SoCal Journalists Prepare for a Walkout; a Chance to See AIDS Quilt Panels–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: Dec. 4, 2023

Indy Digest: Dec. 4, 2023

There’s a lot of news to report regarding Southern California daily newspaper unions.

First, here in the Coachella Valley, the Desert Sun Newsguild—which represents the reporters who remain in the Gannett-owned daily’s newsroom—reports some headway in their contract negotiations.

“We’ve made some progress in our bargaining with Gannett, getting a better wage proposal and other commitments focused on diversity — but we need your help in our final push. Consider supporting our strike fund ahead of our next actions,” the union posted on X/Twitter on Nov. 28, aka Giving Tuesday. “We couldn’t have gotten to this point without people in our community (like you!) who’ve supported our efforts to protect journalism in the Coachella Valley. But to set our newsroom up for a sustainable future, we need to see far greater commitments from our corporate owners. Right now, Gannett only wants to give us our first guaranteed raises after *SIX YEARS* of service with the company. It’s an unrealistic threshold that prevents our members from any sort of long-term future in the community. We need your support starting on this Giving Tuesday.”

The post included a link to the Guild’s strike fund. If you’re interested in helping with that, the link is here.

Elsewhere in Southern California, reporters with the Southern California News Group (SCNG) are getting ready for a one-day walkout on Dec. 14.

If you’re unfamiliar with SCNG: It consists of about a dozen newspapers, including the Orange County Register, The San Bernardino Sun, the Orange County Register and, as of July, the San Diego Union Tribune. These publications are owned by the only large newspaper company that can compete with Gannett for the title of “Most Awful”—Digital First Media, which is owned by Alden Global Capital, a hedge fund that has proven repeatedly it cares only about returns on investment, and not one whit about journalism.

The SCNG Guild posted on X/Twitter on Dec. 1, laying out their case: “We, the members of SCNG Guild, have been bargaining for a fair contract for over a year. Costs are rising and the company keeps piling on work. Yet some of us have gone as many as 15 years without a raise. We’re fed up. We’ve urged management to cease its unfair labor practices, stop stalling and bargain in good faith. And now a supermajority of our members have signed a pledge vowing to walk out Dec. 14. We unionized because we believe in local news. We’re walking out for the same reason. We deserve wages that let us live in the communities we cover. And our communities deserve a healthy local news landscape.”

The SCNG Guild also has a strike fund donation page, which you can find here.

Whatever one may think of the companies that own these newspapers, the reporters deserve our support. More reporters on the street = better-informed communities.

—Jimmy Boegle

Best of Coachella Valley Winners’ Advertising Spotlight!

More News

• Eisenhower Medical Center has some panels from the AIDS Memorial Quilt on display at the Annenberg Health Sciences Building from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily through Friday. You can find more details here. The building is located on the main EMC campus in Rancho Mirage. You can learn more about the quilt here.

• A record number of journalists have lost their lives in Gaza, during the Hamas-Israel war. NPR reports: “The Committee to Protect Journalists says the Israel-Gaza war has ‘led to the deadliest month for journalists’ since it started gathering data in 1992. Of 61 deaths of journalists and media workers CPJ has recorded as of Friday, 54 were Palestinian journalists, four were Israeli and three were Lebanese. By comparison, according to CPJ, a total of 68 journalists and media workers were killed worldwide in all of 2022. That total includes deaths in conflicts around the world, and those due to dangerous assignments, targeted killings and crossfire. The rising toll comes as the Israel-Hamas war enters its third month, and Israel continues its bombardment of the Gaza Strip, which has so far killed more than 13,300 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza.”

• The Los Angeles Times looks at what happened at Cal Poly Humboldt, on the state’s north coast, when school administrators cracked down on students living on-campus in vehicles—because that’s all they can afford: “Maddy Montiel and Brad Butterfield marveled at the community they found this semester at Cal Poly Humboldt. Montiel, an environmental science major, and Butterfield, a journalism major, had lived in their vehicles for several years, the only way, they said, that they could afford to attend college. They usually found parking in campus lots or on nearby streets. … They started parking together in a row of spaces and named their community ‘the line.’ They shared resources: propane tanks to heat their living quarters, ovens to cook meals. They helped one another seal leaky roofs and formed an official campus club aiming to secure a mailing address. Then the notices arrived late last month. The university was going to enforce a campus policy, written into parking regulations, that prohibits overnight camping. Remove vehicles by noon on Nov. 12, or they could be towed and students could face disciplinary action, the letter said. … The actions by Humboldt—defended by university officials as necessary for health and safety—provide an up-close look at how low-income California State University students determined to earn a college degree struggle to meet their basic needs amid the state’s student affordable housing crisis.”

• A lot of changes are coming to California’s Employment Development Department. Our partners at CalMatters report: “EDD tells CalMatters that on Monday it plans to begin notifying 850,000 benefit recipients of the new payment provider: Money Network, an electronic payment company owned by finance tech company Fiserv. Money Network may sound familiar; it was also tapped by the federal government and Gov. Gavin Newsom to pay out COVID-era stimulus funds, which attracted its own waves of debit card scams. Money Network won the EDD contract after a competitive bidding process. It comes as the agency embarks on a five-year, $1.2 billion tech overhaul known as EDDNext. The contract will primarily be paid for through a debit card revenue-sharing agreement, similar to the EDD’s previous deal with Bank of America. The agency will also pay $32 million over five years for Money Network to offer a long-discussed direct deposit option to workers’ bank accounts, which the EDD says will launch in spring 2024. In mid-January, people receiving unemployment, disability and paid leave benefits from the EDD will be mailed new Money Network debit cards. Payments will officially begin on these cards on Feb. 15. Anyone who still has a Bank of America EDD debit card will have until April 15, 2024, to spend the money.”

• Last week, we published a piece by Kevin Fitzgerald about the safety net Riverside County—with help locally from the Galilee Center—has been providing to tens of thousands of asylum-seekers released here by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Today, CalMatters published a piece on the problems San Diego County is having dealing with this influx of people: “From September through November, U.S. border authorities have dropped off more than 42,000 people on San Diego County streets with no direction or assistance, county officials said. This is an unusual situation for a region like San Diego, where charities are used to hundreds, but not tens of thousands, of migrant arrivals. Often these asylum seekers are left at bus and trolley stops, instead of being transported to where they can get assistance. The situation quickly overwhelmed Mills’ church and many other nonprofits, prompting the San Diego County Board of Supervisors in October to spend $3 million for migrant support services. … Nora Vargas, a Democrat who chairs the board of supervisors, said in an emailed statement the proposal to spend more money is a result of Congress’ lack of action, noting that Congress recently rejected President Joe Biden’s supplemental budget request, which would have included $14 billion for immigration and border-related needs.”

• The Associated Press today published a blockbuster piece showing how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (often called the Mormon church) deals—or, rather, doesn’t deal—with sex-abuse claims. It partially deals with recordings made in various church meetings regarding one particular sex-abuse case by a church member named Eric Alberdi, who was acting as the victim’s advocate: “Alberdi’s recordings provide an unprecedented record of the steps the church normally takes behind closed doors to keep allegations of child sex abuse secret—steps that can leave predators free and children at risk.”

• And finally … NPR reports on … an iceberg. A REALLY big iceberg: “Ships plying the frigid waters near the Antarctic Peninsula, south of South America, will need to keep an eye on their radar for a floating island of ice: ‘The largest iceberg in the world, A-23a, is on the move into open ocean!’ as the British Antarctic Survey recently announced. ‘It’s a trillion tons of ice. So it’s hard to comprehend just how big a patch of ice this is,’ Ted Scambos, a senior research scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder, told NPR. Iceberg A23a measures 40 by 32 nautical miles, according to the U.S. National Ice Center. For comparison, Hawaii’s island of Oahu is 44 miles long and 30 miles across. And New York City’s Manhattan Island is about 13.4 miles long and spans around 2.3 miles at its widest point.” This iceberg actually has a fascinating history—yes, really—and I highly recommend giving this story a read.

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