact-check. There are fewer face-to-face meetings with sources. Fewer phone calls to find out about news. Less time sitting in public meetings and sorting through public records. This ultimately all equates to more blame on the reporters when the corporate numbers look bad. Video is just one more thing that reporters will be required to do, but will be given no time to realistically accomplish the tasks.
Nobody is opposed to learning a new skill, particularly one that is beneficial to one's future employment prospects. But in this case, the company has been using this with success against the reporters. Reporters are already being blamed for not producing enough videos. Reporters are already being blamed for failing to produce videos that are of quality. This leads management to blame reporters for the declining Web and newspaper readership.
There just aren't enough bodies available to make it work while producing quality journalism.
It's necessary for reporters to take a stand against tyranny.
Anon at 7:42 here, weighing in again...
ReplyDeleteDude, come on Anon at 11:33... what the hell? I think I made it pretty darn clear in my original comment that I worked in one of these "pressure cookers" myself. I'm not a reporter... but I am a journalist who produces video.
Video isn't BS. It's how it's being implemented that's often BS.
You have to understand that in a corporation, while there are many, many, many similarities in all of our toils, there are just as many differences that truly depend on how a corporate initiative is implemented – in our case, at single GCI sites. A year or so later after the video initiative, there are sites that are handling it alright, but I bet there are a lot of sites that are like the fat kid towards the end of a race... giving it all they've got but they're way behind the pack.
I'm fortunate to be at one of the GCI sites that really isn't too terribly dysfunctional... seemingly unreasonable at times, but truly not too bad. That doesn't mean I don't recognize that other places have it far, far worse that us... and it doesn't mean we don't have our share of problems that other GCI sites are having.
I think we owe our marginal successes to the fact that over the past year or so we've modified our operations to juggle all of these new delivery and content changes. Our method for doing everything is constantly changing in minor ways. For now, we have a news reporter and a sports reporter who are our video guys who take care of our needs... we try to have at least one new video every day or two. The photojournalists take their time to really do great videos... they want to be proud of the visuals they put out. Other reporters do video from time to time.
In our case, everybody is at least familiar with video, but fewer people have expertise in producing it... it increases the quality because of consistency and practice over time, and it also just happens to isolate the OT and hours-worked issues to just a couple people rather than having it such a widespread newsroom phenomenon.
So it works for us. We sure as hell struggled at first, and we're still struggling a little, but we found ways to make everybody happy without totally stretching us too thinly.
I guess my point is.. don't blame the initiative. Blame the implementation.
Pity the poor stuck-in-the-past reporters who don't understand the future of the news industry. Print newspapers are dying FASTER than anybody ever dreamed they would. The only future journalists can envision is a digital one, and that mandates video. I thought we're supposed to be at the leading edge of things. If we don't adapt to reality, none of us will have to worry about working in a newspaper "sweatshop." There won't be one to work in.
ReplyDeletePity the poor people like anonymous at 7:39 and 7:57 who believe video is going to magically save the business. It isn't happening. It isn't going to happen, especially when video sucks as bad as it does at all the Gannett products. Advertisers aren't gonna pay for it and keep paying for it.
ReplyDeleteYo, Anon @5:17, listen here... did you actually read what I started my first comment with?
ReplyDeleteJust in case you can't find it at the very top: "Video surely won't save us (journalism), but it is and will continue to be a vital storytelling tool in the future media 'toolbox.'"
It seems as though people comment and reply without actually reading what they're disagreeing with...
Maybe you started your comments that way, but you contradicted yourself when you said, "I think we owe our marginal successes to the fact that over the past year or so we've modified our operations to juggle all of these new delivery and content changes."
ReplyDeleteYour argument is a fallacy. Any successes -- and I beg to find out what you consider to be a success -- isn't the result of the company putting up more videos, or even juggling print with Web.
Instead, the company is sinking resources into its lousy videos while cutting into the budget for journalism. Which, you know, is that thing that sells papers. Which, you know, is that thing that actually makes money for a newspaper company.