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11/9/00 It's a Deal!
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HonoluluNewsBlues
November 2000
The Year of
Stalemate and Sitzkrieg
The Cavalry Comes Over the Hill
Dispatches from the Front by Burl Burlingame
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11/7/00 Star-Bulletin suitor David Black got a taste of doing battle with Gannett, who, during the last days of negotiations, wholly fabricated a rift between Black and the Hawaii Newspaper Guild.
It began when Advertiser publisher Mike Fisch cranked out a bizarre
press release claiming that the deal was off because Black was
anti-union. "That Mr. Black won't accept the Guild contract creates
far-reaching issues with implications for employees of both newspapers
represented by the unions," Fisch claimed, which was both a lie
and a threat to his own employees.
"Gannett calling another employer an anti-union employer is like
the pot calling the kettle black," noted Wayne Cahill of the Guild.
Not even Fisch's own staff fell for that one. |
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| Fourteen months after Save Our Star-Bulletin was organized to preserve an alternate editorial voice in Hawaii,
Canadian newspaper owner David Black bolted out of Honolulu's
Federal Courthouse and announced that a deal had been struck moments before to save the newspaper. Negotiations with Gannett
had been rocky and mean-spirited so far. |
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Above and right, Honolulu media swarmed around Black at the Federal
courthouse.The Advertiser sent four reporters to cover the 7-minute
press conference! Here, relieved Star-Bulletin staffers celebrated that evening at Murphy's as if it were VJ-Day.
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Jim Gatti |
11/14/00 The first high-level casualty of a competitive newspaper market
in Honolulu? Advertiser Editor Jim Gatti called a staff meeting
and resigned, retiring from the journalism game at age 57. An
embarrassing silence reigned until publisher Mike Fisch insisted
that the staff applaud.
Some 'Tiser staffers liked Gatti, others detested him. No one
was neutral, it seemed. He was always cool and reserved with me,
saying little but scowling like a hungry bear.
His replacement would be Contra Costa Times managing editor Saundra
Keyes, a long-time Knight-Ridder executive who's bolting from
that chain. It would be unkind to point out that she had worked
at steadily smaller newspapers since she presided over the gutting
of the Miami Herald in the mid-'90s -- but it's true nonetheless. |
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| 11/16/00 Gannett began targeting the Guild members of the recently acquired Indianapolis Star for termination. |
| 11/17/00 Star-Bulletin reporters and editors found it increasingly difficult
to use our own archives in the HNA shared library as new "rules"
were posted. For the first time since I started at the newspaper
in 1979, doors were being locked in our faces. Gannett also increased
the number of security guards on the building once again, warning
the guards that Star-Bulletin personnel are capable of stealing
anything. |
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11/28/00 Star-Bulletin Newspaper Guild members overwhelmingly ratified a provisional contract with Canadian publisher David Black despite
some reservations. Black proved very tough at the table, and I
think he was surprised that we weren't exactly rolling over for
him. Even so, it's the first time in 14 months we've actually
been able to do something about our own fate, and it was strangely
satisfying and disconcerting at the same time.
"Overall, we've accomplished something we've never been able to
accomplish in this country as far as I know," noted Guild director
Wayne Cahill. "Fourteen months ago, Gannett wanted to close the
Star-Bulletin and fire everybody who worked for it."
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These pictures, courtesy Ian Lind, show the meeting and ballot-counting. Of 64 eligible to vote,
the tally was 54 in favor, with ten against or abstaining, about
an 85 percent margin. Many who voted no confided that they would
have voted yes if they suspected the contract would have trouble
passing.
Like Florida election officials, Gannett Advertiser editors apparently
had trouble counting and deliberately painted a wider division than existed, claiming "Of the paper's roughly 90 employees,
54 voted for the contract." Since reporter Frank Cho interviewed
me while working on the story, I know he had the right numbers.
It was an incredibly hectic day as I spent most of it preparing
a major story that I was pretty sure would be a scoop and an exclusive.
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11/29/00 My story appears and, huzzah, the other media in town had not
tumbled to it yet. A public-relations person called me in the
afternoon and said that other media had been calling her all day
annoyed that they not only had no idea this story was occurring,
but that the Star-Bulletin had such a complete package on it.
"That's what the Star-Bulletin DOES," she told them.
This warm glow is tempered by second thoughts about the contract
we were forced to sign. No one is happy about it, but we also
realized we did not have much of a choice. A lot of the good will
toward Black had evaporated, particularly since he seemed to be
treating this all-important negotiation rather off-handedly, giving
his end to a local lawyer who seemed more intent on running up
his billable hours than settling issues. This guy wasted everyone's
time. |
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NEXT! December 2000
It'll Be a Black Christmas Without You
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