TNG-CWA Delegates Vote for Historic Name Change, Elect Officers at Biennial Conference

TNG-CWA President Bernie Lunzer was re-elected to a third term last week, but he won't be known as president of The Newspaper Guild-CWA.

To go with the historic name change, TNG-CWA has a new logo.

He's now the president of The NewsGuild-CWA, a name that conference delegates agreed was better suited for the changing news industry and the diversity of Guild units. The new name isn't exactly a 21st-century innovation. Lunzer purchased the domain name in 1995 – when only 14 percent of Americans had internet access – and expected Guild members would approve it then.

In a column published in The Guild Reporter several weeks before the Orlando meeting Jan. 15-18, Lunzer explained:

"I was convinced that local Guild leaders would vote to drop 'paper' from our name. I was wrong. Delegates had strong and passionate feelings about 'newspapers' almost as if bracing against the tidal wave of change headed toward their industry and careers. Twenty years later, it is past time. It is inevitable. We are media. We are content producers. Ink may be in our blood but it is no longer essential to our survival."

In his remarks, CWA President Larry Cohen talked about the importance of journalism and the dangers of the pending TPP trade deal.

Cohen received standing ovations at the beginning and end of his Jan. 15 remarks, in which he praised the Guild for being a vital part of CWA and for fighting for First Amendment principles that matter to all Americans.

"This notion of democracy, a key part of it is journalism – the ability to investigate and write stories," Cohen said. "What happens to journalism and to everyone in this room matters to our democracies and to our communities."

TNG-CWA Acting Secretary-Treasurer Sara Steffens said she knows some Guild members have to be mindful of an ethical line but asked journalists to, without compromising their ethics or risking discipline from their employers, reevaluate what might be possible.

"We very literally need to be in the streets, standing with fellow CWA members, and alongside all workers fighting for justice. I carry a bullhorn and a cache of CWA activist signs in the trunk of my car, and I hope I'm not the only one...Not all of us can do all these things, but all of us can do something," Steffens said.