Pulitzer-Winning Bay Area News Group Journalists Blast Anti-Journalism Business Practices Of Their Corporate Owners

OAKLAND, Calif., March 7, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Members of the Bay Area News Group newsroom staff, winners of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news coverage of the deadly Ghost Ship Fire, publicly denounced their corporate owner's business practices Thursday, according to the Pacific Media Workers Guild, a San Francisco-based labor union affiliated with The NewsGuild-Communications Workers of America.

Journalists including Thomas Peele, Harry Harris, Matthias Gafni, David DeBolt, Erin Baldassari, Aaron Davis, Karl Mondon and Ray Chavez planned to gather outside the Oakland offices of the East Bay Times on Thursday, March 8, at 12 noon, to issue a statement condemning the ongoing layoffs and other cutbacks by Digital First Media and its majority owner, Alden Global Capital.

It appears to be the first public protest of its kind, in which members of a Pulitzer Prize winning team have gone public in denouncing the anti-journalism policies of their own employer.

Digital First Media, the nation's second largest newspaper chain, owns the Bay Area News Group, which includes the East Bay Times and The Mercury News, along with the Monterey Herald and many other news organizations in California and around the country. Staff at more than a dozen DFM properties are represented by The NewsGuild, a sector of the Communications Workers of America.

Alden Global Capital, a secretive vulture hedge fund, and DFM were recently sued by another hedge fund for diverting company revenues to invest in unrelated Alden investment projects and real estate.

The statement issued by the BANG news workers reads in part:

"We have dedicated our careers to informing the community through high-quality journalism. Every day, we strive to live up to principles enshrined in the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists. One of these principles calls on journalists to "expose unethical conduct in journalism, including within their organizations."

"Today, we the journalists of the East Bay Times and Mercury News, joined by our colleagues throughout the region and all around the country, are taking action in accord with that principle by publicly denouncing the ongoing destruction of our newsrooms at the hands of our company's owners, a secretive Wall Street hedge fund, Alden Global Capital.

"We are distressed by the loss of valued colleagues, forced to depart in repeated rounds of layoffs ordered on behalf of Alden, the majority owner of Digital First Media, the nation's second largest newspaper chain, which includes the Bay Area News Group. Some of the deepest job cuts came just days after we won the Pulitzer. And the layoffs continue to this day — with more to come."

"Alden's slash-and-burn policies are gutting newsrooms, undermining the public trust upon which communities deeply depend," the journalists declared.

Reporters, photographers and others gathered along the shores of Lake Merritt on Thursday to issue the statement — a stinging public rebuke of Alden-DFM, which has been sued by another hedge fund for allegedly diverting company revenues to dubious Alden investment schemes.

"Alden's goal, according to a respected news industry analyst, is to extract maximum profits before shutting down or selling whatever is left of our company in two or three years.

"There is no long-term strategy other than milking and continuing to cut," said Harvard Nieman Lab's Ken Doctor. "Their view is that in 2021, they'll deal with that then. Whatever remnants are there, they'll try to find a buyer."

The statement was signed initially by: Thomas Peele and George Kelly, Co-Chairs, BANG-East Bay Guild Unit; and by Lisa Krieger and Karl Mondon, Co-Chairs, Mercury News Guild Unit. Names of other supporters are being added.

For more information and a copy of the full statement and fact sheet: Please visit dfmworkers.org and aldenexposed.com. Follow us on Twitter: #AldenExposed

For more information, Contact:
Carl Hall
Executive Officer
Pacific Media Workers Guild
o 415-421-6833 c 415-298-2265 
[email protected]

SOURCE The NewsGuild-Communications Workers of America