Image via @azrepublicguild/Twitter
GLORIA REBECCA GOMEZ
Arizona Mirror
For two days, unionized reporters across the country, including at Arizona’s largest newspaper, will walk off the job to protest unfair working conditions.
On June 5 and 6, journalists at The Arizona Republic and 24 other newsrooms won’t be covering local governments, sports teams, restaurants and all the other things they typically do in order to send a message to parent company Gannett, the largest newspaper publisher in the country.
“We aim to remind Gannett where the value in its company lies — its journalists,” Republic reporter Richard Ruelas wrote on a GoFundMe post crowdsourcing donations to recoup costs for employees who join the walkout.
The strike follows years of debilitating staff cuts. The latest saw the Virginia-based company, which owns more than 200 papers, lay off 3% of its workforce across more than 25 states. Those included “deep, wide and high” cuts at the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson, which saw 25% of its remaining journalists fired, including its top editor. (The Star is operated under a 50-50 partnership between Gannett and Lee Enterprises.)
And the media conglomerate has long been criticized for buying up and shuttering local news outlets.
Since its purchase of the Republic in 2000, the staff of the state’s paper of record has shrunk from more than 400 to about 130. But the Valley, which the Republic primarily covers, has continued to grow.
