By: Christopher Stango Strike Papers Sometimes Have Long Shelf Lives
Projected to be a precursor of a print product, the Seattle Union
Record online newspaper (http://www.union record.com) published by the Pacific Northwest
Newspaper Guild draws on a tradition of strike newspapers, whose
lives can be measured not in decades or years but in months and weeks.
Of course, there are exceptions to this rule, as in the cases of
The Citizens' Voice and the Detroit Sunday Journal.
In October 1978, 204 unionists walked out at The Times
Leader in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., because of problems with its new
owner, Capital Cities/ABC Inc. Three days later, The Citizens'
Voice was created by those strikers, all of whom received
shares in the new company.
For more than 20 years, these former and current employees ran
Citizens Voice Inc. and turned a strike newspaper into a major
player in what is now a two-newspaper town. In May, Citizens'
Voice shareholders overwhelmingly approved the sale of the
paper to the Times-Shamrock Communications chain.
Begun in November 1995, several months after the start of the
strike against the jointly produced Detroit Free Press and
The Detroit News, the Detroit Sunday Journal also
had an unusually long run. Funded largely by the Teamsters and
staffed with striking newsroom and circulation workers, the
tabloid was distributed free to 250,000 households and at its
peak was selling about 50,000 copies through stores.
Said Susan Watson, the Journal's editor during its four-
year run, "It was a tangible symbol that, even though we were on
strike, we were information disseminators producing fair
coverage."
Christopher Stango is an intern at E&P.
Related story:
SEATTLE PAPERS HIT BY STRIKE (11/21/00)
Copyright 2000, Editor & Publisher.
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