Community reporters and journalists at community papers within the Baltimore Sun Media Group unionized today, calling for higher wages and a more stable work environment.
The group, known as the Chesapeake News Guild, covers about 50 reporters, photographers, designers and copy editors at The Capital in Annapolis, Carroll County Times, The Aegis in Harford County, Howard County Times and other local news organizations owned and managed by the local media company.
In an effort to stave off future job cuts, Tribune Publishing, the parent company of The Sun, Chicago Tribune and seven other newspapers, offered company-wide buyout offers today in a memo sent to managers.
Baltimore’s newspaper of record bid farewell this week to two of its remaining arts writers, with longtime classical music critic Tim Smith departing this past Wednesday and music critic and nightlife reporter Wesley Case leaving today.
Two of Baltimore’s venerable black institutions, The Afro newspaper and Morgan State University, are linking up for a series of polls covering African-Americans’ opinions across Maryland, with an eye toward going national further down the line.
Longtime Channel 13 reporter Jessica Kartalija is leaving Baltimore for a new evening news anchor spot at Philadelphia CBS affiliate KYW.
Eleven people were shot in the City of Baltimore yesterday, but outgoing police union president Lt. Gene Ryan has more important things to tackle, like wagging his finger at “Saturday Night Live” and producer Lorne Michaels for having a sketch with three actresses in Baltimore Police Department uniforms.
The Athletic, a sports media startup that has lured away prominent beat reporters and national writers to its online news platform, launched a Baltimore-specific page this morning.
Organizers with the volunteer activist group Solidarity Maryland are planning to hold a vigil outside The Sun‘s N. Calvert Street offices Saturday night to honor the five people killed and the two injured at the Capital Gazette offices yesterday.
Baltimore Sun Media Group owns both The Sun and Capital Gazette Communications.
Per The Sun, there’s a new “experiment” afoot in parts of the city that have for years experienced violence.
“The idea is simple: flood them with services,” the paper of record said on Twitter.
This would seemingly be good news in a city where the mayor is focused on changing the narrative–here are communities in need getting help. But many on social media saw it as something else: A municipal government patting itself on the back for jumping over the very low bar of using tax dollars to provide things that citizens need and want.
