When I was younger and had more hair than I do now, both local newspapers would send squads of reporters nightly to cover municipal meetings all over the Lehigh Valley. They also had someone on hand to cover every high school athletic contest. I remember watching Peg Rhodin phone in stories from the Easton courthouse and give flawless accounts of criminal cases. Or reporters hounding an Executive so much that he would insist all questions must be in writing and faxed to him in advance. Times have changed. The Express Times no longer covers county government, and is content to just run news releases sent by the county. The Morning Call will sometimes send a reporter, but he misses the most important stories discussed in committee hearings. This is bad for democracy. People who have no idea who is representing them will naturally align themselves with their tribes and might vote for a terrible candidate simply because of his party. What's worse, this lack of coverage is an open invitation to political corruption. We need newspapers, but they are now owned by corporations who care more about dollars than actually telling you what is happening. Though we still have two dailies, the Lehigh Valley has become a news desert. WFMZ-TV69 actually provides vastly superior local coverage than you'll find in your daily. So that's why I think the efforts of Morning Call reporters to unionize is long overdue.
Morning Call reporter Tom Shortell tweets, "I've worked as a newspaper reporter for 11 years, all for non-union papers. It's a brutal industry. My newsrooms have been downsized 5 times, including a round where I was laid off. This step is to protect our local newsroom and provide job security for the journalists in it." Reporter Steve Essack adds that reporters have formed a guild to combat "Tribune’s corporate nonsense that wastes money and people."
I've certainly seen both newspapers waste good people.
Although I understand newspapers need to make a profit, they also need to tell us what is going on or people will stop buying them. While a union offers no protection against short-sighted corporate cuts, a contract would ensure better working conditions. More importantly, a guild will enable reporters to continue to act as watchdogs instead of lapdogs licking up news releases.
They explain more in this
FAQ.
This will not end well for those who join the union. I hope their skill-sets include resume' writing, at that will be handy.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking o9fnewspares did you read the story about the gaff by Phillips Armstrong and his late apology after offending women.
ReplyDeleteAlso how did Zirinski's fundraiser go for her upcoming campaigns for state office and eventually congress?
Unions aren't going to save the newspaper business. They're there to throw the last shovels full of dirt on the industry's grave. The information business has opened up into the wild west. Newspapers that got away with advocacy masquerading as journalism are now just another opinion organ - of which there are millions. You've been found out and are being passed by.
ReplyDeleteLearn to code.
It will be the final straw that will put newspapers out. While one can have sympathy for their plight, you cannot make something that is becoming obsolete and out of touch relevant by force.
ReplyDeleteYes, there is a lack of reliable information for voters especially in the local area, but you cannot force people to partake. The last few years have demonstrated just how biased and nonobjective most of the major news sources are. Can they ever recover their reputations?
We have seen this even at the local Morning Call, which seems to have become a vehicle to distribute super market ads. There has been very little reporting, mostly the reprinting of press releases. The local papers have alienated many of the local community when they become a propaganda arm orchestrated from Chicago and L.A.
While that is part of the problem the other is the rise of the internet and interactive mobile devices, I don't believe many people will ever read a newspaper and possibly not even a book.
Newspapers are funded by advertisers, subscriptions mostly pay for distribution, as readership declines, the fees from advertising declines. They cannot turn this around.
The next attempt is to say that newspapers are essential for democracy and need to be subsidized by the government. I would hope that is never seriously considered.
It is sad, but newspapers are a 19th and 20th century institution that will expire in the 21st century.
If the Morning Call falls completely, will anyone notice?
ReplyDeleteOur paper is no longer a service to our daily lives. It is an appendage of a vast Liberal/Socialist propaganda network. No thanks. CNN and Washington Post do all that better.
Besides, how much Trump-bashing, America-loathing can one take? We live here by CHOICE and don't feel the least bit guilty about our decision. Benefit THIS community by providing trustworthy, useful information unique to HERE.
Go stick Fox News and Breitbart up your Nazi ass!
DeleteThe daily locally will go the way of the home telephone hanging on the kitchen wall. Once a staple now phone in antique stores. They won't exist and when shortell is out of a job he can write about it on the back of his unemployment check. Where does the call have all these millions
ReplyDeleteTrump 2020
ReplyDeleteSo, guild is a fancy name for a Union which they are too embarrassed to use. If they want to save newspapers maybe they should pool their resources and offer something that people are willing to buy. The answer is not a union to such up the little that is left of the industry.
ReplyDeleteShortell has kissed enough butt around the courthouse and county executive to warrant a get paid do nothing or have no clue or background.Kinda like the admission guy at Gacedale. McClure can find a place for jimike the rest of his cronies.
ReplyDeleteIF they follow the tradition of union featherbedding and strict work rules, we can look forward to shop stewards policing the articles to make sure that pronoun specialists don't write articles using adjectives.
ReplyDeleteI believe there still is demand for more detailed local news reporting than seen on 30 second TV segments but I agree with those above who say that printed daily local newspapers days are numbered. The trick will be to come up with a business model that will work financially to better cover local news and sports and distribute the product electronically. Advertising will still have to be involved to cover most of the revenue. I think it is possible that people will still choose to pay some amount for good local news coverage if free internet news service is not available and hard copy papers no longer exist. Somebody just has to be clever enough to get it done in a way that the numbers work for both the producers and buyers.
ReplyDeleteNotice how their two best ‘reporters’ didn’t bother joining the union, Groller and Opilo. At least they are smart enough to realize this is a bad idea .
ReplyDeleteunionizing a profession with a business model that has become unprofitable due to changing technologies and patterns of behavior will not save it from eventual extinction. as was stated here already, it will only facilitate a more rapid end.
ReplyDeleteThis is reminiscent of the USW flailing and attempting to flex it's scrawny muscles in the final days of The Steel. What they're really fighting for are better separation packages for when they are eventually, inevitably dismissed. Time to learn to code.
ReplyDeleteSuck it up Tom, you are lucky you have a job !
ReplyDeleteFunny how this notoriously non union piece of bird cage liner now want to be represented by a Union
ReplyDeletei say rot in hell where you belong,
we stopped delivery of this junk years and years ago.
nothing new, turn the page
People stopped relying on newspapers a long time ago. They're trying to save the fireman's job on a diesel train. Learn to code is right.
ReplyDeleteOn 2/26/19, LVL posted what was presented as a legitimate “article” or “news story” which was obviously a paid advertisement for a real estate property. The contents of the "article" come directly from the listing blurb. There is no indication that the author actually went to the property for this "story". The "reporter" may have been instructed to write this piece. I do not really know. However, I will say that this is not journalism. Even though I am not a huge fan of unions, I can see why the MC journalists would want to form one. Journalistic integrity is at stake. An advertisement presented as a legitimate news story is not a good sign. No wonder some people do not trust the media.
ReplyDeleteThere is a good job opportunity here, that is a new service to coordinate and email Grocery store flyers direct to consumers, it is the last leg of the newspaper industry.
ReplyDeleteBill White abandoned Altoona, let them suffer.
ReplyDelete4.01 why are you so angry, do you blame other people for the failures of the newspaper industry.
ReplyDeleteNote to aspiring The Morning Call Guild :
ReplyDeleteLose the constant Leftist propaganda or suffer the same fate as your TMC predecessors.
Nevertheless, best of luck to official NIZ Mouthpiece Bill White all the same.
Fake News simply does not sell well enough to be able to compete successfully in a Free Market Society, angry Anon 4:01.
ReplyDeleteThe local edited out news gagickle are one in the same as the corrupt organization left or right run in city, county and state? Just take a look at the ship the local ooopaloompa jump on from setting sail from the SS palowsky. That there thing is working with the boogie men trying to steal boepeep these kinds of creeps are like and similar too a bad pop-up turning into kiddyporn while children are staring at the screen.
ReplyDeleteReport on Sam Murray (not Irish) fixing an All Star Vote for his Son Joseph !.
ReplyDeleteResign Judge =you are a total fraud !
ReplyDeleteHey Bernie, you entry really brought out the alt-right wing whackos. Nothing is real news unless it comes form Drudge or a Trump approved propaganda outlet.
ReplyDeleteAll Hail the president who claims Lil Kim Korea is a nice guy.lol
Trump2020
ReplyDeleteInteresting angle, reporters unionizing. Yes, there is and has been some things very lacking at the Morning Call -- they took away a main reason I wanted to read it -- Paul Muschick taking up the battle for wronged local persons, and helping us locals to know what to do should we face similar wrongs. Now they've got him opining on broader issues, usually from the obligatory leftish slant. And yet, local is the key. They do still publish the obituaries, at least. The news in the Morning Call about local events is the only news that counts. TV and the internet have world news covered better. Too bad that Bernie points out it is less and less often really news we get at the local level.
ReplyDeleteBernie, the weekly Bethlehem Press is a much smaller operation and yet they do in a single weekly paper more to inform us about local meetings than the Morning Call. I think there are 7 or 8 local weeklies published by that same local corporation.
Even if their local reportage was excellent, it would be neutralized by the fact that The Morning Call works hard to drive away subscribers by hiring idiots to throw the paper out the window of a passing vehicle, allowing it to land in the street, or the grass, or a garden, a snowpile, a puddle, rather than showing enough respect for their own product and for their customers to toss the paper onto the porch out of the wind and weather.
They also do a bit of scamming -- they publish "special issues" five or six times a year, and whether you want those special issues or not, they take $5 out of your subscription account to pay for each one. This is described in small print on the bill, how many people actually take the time to read it? They also were pushing a local TV guide to be delivered with the Sunday paper. My husband was gullible enough to send them money for a subscription. It was a nice publication, if you watch TV (he does, I don't) and he enjoyed the issue he received. The following three Sundays he did not receive one, though he complained, once, twice, three times...somebody on the phone promised to send last week's issue that coming Sunday, though it never arrived. What the heck would he want with last week's TV guide?
Yes, the Morning Call is a mess, and the lack of local coverage for meetings is not its sole problem.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 11:22 has published almost everything I was thinking when I decided to comment on this column. Trying to complain is nearly impossible with the MC. Lest anyone think I am biased, if I call any company I don't care who I talk to, as long as they speak legible English. You will find that this is not the case with the MC. And that is only if you are lucky enough to even have anybody answer the phone. We didn't receive our paper twice this week, and when my husband called, all he got was the answering machine. It's easy to say cancel your subscription, but I enjoy reading the newspaper and my husband especially likes it for the sports section. I am not going to bash unions as I was a member of PSEA before I retired. I liked Bill White's column. Would the union have saved him? I don't know. It seems to me like the entire newspaper would need to restructure. Here's what I don't understand Bernie. The newspaper contains tons of ads. The cost to publish an obituary runs into hundreds of dollars. The price of the paper goes up, the news coverage goes down, the delivery service is disgusting. What am I missing here? Why is this happening? Someone who posted earlier said this decline of the newspaper was a result of a vast liberal/Socialist propaganda agenda. Maybe I'm missing something, but I just don't get it.
aaaa
It is true, that when someone sees articles that are blatantly biases against their point of view, they are reluctant to financially support them. They can take once, maybe twice, but when you come to believe that they promoting things that you oppose only a fool would continue to send them money. The answer is objective conveyance of the facts and an equal airing of both sides of issues, The members of the media, obviously liberal, has not been unable to control their impulses to change public opinion by their writing. Is its a journalists job to change public opinion? Now, we see that they feel they are actually losing the argument, they have doubled down by using the only thing they know, propaganda. If you alienate half your customers you will be out of business. Everyone can accept seeing a different point of view than their own, but they recognize, propaganda eventually.
ReplyDeleteThe lack of coverage of local government works to the advantage of such as Tara and Lori in Northampton County. And don't ever get me started on Easton, Bethlehem and Allentown. And if not for your reporting of local government issues, we lazy asses (I include myself) would not have a clue. But there are not enough hours in the day for you to cover local government. I confess I don't even know which municipalities post on-line. I do enjoy the Boscov's ads. It is so sad that I have to look at the source of the of the original article in TMC before I waste my time reading it. Although I try to read your blog daily I don't have a clue what the comments on Sam Murray are about.
ReplyDeleteEssack just quit? Not exactly a Norma Rae moment.
ReplyDeleteTake today's MC front page headline . . .
ReplyDeleteTrump's talks with Kim fizzle.
Should have been "KIM'S talks with Trump fizzle." Why? Because that's what really happened! Kim came in offering nothing new, yet expecting Trump to remove ALL sanctions. Trump didn't take the bait! Trump essentially said "Screw you" and walked away as Kim's economy continues to be destroyed by the sanctions. THIS is leadership and power! It also sends a strong message to China that should help with that.
Readers who actually understand world affairs and keep informed know this summit was a "win" for Trump and America. HERE are the readers who reject liberal media's constant slant and obfuscation.
This one small example illustrates why I have no trust for what I read in the Morning Call. The entire publication is skewed like this even when providing local information.
Agenda, agenda, agenda.
Screw you, Morning Call (and Bill White before). Frauds.
Bernie, if you would be willing to give up a little of your power, you could enlist people who do go to these meetings, to send you a report, which you could edit and publish, just insist on conveying the facts, skip the opinion and you may be able to cover the whole lehigh valley. You do a good job at what you can cover, but you cannot cover everything.
ReplyDeleteHire Rolf Oeler to cover the Phantoms he is Mr Hockey in Allentown, a goon who can skate, shoot pass and drink lagers after the game!
ReplyDeleteDeliver personnel also want a union. No deliveries until after 10:00 a.m.
ReplyDeleteSad that advertisments and party agendas are sold to the public as news. The sadder part is those that buy into the stories that one can otherwise see differs?
ReplyDeleteIf those media man pushes the bearded fat ladies pregnancy we can all see flipper boy at the downtown circus carnival daily at the PPl/LVHN arena fishbowl before the aborsionists break its neck upon leaving the birthing canal. This could be televised on the 69 news screens as live feeds?
anon 7:16, why would an American paper put Kim's name before our President. Think! Your right wing rage is clouding your perception. It is not liberal or leftist bias, it is the fact you have been given the right wing propaganda you like for so long, you think it is real facts. Sad times for our country. Corporate greed use to trick use out of our money and health, now they just take it and wave a flag. We are doomed.
ReplyDeleteAmazing how many people think Fox "News" is reality and all else is BS. They don't need pot or LSD, they live it day to day!
ReplyDelete3/1/2019
ReplyDeleteThoZe menstralators instead of just smearing there bodies in there menstral blood can now go back to there origins and smear themselfZ in fetal particulantZ too! Damm that klownZ make up that has become the rage amount the movers and shakers? NOT hahaha