Monday, August 22, 2005
CBC lockout XVI: A view on the "strike newspaper"
A guest blog from my online colleague, Andrew Lundy, locked out senior producer of CBC Online Sports.
In May, 1998, the 30-odd newsroom staff at The Standard in St. Catharines went on strike -- the first time in the paper's 100-plus year history -- after talks to come up with a first contract broke down.
The reporters, editors and photographers decided that, in addition to picketing, we'd also start our own strike paper, The Independent. There were two main reasons: one, to show the quality of work we were capable of, and two, to drain advertising dollars away from the parent company, hurting them enough to get them bargaining from a more acceptable position.
Working on the paper was one of the hardest things I ever did. While also a member of the bargaining committee, I routinely pulled 18-hour days (as did many of my colleagues) reporting, editing and laying out the paper. Most of the striking reporters wrote good stories, the copy desk edited and laid out a quality publication, and the photogs produced some great pics. We even had an advertising guy who recently retired from The Standard helping sell our ad space.
We published three weekly issues, each of which broke news that The Standard (then staffed by replacement workers and managers) did not, and featured several local advertisers who diverted their money away from The Standard.
The paper was distributed free, so we couldn't rightly claim to be cutting into the main newspaper, but the ads did help pay for our costs, along with the generous help of CEP, (Communications, Energy and Paperworkers) our union. Once the stike was settled, the paper disappeared.
Overall, it was a fun, exhausting, and most would say worthwhile experience.
But the comparison with launching a lockout news web site may not be appropriate. St. Catharines had only one major medium, The Standard, so readers were looking for a quality alternative. Not so with the web. If CBC.ca isn't up to snuff (and it certainly isn't), in my opinion, people are much more likely to go to CNN or BBC or CTV.ca, rather than to the lockout news site.
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writing, journalism, CBC, blog, news, St. Catharines, newspaper
10:07 PM posted by Robin Rowland
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A guest blog from my online colleague, Andrew Lundy, locked out senior producer of CBC Online Sports.
In May, 1998, the 30-odd newsroom staff at The Standard in St. Catharines went on strike -- the first time in the paper's 100-plus year history -- after talks to come up with a first contract broke down.
The reporters, editors and photographers decided that, in addition to picketing, we'd also start our own strike paper, The Independent. There were two main reasons: one, to show the quality of work we were capable of, and two, to drain advertising dollars away from the parent company, hurting them enough to get them bargaining from a more acceptable position.
Working on the paper was one of the hardest things I ever did. While also a member of the bargaining committee, I routinely pulled 18-hour days (as did many of my colleagues) reporting, editing and laying out the paper. Most of the striking reporters wrote good stories, the copy desk edited and laid out a quality publication, and the photogs produced some great pics. We even had an advertising guy who recently retired from The Standard helping sell our ad space.
We published three weekly issues, each of which broke news that The Standard (then staffed by replacement workers and managers) did not, and featured several local advertisers who diverted their money away from The Standard.
The paper was distributed free, so we couldn't rightly claim to be cutting into the main newspaper, but the ads did help pay for our costs, along with the generous help of CEP, (Communications, Energy and Paperworkers) our union. Once the stike was settled, the paper disappeared.
Overall, it was a fun, exhausting, and most would say worthwhile experience.
But the comparison with launching a lockout news web site may not be appropriate. St. Catharines had only one major medium, The Standard, so readers were looking for a quality alternative. Not so with the web. If CBC.ca isn't up to snuff (and it certainly isn't), in my opinion, people are much more likely to go to CNN or BBC or CTV.ca, rather than to the lockout news site.
Technorati tags
writing, journalism, CBC, blog, news, St. Catharines, newspaper
10:07 PM posted by Robin Rowland
Permanent Link
