The NewsGuild: will it make papers report honestly on labor news? - x304230

Newspaper reporters, after witnessing bloody police attacks on workers for many years and putting in reports that, as they appeared were little to the liking of labor, organized themselves, and received such beatings as this ANG member did in the strike at the Wisconsin News.

Their union has won in many places. “It will make for honest reporting of labor news,” says this member of the ANG, “but it will take One Big Union to see to it that these honest reports are published.”

It must be admitted out of hand that any consideration of the question whether or not the American Newspaper Guild can make for honest reporting of labor news must at this time be based, to a considerable extent, on speculation—on describing the road ahead by the signs that are now visible.

Among perennial liberals and other incurable optimists, there is a tendency to hail the Guild, as the savior of the labor movement and to shout that at last brass check Journalism has been given a nice coating of pure gold leaf. To make such an assumption, however, is blandly to ignore the purpose, to say nothing of the power, of this movement.

During recent months, these predictions have found sturdy champions among the newspaper publishers. This cry was taken up with gusto as the result of the Seattle Newspaper Guild’s strike against the Hearst owned Seattle Post-Intelligencer, resulting in the suspension of that sheet for fifteen weeks. The nation’s press, for the most part, grew quite panicky at this threat to their purses and bellowed in alarm that the “freedom of the press” was being jeopardized.

One cannot state too bluntly that the pretended fears of the publishers, as well as the rosy hopes of the liberals, are based on a misconception of unionization as it is now practiced within an industrial plant (and a newspaper is an industry) does not mean the control of the type, size or color of the product. True, it may mean a step toward worker control, but at best only a step and we are doing ourselves a disservice if we describe it as a hop, skip and a jump.

While the Guild follows the I. W. W. in allowing for complete rank and file control, it has no revolutionary aims. Let us go to the constitution of the union for a statement of purpose.

“The purpose of the American Newspaper Guild,” says this document, “shall be to advance the economic well being of its members, to guarantee as far as it is able, constant honesty in the news, to raise the standards of journalism and ethics of the industry, to foster friendly cooperation with all other workers, and to promote industrial unionism in the newspaper industry.”

You will note two passages—“to guarantee as far as it is able constant honesty in the news” and “to raise the standards of journalism and ethics of the industry.” These were pounced upon by the publishers, during the outcry against the Seattle and previous strikes to lend weight to the charge that the Guild was attempting to direct the editorial policies of the nation’s press.

While many Guild members believe that their union will be able to make significant contributions to the labor movement, they have been forced to discount these charges by emphatically pointing out that the control of the publication rests with the publisher and that the sole aim of their organization is to see that the editorial workers come in for a measure of economic security.

The publisher well knows this, of course, but it does nothing to endear him to the ANPG. The unionization of editorial workers is detested by these gentlemen for reasons other than the increases in pay and shorter hours that are bound to come, albeit they surely are not eager to make even these concessions.

It would perhaps be well to point out to those unfamiliar with the city rooms of the daily press, that reporters are not usually “told” how a story should be written or what should be left out of the paper and what should be played up. It is an old saying in the craft that any reporter who is too dumb to discover “policy” is too stupid to stay on the pay roll. In other words, all reporters know that the boss is interested in strikes only to lend what assistance he can to the employer and it therefore is wise to waste no energy giving the strikers’ position in the controversy.

One of the characteristics of American journalism, as it affects labor troubles, is that much can be written but under no consideration is one to present a fair, impartial account of what the workers want. Usually strikes are “covered” by picking up hand-outs from the Chamber of Commerce or some Industrial Association. Seldom does a reporter get his information direct from the union and when he does, it is either thrown away by the editor, garbled by a re-write man, stressing an “angle” favorable to the employer, or buried in the market section.

The hostility of the publisher towards organized labor is the principal reason for the prostitution of the word “news” in labor troubles, but there is still another—ignorance of the newspaperman. For the most part, a knowledge of the labor movement is not considered an asset on a newspaper. In fact, the stupidity of some newspapermen on the question of unionism is amazing and while unions are not likely to believe it, I personally know of instances where some blows below the belt were due solely to the lack of knowledge on the part of a reporter who was, in fact, sympathetic to the striking, workers.

It must also be remembered that the working newspaperman is up against the economic question the same as other wage slaves. No matter how independent he may wish to feel, his insecurity is inclined to make him adopt a “protective coloration.” Because it is the safe thing to do, many unconsciously accept the ideas and prejudices of the publisher. These are the last to admit that their attitude has anything to do with holding their jobs.

Here is where the Guild has entered the picture. By giving him some security, the working newspaperman can and has adopted an independent attitude once foreign to all but a few venturesome souls. Then their active participation in the labor movement rapidly conditions their thinking —they sooner or later realize their own status in the economic scheme of things. In brief, they receive a valuable education previously missed. This educating could be better understood, if the reader could see a young reporter attending his first Guild meeting and worrying about the boss —then a few weeks later see him enthusiastically voting a strike and going at this new activity in a deadly serious manner.

No union understands better than the I. W. W. the importance of taking one’s case to the public. In the past many unions could do little to counteract the boss propaganda in the daily press. They were unfamiliar with journalistic tricks and practices and, consequently, they were practically mute at a time when speech was essential.

Whatever else may be laid at the Guild’s door, none can say that it has not been militant. True the fights were forced upon it, but it did fight. As the result, there are today in the United States thousands of labor-conscious newspapermen who will and have lent their services to unions when the time comes for doing what the publishers call “influencing public opinion.”

As this is written, I glance at a stack of newspapers. There are ninety of them. They are the issues of the Guild Daily, published in Seattle during the Post-Intelligencer strike. As far as I can determine, this is the first time in the history of the United States that a group of workers went on strike but continued to work at their usual jobs. Here, certainly, is something for publishers to really worry about and here is an eloquent answer to those who condescendly say that workers need a boss to direct and exploit them.

Within a few moments after the management of the Post-Intelligencer announced suspension, these strikers went to work putting out a newspaper. It hit the streets after a hectic night and some 20,000 were sold. Then, each day during the long strike this paper not only appeared but it grew steadily in circulation and importance. Boycotted by the usual wire services, the nation was covered by the Guild Wire Service, made up of union reporters in every large city in the country. Its policy on all questions was determined by a vote of the entire staff and it gave Seattle residents an unusually complete coverage of the city’s doings. Then, also, labor news was reported accurately for the first time since the suspension of the Union Record. This is probably wandering a bit afield. This article was to discuss the question of the Guild and honest labor reporting and not necessarily the importance in general to unions of organizing this particular group of white collar workers.

One can sum it up by saying that the Guild, as it stands now, will make for honest reporting of labor news, but it will take One Big Union to see to it that these honest reports are published.

-X304230

Transcribed by Juan Conatz