As Poynter and other news outlets reported, hundreds of unionized journalists at Gannett newsrooms staged a one-day walkout last week.
The workers say they are fed up with CEO Mike Reed’s leadership and delays in contract negotiations.
Gannett is the largest newspaper chain in the country. It owns several papers in this region, though no employees walked out at those papers because Gannett no longer has any local reporters in many of our region’s markets.
The walkouts coincided with Gannett’s annual shareholder meeting, and the NewsGuild launched a campaign that urged shareholders to withhold their vote for Reed. However, he was reelected.
Shop Talk is a weekly panel discussion about journalism issues. The program features Dr. Will Buss, who teaches in the Department of Broadcasting and Journalism at Western Illinois University and advises the student editors at the Western Courier and the students at student radio station The Dog: Jessica Martin, who teaches in the Department of Broadcasting and Journalism at Western Illinois University and is news director of NEWS3-TV at WIU; and TSPR News Director Rich Egger.
