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IndyStar employees protest outside HQ

RTV6
‘Save The Star’ Rally Takes Aim At Management

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IndyStar workers rally outside building Wednesday

Amos Brown
“Pickets lines RARE in Indy. RARER w/white collar workers. So @indynewsguild protest at Star today was unprecedented.”

Abdul-Hakim Shabazz
“Indy Star employees protest conditions at newspaper. twitpic.com/7m695y”

More than 100 Indianapolis Star employees and their family members rally today as part of our “Save The Star” campaign. We’ll post more info, photos and video later tonight.

November 22, 2011

Karen Crotchfelt
President and Publisher

Dennis Ryerson
Editor and Vice President

The Indianapolis Star The Indianapolis Star
307 N. Pennsylvania St. 307 N. Pennsylvania St.
Indianapolis, Indiana 46206 Indianapolis, Indiana 46206

Dear Ms. Crotchfelt and Mr. Ryerson:

As leaders in the Indianapolis faith community and readers of your newspaper, we have watched with great concern the declining role of The Indianapolis Star as this city’s most vital and primary source of local news.

We have recognized this reduced coverage for the faith community but also in important areas of public interest, such as the environment, business, higher education and government. Historically, The Star has had a unique ability to shine a light on problems and foster a sense of community by reporting on our city’s rich diversity.

We do appreciate The Star’s emphasis on education with the continuing series of Our City Our Children but we are concerned about the decline in coverage in many other important areas.

We are also aware of the challenges facing the newspaper industry, yet we are deeply troubled by the pattern of local layoffs and staff pay reductions while executives at Gannett, The Star’s parent company, have received large pay raises, multimillion dollar bonuses, and in one case, a $37 million retirement package. As faith leaders we feel called upon to shine the light of public inquiry on justice issues such as these in our community.

We understand that The Star now proposes to outsource several positions filled by page designers who live and work in Indianapolis. We fail to understand how people who live and work in Louisville, Kentucky can understand and accurately reflect issues facing the people of Indianapolis, Indiana. We suspect that some of your advertisers and other community leaders would not look kindly to your proposed outsourcing of jobs to another community when unemployment is such a large problem in our own community now.

We have discussed these issues with leaders of The Indianapolis Newspaper Guild and we support their effort to “Save the Star.” We request a meeting with both of you to discuss these matters at your convenience. Please contact Dr. Kent Millard to set up a time for a meeting.

Sincerely,

Rev. Dr. Kent Millard, Rev. Dr. Teri Thomas, Rev. Steve Carlson, Rev. Dr. Lewis Galloway, Imam Michael Saahir, Rev. Michael Jones, Bishop T. Garrott Benjamin, Rabbi Brett Krichiver, Rev. Darren Cushman Wood, Rabbi Dennis Sasso, Rev. Kevin Armstrong, Rabbi Sandy Sasso, Rev. Dr. Angilique Walker Smith, Charlie Wiles

7 p.m. newscast

5 p.m. newscast

Journalists and building service workers from The Indianapolis Star are calling attention to cuts in The Star’s news coverage with a new billboard above Downtown that proclaims “Save Local News. Save the Star.”

The billboard, at 16th and Delaware, is just part of a new campaign that includes the SaveTheStar.com website, radio ads, leafletting efforts and social media that’s intended to pressure The Star into reinvesting profits into local news.

The campaign is being sponsored by The Indianapolis Newspaper Guild, Local 34070, which represents 122 newsroom workers and custodial staff at The Star. It is the Guild’s response to four rounds of layoffs in the last three years, wage cuts, pay freezes and now a plan to outsource some local news jobs to a remote site in Kentucky.

Over the past three years, Gannett’s cuts have reduced the size of The Star’s news staff by 36 percent.

Despite working harder to produce the same newspaper, employees were forced to accept unpaid furloughs, a 10 percent pay cut and a pay freeze. Now Gannett wants to send jobs for some page designers to a regional hub in Louisville. Designers are a crucial part of the local news operation, especially when late-breaking news, such as the State Fair stage collapse, requires news pages to be ripped up and remade.

The wide array of cuts to The Star have been mandated by Gannett, the Star’s Virginia-based parent company, even though The Star is very profitable, with profit margins estimated at more than 15 percent. Last year, Gannett made $588 million and awarded multi-million dollar bonuses to its top executives.

This week, Guild workers asked that the pay cuts be restored and cost-of-living increases be re-instituted. But they were told such requests were a joke. This, despite the fact Gannett CEO Craig Dubow received a 107 percent pay increase in April.

“We care about the community and want to continue to bring people the local news they can’t get anywhere else. We’d also like to be treated fairly,” said Guild president Bobby King. “Yet Gannett is making it harder for us to do our jobs, and even seems to prefer that talented employees move on so it can add a few more bucks to the executive bonus pool.”