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Breaking: Worst Monday Ever At Broad & Whatever As Philly Newspapers File Chapter 11

btpod

Dear Guild Member,

As you all should be aware, Philadelphia Media Holdings, (“PMH”), the owner of the Philadelphia Inquirer and The Daily News, has filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection.

As hard as it may sound, please stay calm. The company is still in business, the papers are still publishing and you should still report for work.

Here is what this means to our members and how the filing affects our contract:

The Chapter 11 Bankruptcy process is intended to permit a company to continue in operation by restructuring its contractual and financial obligations. Because Guild members provide essential services, your wages and benefits under our collective bargaining agreement for services rendered, after the petition was filed, will continue to be honored.

Before PMH can take any action to modify any of its obligations under our contract, it must negotiate in good faith with the Guild and prove that the contract changes it seeks are necessary to permit the reorganization and prevent the liquidation of the enterprise.

The Guild Executive Board has already taken steps to assure that we obtain all of the bankruptcy filings. We will monitor the proceedings and take appropriate action to enforce our collective bargaining agreement and protect your rights.

Even though a bankruptcy petition has been filed:

Our contract remains in full force;
Your wages and benefits will continue to be paid;
We retain the right to grieve and arbitrate contract disputes; and
No unilateral changes to our contract can be implemented without prior negotiations.

If the Employer requests that we meet to negotiate contract modifications, we will, of course, immediately notify you of any such negotiations. As in all collective bargaining situations, we will bring any tentative agreements involving modifications/changes to our contract to the members for ratification. In addition, we will keep you advised of all developments during the bankruptcy, especially any events that involve the Guild contact, your rights, and the Employer’s obligations pursuant to it.

The Guild’s Executive Committee will convene in an emergency board meeting at 10 a.m. Monday and will issue further news as we have it. In the meantime, members may contact the Guild office at [REDACTED] or Administrative Officer Bill Ross at [REDACTED] or e-mail [REDACTED].

In solidarity,

Dan Gross

President

Stick with us on Monday as we ponder what all of this might mean for them, you and us.

NOTE: The memo above incorrectly stated that Philadelphia Media Holdings filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection; in reality, it is Philadelphia Newspapers. The Guild later sent out an email clarifying such, and we have edited the headline on this post to reflect that.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 22nd, 2009 at 10:42 pm.

  • http://www.gophila.com ecortes

    This is a clear a case of “Worst Monday Ever” :-\

  • amye

    happy now?

  • John Lightstone

    Did they send a reporter to cover it or are they just using the wire service story (as usual)?

  • amye

    fuck you john lightstone.

  • jmyers

    Covered by a staff reporter, but, the “comments” are turned off. Hmmmmm.
    http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/20090223_Inquirer_owner_files_for_bankruptcy.html

  • John Lightstone

    @ayme. Go fuck yourself. The local content of the Inquirer has gotten worse and worse. I subscribed for years before I cancelled, and one of the reasons was that more of the paper was from other news organizations or the wire services, not actual Inquirer reporters. Never quite saw the “all-AP” front page, but there were days when it was 4 out of 5.

  • http://howtowaltz.blogspot.com Nate

    I’m not quite sure what amye’s first comment is supposed to mean either. Nobody wanted PMH to fail, we all just knew they were going to when they kept doing a crappier and crappier job with the paper.

  • John Lightstone

    Yeah, for example, the Inkys high priced famous columnist Lisa Scottoline comes up big time with a column on . . . wait for it . . . her pedicures! That’s driving readership, I’m sure.

    http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/lisa_scottoline/20090222_Chick_Wit__Feet_no_fish_would_bite_on.html

  • amye

    and in the future, without the papers, we can look forward to the pithy stylings of amateur writers who use tired pseudo-hip cliches like …wait for it.

  • http://howtowaltz.blogspot.com Nate

    Much easier to pick on the straw man than address the real counterargument I made, isn’t it?

  • thicketdan

    Not to mention the fact that they’ve clearly eviscerated the copy desk. The paper is riddled with typos, incorrect photo captions, and other signs that there just aren’t enough people checking it over before it goes to print. It’s offensive.

  • amye

    nate, nobody who still works at 400 n. broad thinks that laying off writers like gauitra bahadur and rob watson and photographers like peter tobia and endlessly cutting has made the paper a better product. and nobody up there will defend the weirdness that is lisa scottoline’s newspaper column. but people lucky enough to still have jobs up there are still working their butts off to do good work for print and philly.com and are dedicated and loyal to every one who takes the time to read what we write, and there is plenty of good and thoughtful work being done. i would agree that cutting into the quality of the product is not a good business model. if you have an answer to the financial problems the company is in, feel free to offer it.

  • the_ill

    uh. nobody has the answer, seeing as how the inky isnt the only paper failing in this country. but putting out a sub-par, or even shitty product sure isnt gonna help.

  • ResIpsaLoquitur

    There’s no denying that there still are good, hard-working journalists and creative folks at both the Inky and the DN, but the problems with the company – as with nearly every media company – lie with management and the external environment. We need strong, healthy and vibrant newspapers for our democratic society to function properly, and that’s why it’s so frustrating to see such important community institutions be tarnished with weakened news product and piss-poor economic management.

  • ResIpsaLoquitur

    And for what it’s worth, even though Will Bunch gets blasted pretty regularly on here, I think he’s put up a pretty decent post on this latest news:

    http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/Opening_a_new_chapter_11.html

  • pakman

    i really am at a loss to the “death of newspapers” story. i think its really simple and a couple commenters have point it out. there is no need for a philadelphia inq that publishes straight copy from ap, nyt, washington post, la times stories. what is needed is local reporting. hopefully this chapter 11 will allow them to restructure to one paper that has a clear goal to cover philadelphia well. redundancy is the problem. i dont need to buy the philly inq to read the nyt.

  • cb

    @pakman isn’t that the problem, though? Not enough ads being sold = not enough money to pay local reporters = a lot of syndicated content.