Pulitzer Winners To Shareholders: Maintain Quality Journalism at Dow Jones

Two of this year's Pulitzer Prize winners at the Wall Street Journal joined other leading reporters in telling Dow Jones shareholders on Wednesday that quality journalism at the paper could be threatened by current bargaining demands to slash salaries and health benefits for the editorial staff.

James Bandler and Charles Forelle, both members of IAPE Local 1096, a TNG-CWA affiliate, urged directors and shareholders to continue the commitment to editorial quality that allowed them to write their prize-winning series of articles on stock option abuses.

Washington correspondent Michael Phillips "spoke powerfully on behalf of war correspondents about the anger they feel when they risk their lives in the Middle East and then return to discover that senior managers are trying to cut their pay and benefits," said Local 1096 President Steve Yount, who also addressed the annual meeting in New York.

Local bargaining chair Jim Browning also told shareholders of "the growing anger in the newsroom at the threat the cutbacks pose to our journalistic quality," Yount said.  Three dozen reporters stood in solidarity the whole time that the union spokespeople addressed the meeting.

Dow Jones' harsh concession demands recently prompted 220 Dow Jones Newswires employees in New Jersey to join Local 1096.  The largest remaining non-union unit at Dow Jones, the workers organized under card-check procedures in the contract and they received recognition last week after the majority was certified by the American Arbitration Assn.

The local represents 1,800 Dow Jones editorial workers in the United States and Canada.