The Newspaper Guild of New York, which represents business journalists at Reuters, is upset with the appointment of Boston bureau chief Rich Valdmanis to the energy reporting team while maintaining his bureau chief duties.
In an email to members on Tuesday, the union wrote:
Even considering Valdmanis’ impressive journalistic experience – and discounting Leff’s hyperbolic prose – one would think that either assignment would require his full-time attention. It’s hard to see how this dual assignment best serves our clients.
What it does do, however, is further muddy the distinction between the roles of managers and the reporters, photographers and TV journalists they are supposed to guide, and whose work they are supposed to edit. Instead, more and more managers compete with their Guild staff for sources and stories. A current example is the riots in Baltimore, where two EICs, two stringers and only one Guild photographer are covering the story.
This dual role for managers has the additional effect of mucking up the quest for speed in the editorial operations. Getting a story out to clients is a clunky process when the EIC cannot be reached because he or she is in a conference or source meeting, or is consumed with writing a story.
Management has every right to hire qualified people to report the news our clients want. But if those people want to work as reporters, photographers or video journalists, they should be covered by the Guild contract. If they want to manage, they should manage. But they’re kidding themselves if they think they can fill both roles effectively.
Read more here.
