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CONTRACT 2007
The current Writers Guild of America Minimum Basic Agreement (MBA) expires on October 31, 2007. The provisions of the MBA cover approximately 12,000 current members of the WGAE and the WGAW.
Contract2007: The Companies' Fuzzy Math
A round-up of coverage about the studio's accounting practices.
Counterspin: Broadcast News Quality
WGAE Assistant Executive Director Ann Toback talk about the WGAE's news quality survey.
Member Screening: The Player
Join the WGAE MBA Negotiating Committee for a very special screening and discussion.
Broadcast Newswriters Speak About News Quality
WGAE
July 26, 2007
Table of Contents
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Executive Summary
Rationale
What we have always understood as "journalism" is evolving very quickly. Traditional media outlets, including newspapers, television, and radio, still produce most of the original news reporting in America. Yet the combined pressure of profit expectations and the loss of audiences and advertisers to "new media" are causing media companies to examine every aspect of how they do business. That has led to many changes in the workplace for journalists. The question is: do these changes help or hinder the provision of quality news to the public?
Despite the growth of new media options, local television remains by far the most popular news choice for Americans. The Project for Excellence in Journalism found in their most recent report that 65.5% of the public gets news from local TV; another 28% from network TV.[1] Local newspapers are at 28%.
CBS Corporation and The Walt Disney Company, two of the largest media conglomerates in the world, also dominate the world of television news. They own and operate TV stations that reach more than 60% of the country's population.[2] Their network news programming runs on affiliate stations as well as on owned-and-operated outlets; few if any media markets in America are beyond the reach of their programming. Their network news programs (CBS and ABC) are watched by millions.[3] Their radio networks and stations also reach many millions of listeners.
For these reasons, taking an inside look at the changing circumstances of news production at ABC and CBS is an important and unique contribution to the debate over news quality and its relation to the public interest.[1] The Project for Excellence in Journalism, "The State Of The News Media 2007."
[2] CBS owns and operates stations reaching approximately 37%; ABC 24%. "View of media ownership limits changes," David Lieberman, USA Today, 1/29/2007.
[3] ABC World News Tonight reaches nearly 10 million, CBS Evening News 7.5 million. "Exec producer leaves NBC post," Michael Learmonth, Daily Variety, 3/2/2007.
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Description of Report
The report is based on information gathered from May 2006 through April 2007 from:
- Interviews with WGA members at ABC and CBS news outlets
- Surveys distributed to WGA members by mail and through the workplace
- Information from the WGA member database
When members are quoted, they are identified only by workplace to preserve their anonymity. Their workplaces include networks and O&O (owned and operated) stations in New York, NY; Los Angeles, CA; Chicago, IL: and Washington, DC. WGA members play many roles in the newsroom and have overall responsibility to monitor and report on breaking news. These roles include:
- Producers, who select stories and determine the order in which they will run
- Writers of news voiceovers and anchor copy
- Assignment Desk Editors
- Copy/Audio/Video Editors
- Researchers and fact checkers
The Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) and Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW) are labor unions representing writers in motion pictures, broadcast and cable television, news, and new media. The Writers Guilds are active in legislative activities on the state, federal and international levels with a special focus on globalization, labor, communications, and copyrights. They also conduct programs, seminars, and events on issues of interest to, and on behalf of writers. Collectively, they are known as the WGA.
For more information, see the Statement of Methodology.
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Findings
MEDIA CONGLOMERATES ATTACK UNIONS, SLASH JOBS
The conglomerates have slashed jobs overall, converted full-timers to part-timers, and combined jobs. The result is too many conflicting demands on the few workers who are left, resulting in a lower-quality news product. Twenty-five years ago, most jobs at the major media networks, and their owned-and-operated stations in the largest markets, were unionized. But year after year, the media conglomerates have fought to weaken union contracts, including NABET and IBEW as well as WGA contracts, in order to add more temporary and part-time workers and reduce full-time staff positions. Another key demand from companies has been to remove union jurisdiction rules to increase the number of workers holding multiple job titles at the same time. For example, where in the past, writers did all the writing and engineers did all the editing, now "writer-editors" could do both jobs.
CBS and the Disney Company have cut back on union staff significantly since 1980. Now they are trying to gut the Writers Guild completely. If Writers Guild news writers, graphic artists, producers and desk assistants go the way of all the other professionals in the newsroom, broadcast journalism may never recover the quality it once had. The charts below show how dramatically CBS, in particular, has slashed full-time newswriters.
NEWS QUALITY TUMBLES
The report demonstrates that our members are experiencing a decline in news quality, especially when once-independent newsrooms are consolidated. Some of the aspects of this decline are:
- Less news overall: fewer stories are covered, and they are repeated more frequently, especially on co-owned stations (recycling)
- Less hard news, more "infotainment" news and more cross-promotions of outlets or products owned by the same company.
The charts below show WGA members believe their outlets, particularly local stations, are not spending enough time and energy on important stories.
Q. Do you think your news outlet spends enough time and energy making sure that your audience has enough information to make sound judgments on issues relevant to public life?
Q. How often are stories with a true public interest or hard news component bumped for celebrity news, human interest stories, or reports on isolated incidents of crime or disaster?
- Less research and fact-checking
- Less time spent seeking multiple sources
- Less investigative reporting
- More VNR use
- Less preparation time
- More time spent multi-tasking (for example, doing production work as well as writing)
UNIONS PROTECT JOURNALISTS AND THE PUBLIC INTEREST
The report also details how unions protect journalists and the public interest:
- How union contracts can limit the negative impact of newsroom consolidation
- How professional journalists continue to uphold standards of quality journalism, and how the protection of a union contract facilitates that professionalism
- How the decline of full-time jobs and the addition of part-time and temporary jobs with less or no union protection can hurt news quality
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Recommendations
The FCC has the power to ensure that broadcast media provide a higher standard of news quality.
The Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) supports the Center for Media and Democracy's proposals around the use of video news releases (VNRs):
- All provided and/or sponsored video footage be required to carry a continuous, frame-by-frame visual notification of its source.
- All provided and/or sponsored audio material be required to include a verbal notification at its beginning and/or end, disclosing its source.
- Broadcasters be required to place in their public file a monthly report on their use of provided and/or sponsored material.
- U.S. government agencies funding and/or producing video or audio for news broadcast be required to make all such material public and archive it online.
The WGAE also recommends that the following actions be considered:
- Hold public hearings specifically regarding localism and broadcast news quality in the top markets where most of the U.S. population lives.
- Create and publicize a special public comment period and/or public hearing regarding the effect of these labor practices in newsrooms on the public interest.
- Issue a public statement that the public interest would be served by CBS and Disney reaching amicable contract agreements for their newswriters and other news personnel
- Appoint a commission or working group to develop standards for broadcast news quality as a public interest requirement. Include working journalists on both the national and local level, as well as industry representatives.
- These standards could include time requirements for original news production, local coverage, political coverage, and strict disclosure requirements for paid news placement and promotion of co-owned entities. Entertainment programming should not be allowed to count toward a news requirement.
- Re-introduce the Fairness Doctrine and require newscasters to present multiple sides of an issue.
- Make infractions of these public interest requirements punishable by fines.
- Require documented adherence to these standards for license renewal.
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History: Broadcast News in America
Unlike other media platforms like newspapers and cable, which use privately-owned distribution, broadcasters distribute their product through the public airwaves. The Communications Act of 1934 imposed several requirements on broadcasters licensed to use the airwaves, including that they "serve the public interest."
Broadcast news first became a major news source for the public during World War II. As the Axis powers threatened global domination, Edward R. Murrow's reporting for CBS Radio gripped the nation. CBS News became the "jewel in the crown" of the Tiffany Network. CBS's rival NBC, and NBC's spinoff, ABC, soon established their own news divisions. Providing daily, quality national and local news reports became the standard for broadcasters to uphold their end of the public airwaves bargain with the government and the American people. News divisions were encouraged to send correspondents around the globe, invest in each new generation of high-tech communications equipment, and staff newsrooms.
Times began to change in the 1980s when media ownership consolidation began to accelerate. Billionaire investor Laurence Tisch took over CBS in 1986. Westinghouse Electric bought CBS in 1995, then consolidated it with entertainment conglomerate Viacom. In the mid-nineties, Capital Cities bought the ABC Network. Disney took over Capital Cities-ABC in 1996. The Disney Company and CBS, along with the other major media conglomerates, continued to grow and expand their footprints throughout the world.
Through the 1980's and 1990's, the companies fought with the unions representing workers in their news operations: the Writers Guild, NABET, and IBEW. While many issues surfaced during this time, two in particular have affected news quality. One issue is that of full-time versus temporary and part-time workers. Editors, news writers, camera operators, audio technicians, technical directors: all have lost full-time positions. Another issue is the removal of union jurisdiction rules to increase the number of workers holding multiple job titles at the same time. Each union has been forced to allow non-union workers, or workers from another union, to do the work it formerly controlled. Writers now produce and edit as well as write; editors may now write and direct as well.
Also, the ascent of 24-hour cable news and the internet have cut into both audiences and advertising dollars once owned by broadcasters. As these changes have taken hold, Americans' perception of the quality of journalism has steadily declined.
According to the Project for Excellence in Journalism, "the number of Americans with a favorable view of the press... dropped markedly in 2006, from 59% in February, to 48% in July. The metric can be volatile, but that was still one of the lower marks over the course of a decade. And in one of the most basic yardsticks of public attitudes, the number of Americans who believe most or all of what news organizations tell them, there were continued declines. Virtually every news outlet saw its number fall in 2006." [1]
Several key research studies in the last few years have demonstrated one practice in particular that has alarmed the public and elected officials: the media's reliance on VNRs (video news releases). One study by the New York Times in March 2005 and another by the Center for Media and Democracy(CMD) in April 2006 found that many local broadcasters aired VNRs. These videos look like news reporting, but are produced primarily by PR firms to tout their clients' products or points of view, and are usually aired without attribution to the sponsoring company. After the Times story came out in 2005, the FCC issued a notice calling on broadcasters and cable operators to follow disclosure rules when airing VNRs. The notice explained, "Listeners and viewers are entitled to know who seeks to persuade them."
The CMD report found 77 TV stations in markets large and small airing VNRs without proper disclosure. "In each case," CMD wrote, "these 77 television stations actively disguised the sponsored content to make it appear to be their own reporting. In almost all cases, stations failed to balance the clients' messages with independently-gathered footage or basic journalistic research. More than one-third of the time, stations aired the pre-packaged VNR in its entirety." CBS' Los Angeles station, KCBS, was among the stations cited for running VNRs. Disney's KABC, also Los Angeles, and a number of ABC affiliated stations ran VNRs as well. In a follow-up study released in fall 2006, an ABC national news broadcast ran a VNR for a pharmaceutical company.[2]
[1] State of the News Media 2007, Project for Excellence in Journalism.
[2] Both CMD studies can be accessed at: http://www.prwatch.org/fakenews2/execsummary
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News Quality Is Declining
News Quality Issue #1: Fewer People = Fewer Stories
For years, both ABC and CBS have been cutting back newsroom staff. Since 1980, CBS cut its total number of
writers, producers, editors, and production/desk assistants by 17%; ABC cut the
same group by 34%. The job loss is more
significant when one separates full-time staff from temporary employees. ABC
has cut its full-time staff news employees by 53%, and CBS by 59%. This is an
important distinction. While some temporary employees regularly work
four to five days a week, others work only a few days per month, or even per
year. Therefore, a count of how many
full-time staff has been reduced is the most reliable indicator of overall
staffing. [1]
"Recently there was a major flood in a northern suburb and we could not cover it."- WBBM-TV newswriter |
Job loss comes in several forms: general staff cuts by the networks, cutbacks in use of outside freelancers, and job cuts caused by consolidation. A Chicago newswriter noted that "We miss stories all the time because we're no longer allowed to buy stringer tape [video shot by freelance reporters] and we don't have crew to send to community events. Recently there was a major flood in a northern suburb and we could not cover it."
Consolidation has the same effect. In 2002, CBS moved its new acquisition, Los Angeles' KCAL-TV, into the same building with its longtime owned-and-operated affiliate KCBS-TV. CBS gave assurances that the integrity of the two stations' separate newscasts would be maintained, and that the two newsrooms would merely be "co-located" - two entirely separate news organizations would now simply be housed in the same building.
The CBS promise to maintain separate news outlets in the co-location was swiftly broken. The results included:
- The newsrooms were combined, so that one newsroom now served two separate station newscasts.
- The stations' separate investigative units were combined.
- The community relations departments were combined.
- All three units wound up with significantly less combined staff than the total when the two stations were operated separately.
And in July 2006, management of the combined newsrooms laid off fifty more employees. The WGA staff at KCAL and KCBS now report chronic understaffing.
The loss of community relations personnel particularly impacts the stations' ability to serve the local market. The operational merger cut in half the ability of community groups to receive news coverage, donations, and/or event sponsorships.
These behind-the-scenes changes at the two stations make a substantial difference in what the Los Angeles public sees on television news. The same stories run on both stations every day. The stations will no longer send out two reporters to the same story. Reporters are expected to tape one version of a story using a KCAL microphone, and another version featuring KCBS. As a result, not merely the same topics, but the same facts, sources, and analysis run on both stations.
Since fewer writers are busy creating stories for two stations, fewer stories can be produced. One way newsrooms deal with this is to increase the number of times stories will repeat, and the length of time over which stories are repeated. One member gave us details: "Things I write at 12:00pm are still running at 1:00 am on both stations...sometimes the [same] story even runs the next day on the early am shows."
[1] Source: WGA membership database.
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News Quality Issue #2: Less Hard News
"We take a lot of stuff from 'Entertainment Tonight.' We watch it at 6:30 and decide what to use."- CBS television news writer |
Media outlets have been moving away from hard news and toward more lifestyle/ entertainment news, or "infotainment," for some time now. Whether the trend is driven by cost pressures and a fear of offending the powerful, or by a desire to "give the people what they want" and win the ratings battle, one result is clear. Less hard news is making it on to the airwaves
A member at CBS' KNX Radio in Los Angeles wrote, "I was told at various times, ‘There's nothing happening in Iraq'... [Stories] must be titillating, embarrassing, or morally disturbing." Another reported, "Jane Fonda signs a deal, Prince Albert's illegitimate daughter, Britney Spears' baby trouble: All bump real news. We do this every day [emphasis added] on both KCAL and CBS-2."
In Chicago, a major police brutality scandal erupted early in 2007 (though questions about the legality of the police department's operation existed long before then). At WBBM-TV in Chicago, according to one of their newswriters, "The 11:00am newscast spent as much time on an entertainment roundup, including the ‘news' that Warren Beatty is the subject of the 1973 song ‘You're So Vain,' as they did on the breaking news that Chicago Police Superintendent Phil Cline had resigned. Even at 10pm, the station led with a story that the Cubs [baseball team] might be sold, instead of Cline."
In Los Angeles, the Mexican border is no more than two hours away and immigration is one of the most hotly debated political issues. However, to KCBS-TV it wasn't so important. On the day in 2006 that President Bush announced his new plan to deploy the National Guard along the US-Mexico border, KCBS devoted 40 seconds to the story, 15 minutes into the broadcast, and included no local reactions or sidebars. The same newscast devoted two minutes - six times the attention - to a story on cosmetic toe surgery for sandal season.
"I feel like I am living in 'Network' [the movie]. The entertainment division has taken over!"- Good Morning America (ABC) member |
CBS Network Radio newswriters described a
management policy requiring that each four-minute newscast contain no more
than three news stories, and that "half the newscast should be light stuff,
features." An ABC Network Radio
member spoke to the fear of losing audience with too much hard news:
"Managers seem to think that if it's not entertaining, no one will listen. More to the point - affiliate managers will complain [about the news product], they say." A CBS Radio writer echoed her concerns, and added that the negative effect is not only on today's news. He said, "I feel sorry for our desk assistants, the radio reporters and producers and newswriters of the future. The worst thing you can do to a young journalist is teach them to be scared, and that is what we're doing. The copy editor and the anchor are often hectored [by management] when they don't do enough ‘exciting' stories, and it's made them gun shy about doing hard news or otherwise using their own judgment." He mentioned an example: when Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie named their baby Shiloh, the news desk personnel tried to find an expert on celebrity baby names, thinking that that might reduce the management's pressure for lighter news.
"What we're doing isn't 'close to' whoring - it IS whoring.
CBS built radio news. Why should we
be walking down 11th Avenue in hot pants, saying 'Hey baby, wanna
see something?'"
|
A member from CBS Newspath drew the line at the idea of airing a clip of a talk-show analyst speculating that then-prospective presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was a lesbian, and refused to add it to the feed.
Many expressed their frustration answering this and related questions. "There are people dying in the world, serious conflicts going on and we open WNT [World News Tonight] with the weather!" lamented one ABC member
When asked, "Do you think your news outlet spends enough time and energy making sure that your audience has enough information to make sound judgments on issues relevant to public life?" 72% of members responded "Not enough" or "Not nearly enough."
"I must have done ten stories in a day about Britney Spears shaving her head." - WBBM-TV newswriter |
Forty-nine percent of all members said that hard news stories were bumped for fluffy ones "at least once a day." For local news outlets, that number went up to 57%.
"When the XM-Sirius merger was announced, the editor was worried about doing the story because they are rivals of [co-owned] broadcast radio...we have been told not to do certain satellite radio stories by the GM and executive editor because it gives publicity to the competition."- CBS Radio newswriter |
Media conglomerates see their news operations as a great venue to cross-promote entertainment products. Disney is more conspicuous in its use of cross-promotion.
Several writers on ABC's Good Morning America reported that any domestic story without a crime component is expected to find a way to use a clip from the popular ABC television series Desperate Housewives.
Guild members at WABC-TV in New York recalled reporting on magician David Blaine's Manhattan underwater-living stunt each of the eight nights leading up the ABC primetime special in which he emerged from his bubble. In another instance, ABC Network Radio members were instructed to write about bets being placed on the upcoming National Spelling Bee - which was airing as a primetime special on ABC later that week.
There are also reports of frequent parent corporation product tie-ins at CBS. WGA members took particular exception to the requirement that they regularly write interviews with the previous night's Survivor or Amazing Race loser, stories about the "real-life missing person" featured on that Sunday's episode of Without A Trace, and numerous feature stories incorporating syndicated daytime talk-show host Dr. Phil. CBS writers are sometimes pressured to use material from "corporate partners" such as Simon & Schuster or politico.com before they go to other sources, who might be able to better speak to an issue.
Most members surveyed (72%) said that advertisers never propose topics to be covered. Twenty percent said it happens "occasionally." A member at KCAL/KCBS said, "To my knowledge, KCBS/KCAL has kept sponsors away from the news department successfully." "Radio network news is totally separate from the commercial department," wrote an ABC Network Radio member.
A few reported that sponsors are sometimes allowed to look over coverage before it airs. And certain sponsors do appear to influence the content of ABC's Good Morning America. Some members said that the show allows Wal-Mart, a major sponsor, to pull its ads on days when the news features negative reports about the company's labor or environmental practices. Members gave another, more specific example of a Purina-sponsored segment on pet health that was not allowed to show a competing brand's product, even though the featured expert recommended it.Back to Table of Contents
News Quality Issue #3: Lower Quality
WGA members identified a number of news quality issues that will be familiar to anyone who has been following developments in journalism: balanced reporting, research and fact-checking, VNRs, investigative journalism, multi-tasking, and preparation time.
"Before the merger, we in the writers pool always had time to call the other side... Now we can't do that."
In a meeting with FCC commissioners in fall 2006, a member raised an issue that goes to the heart of quality journalism: balanced reporting. "Before the merger [of KCAL and KCBS], we in the writers pool always had time to call the other side [to get their viewpoint]... Now we can't do that."
An ABC Network Radio member reported that in the first months of the Iraq war, a manager "stood in [the] newsroom and said, ‘We will only cover positive, good news stories out of Iraq,' and not insurgent bombings."
"Quality is the first thing that is expendable...never mind going beyond a Wikipedia bio."- CBS Newspath member |
Can you believe what you see on television or hear on the radio? Research departments have proven quite vulnerable to staff cuts, and with them has gone a lot of fact-checking and enrichment of stories with multiple sources. In 1989, CBS network television news employed 28 researchers. By 1999, they were all gone, and no research positions have been added since that time.[1]
At ABC, the Washington, D.C. network bureau has been trying to eliminate its two research positions, but has not been able to reach an agreement with the WGA on the decision.
Forty-seven percent of WGA members surveyed estimated that at least a few times a week, their news outlet puts items on the air that have not been fact-checked. Sixty-eight percent attributed inadequate fact-checking to understaffing and/or the elimination of the position of a co-worker who did fact-checking. Fifty percent of members reported that at least several times a week, they use no more than a single website to check the accuracy of stories. One member said, "I want to be first...but I also want to be right."
Today at CBS network news, facts are checked by whoever volunteers to do it. On the morning programs, for example, graphic artists report that they frequently go to the library or search the Internet to check facts and proper spellings for maps, charts, and other graphics. In another CBS department, NewsPath, a member described a similar situation, "We used to assign someone to double-check a script, but now the writer has to do it himself - quickly, of course." "[My] job does not include fact-checking... but I do it anyway," one member wrote.
A CBS Newspath member added, "[T]hey immediately start to think about where to cut. Instead of putting people to work together so we can get more fact-checking, better graphics, find better video to improve the stories, they want to eliminate people... Quality is the first thing that is expendable... never mind good video or going beyond a Wikipedia bio."
A CBS Radio Network member mentioned several instances of managers overruling efforts to check on facts before going on-air with a story. Once, CBS radio reported that there had been a 6.6-magnitude earthquake just outside Los Angeles. While the news staff was attempting to confirm the story, it went on the air. A few minutes later, they got a note from their Los Angeles bureau to pull the story, which seemed to have originated in some "email glitch."
Members did feel positive about the use of new technology to make more depth of information available. Several mentioned that although details about the sample sizes or error margins of polls rarely make it to air because of time constraints, the audience can now look at this information on a newscast's website.
WGA members laughed when they saw the numbers for VNR usage cited in the Center for Media and Democracy's April 2006 report. They knew the truth was that VNR use involved far more stations, far more often. WGA members cited "daily" and "chronic" use of VNRs in some of their newsrooms. WABC-TV members estimated that VNR use occurred at least once a week. Members at KCAL/KCBS-TV estimated that before the April 2006 policy change, their stations broadcast several VNRs per day. One member explained, "[VNRs] are used to fill the time because we are short-staffed."
A few days after the CMD 2006 report was released, KCAL/KCBS management declared a moratorium on VNR use. (KCBS was one of the stations cited in the report.) Three months later, in July 2006, over 50 writers and producers, a third of the workforce, were laid off, which placed new strains on the newsroom's capacity. Staff now reports that VNRs and file video of previously used VNRs are again appearing in their newscasts, though less frequently.
Investigative Journalism: "Thing Of The Past"
A Good Morning America newswriter explained, "We do our best to get stories, but have little time to do our own reporting. Moreover, accuracy and enterprising journalism are not seen as a priority by management." Another newswriter agreed: "Writers rarely have enough lead time to really develop a smart story: everything is rushed - needed right away. One needs to get paid and look ‘quick,' so one does what one can in the time available." A member at WCBS-TV added a slightly different perspective, saying that the difficulty in getting good visuals compounds management's unwillingness to budget for investigative journalism: "It's labor intensive, often not suitable for picture coverage, and a thing of the past at CBS News."
Forty-two percent of members said that their news outlets don't initiate investigative work frequently enough, and another 20% said they no longer undertake investigative reporting at all.
"[Investigative journalism is] so rarely done in radio that it is effectively a lost art form," wrote one CBS member. An ABC Radio assignment editor stated, "Investigative journalism...should be one of the foundations of our job, not copying out of the newspaper."
"When we're editing [tape], we're not researching, setting up, or writing stories. So our overall product has less depth and is less comprehensive than it would be if we had the time to devote to our ‘real' jobs." - WABC-TV member |
Changes in technology have resulted in
increased workloads for newswriters and producers, reducing the amount of
time and energy they can devote to their main jobs. Networks have uniformly embraced digital editing software,
resulting in significant layoffs of news editors and engineers, many from the
NABET union. Editing is increasingly
being assigned to newswriters and producers.
Newswriters at WABC-TV in New York now edit tape as well. At ABC Network Radio in New York, assignment editors regularly edit tape while at the same time taking calls on breaking news and coordinating reporters and stringers around the world.
This affects the quality of the end product. "In the hands of non-NABET people, there is almost no thought given to video or audio technical quality. [Production assistants] do the work with no experience or training," said a member at Good Morning America.
"We get requests at 6 pm to research AND produce a graphic to go on the 6:30 news." - Washington, DC graphics artist |
News moves quickly, and before a news person can begin working each day, he or she needs time to get updated on the latest developments. This preparation period is known as "read-in time."
"Read-in time" was once paid time for all WGA members. Now it varies from newsroom to newsroom, from employee to employee, and in some cases doesn't exist at all. According to an ABC Network Radio member, "Read-in time has been cut in half for copy editors and assignment editors. Tape operations (which coordinates audio feeds from all over the world) needs at least fifteen minutes. They have none at present."
Many members (57%) reported coming in early, staying late, or working on weekends to facilitate proper "read-in time" off the clock.
One member explained that she comes in an hour early most days because "I'm only given one hour to read-in and produce a rundown - it's not enough - it should be two." Another member also reports arriving early, explaining, "[the work] doesn't get done otherwise." A third said, "I feel [coming in early] is necessary because my shift requires me to do production work immediately upon arrival, but I need to know what's going on before I'm ready to start." Another, at KNX Radio in Los Angeles, said, "Sometimes I'll work from home on the weekend just to be sure."
[1] Source: WGA membership records.
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Union Contracts Protect Journalists And The Public Interest
Unions Protect Journalists Taking A Stand for News Quality
Guild members told us many stories about their experiences standing up to managers on issues of news quality. Several recalled protesting the proposed use of VNRs, including pieces touting miraculous new pharmaceuticals and the "health benefits" of ale (courtesy of the Guinness brewery). Without union protection, there might be far fewer of them still in newsrooms and protecting news standards.
A newswriter on ABC's Good Morning America told us that "I refused to write a segment on the 2006 spring immigrant boycott that featured a single, conservative pundit, Lou Dobbs. The result: a one-day unpaid suspension and a blistering three-page memo saying I ought to have been fired for the incident." Lou Dobbs is well-known for his extreme anti-immigrant stance. Good Morning America featured him for two days in a row as their sole commentator on the immigrant-rights movement. On the second day, the newswriter complained about the inherent bias of providing only Lou Dobbs' opinion. He refused to write the piece, then later agreed to do it in order to avoid outright insubordination. ABC News expressed its intention to fire him anyway for his initial refusal. It was only after he and his union representative met with the show's executive and an ABC News labor relations attorney that the newswriter's job was saved.
A few other instances:
"I've skipped certain stories because of shaky story sources or incorrect information, even though managers wanted them on." - CBS Network Radio member
"[I] insisted that the details of how a magazine came up with its criteria for rankings be mentioned." - WABC-TV member
"[I have refused] celebrity stories based on flimsy, insubstantial gossip articles." - ABC Network Radio New York member
Companies' Move To Temporary Workers Undermines Journalist Protection
In our survey, the members who reported speaking out on news quality were three times more likely to be full-time staff than temporary employees. Full-time staff employees have strong job security enforced by the union contract. Temporary employees are also covered by the contract, but it is more difficult for the WGA to arbitrate their dismissal. To preserve a temporary or part-time employee's job, the WGA usually needs to prove some form of discrimination, in addition to making the progressive-discipline or past-practice arguments that suffice for protecting full-time staff jobs.
Only two survey respondents said they have wanted to stand up to management but never dared to for fear of losing their jobs. Both these respondents were temporary employees.
Since 1987, management at most ABC and CBS newsrooms has increasingly favored hiring temporary employees rather than staff. While the overall number of employees has decreased, the proportion of temporary employees has gone up 56%.[1] One New York ABC Network Radio member described management's unwritten policy of shifting to a mostly-temporary workforce: "Nearly half the jobs are filled by temporary employees. There's no push to fill vacant staff jobs." Another remarked on the financial benefits employers gain by hiring more temps: "Clearly the goal is to cut costs and to free the company from long-term commitments associated with union staff."
Both companies make use of "permatemps," people who work there long-term - some more than fifteen years - yet never achieve full-time, permanent status or benefits. Union contract language requires any temporary employee who has worked more than 23 consecutive weeks to be made a full-time staff member. ABC management gets around the requirement by laying workers off for a short time before they get to 23 weeks, and then re-hiring them. For more than twenty years the WGA has fought for limitations on CBS and ABC's increasing use of temporary workers. The above examples of courage and integrity on the part of better-protected staff employees show that the public - not just members - has an interest in controlling abuse of temporary status.
[1] Source: WGA membership data.
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Conclusion and Recommendations
Conclusion
Broadcast television and radio news, particularly local TV news, remain dominant news choices for most of America. This report provides crucial evidence that broadcast media ownership consolidation and the practices of giant media conglomerates are endangering our right to know.
Layoffs, newsroom consolidation, and an increased emphasis on "entertainment value" rather than "news value" have led to practices which compromise news quality:
- Over-use of VNRs, including a lack of sponsor identification
- Entertainment-oriented stories given precedence over hard news stories
- Unchecked facts getting on the air
- Dramatic decrease in investigative journalism
- Work speed-ups, which prevent writers from including multiple viewpoints on stories
- Elimination of community relations positions, decreasing potential news coverage and sponsorship opportunities for local community groups
Union contracts provide essential protection for professional journalists as they uphold standards of quality journalism. Support for media unions, especially in their efforts to reinforce adequate staffing and job security, is essential not only to union members themselves but to an American public that needs - and deserves - the best in broadcast news.
Recommendations
Said one member at KCAL/KCBS, "Ever since the Janet Jackson incident, our managers are diligent about anything considered obscene." Sixty-three percent said their outlet "always" showed concern over complying with the FCC's indecency rules. Only 12% said that their management "always" shows concern for its FCC public interest obligation. This speaks to how powerful FCC fines and other regulatory action can be in improving media companies' behavior.
The requirements for children's programming, which include specific limits on and requirements for programming, could serve as a model.
The WGAE supports the Center for Media and Democracy's proposals around the use of video news releases:
- All provided and/or sponsored video footage be required to carry a continuous, frame-by-frame visual notification of its source.
- All provided and/or sponsored audio material be required to include a verbal notification at its beginning and/or end, disclosing its source.
- Broadcasters be required to place in their public file a monthly report on their use of provided and/or sponsored material.
- U.S. government agencies funding and/or producing video or audio for news broadcast be required to make all such material public and archive it online.
The WGAE also recommends that the following actions be considered:
- Create and publicize a special public comment period and/or public hearing regarding the effect of these labor practices in newsrooms on the public interest.
- Issue a public statement that the public interest would be served by CBS and Disney reaching amicable contract agreements with the WGA for their newswriters and other news personnel.
- Hold public hearings specifically regarding localism and broadcast news quality in the top markets where most of the U.S. population lives.
- Appoint a commission or working group to develop standards for broadcast news quality as a public interest requirement. Include working journalists on both the national and local level, as well as industry representatives.
- These standards could include time requirements for original news production, local coverage, and political coverage. Entertainment programming should be clearly labeled and not be allowed to count toward a news requirement.
- Re-introduce the Fairness Doctrine and require newscasters to present multiple sides of an issue.
- Make infractions of these public interest requirements punishable by fines.
- Require documented adherence to these standards for license renewal.
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Statement of Methodology
This report is based on research conducted by the WGAE. Its sources are:
- Interviews with WGA members at ABC and CBS News outlets
- Member surveys
- WGA's member information database
The survey was distributed to 563 current WGA news members by mail, and also by personal contact in the workplace, between May 2006 and March 2007. 184 surveys were returned.
Approximately 400 of the unit members work at the news shops on a regular basis. For this group of regular workers, the response rate was 46%. The overall response rate was 33%.
Current news members are defined as members of the WGA bargaining unit, currently employed in ABC or CBS station- or network-news operations. Two hundred seventy-three (273) of those members (48%) are full-time permanent staff; 290 (52%) are temporary staff. Most of the temporary staff work full-time; some work only occasionally, for holiday fill-ins and the like.
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About the Authors
Amanda Bell [Survey Design, Interviews] is a union organizer.
Ann Toback is the Assistant Executive Director of the Writers Guild of America, East.
Michael Winship is a member of the elected governing Council of the Writers Guild of America, East.
Karen Young [Report Writing, Research] is a strategic campaign researcher at the Writers Guild of America, East.
