LabourStart: TNG-CWA on the Future of Journalism

by Seth Michaels, Aug 17, 2009

Bernie Lunzer, president of The Newspaper Guild-CWA, discussed the crisis in print journalism at the LabourStart conference this afternoon.

At today’s LabourStart conference, the writers and union communicators present got to hear from The Newspaper Guild-Communications Workers of America (TNG-CWA) about how the union is responding to the crisis facing the newspaper industry.

In the lunchtime discussion, TNG-CWA President Bernie Lunzer said the union is working hard to try and protect the journalism that’s critical to America and reach out to blogs and new media. Lunzer said the challenge is not to try and preserve print as a format in and of itself, but to preserve the craft of journalism and the vital function of newspapers in society:

If you don’t have an informed society, you can’t have a functioning democracy.

Lunzer noted that it’s easy for journalists and other Guild members to get demoralized, because the newspaper industry has shed thousands of jobs in recent years. Bluntly put, the revenue coming in around free online content is just not sufficient yet to replace the revenue being rapidly lost from the print side. But Lunzer said his union is taking a strong active role because they can’t afford to wait for someone else to take charge or rely on owners to make the right choices.

Journalists need to get active, Lunzer said, and work on finding new ways of doing business—looking at forming employee cooperatives, organizing emerging online sectors of journalists and thinking seriously about what a government role could be in protecting a healthy press.

Print is not going to disappear as an entity, Lunzer said, but the serious, substantive journalism that should be at the heart of the news cycle isn’t being supported by old economic models. We need to have a tough conversation about new solutions.

It’s a critical issue facing not only thousands of journalists, but also our democratic system. TNG-CWA is exploring strategies to actively build a future for journalism.

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