Maine Gov. Paul LePage's administration will no longer comment in stories published by the Portland Press Herald, Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel, all owned by MaineToday Media, his spokeswoman said Tuesday. The policy follows an investigation published this week by the Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram that found LePage’s Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Patricia Aho, a former industrial and corporate lobbyist, has scuttled programs and fought laws that were opposed by many of her former clients in the chemical, drug, oil, and real estate development industries.

With the possible sale of Tribune newspapers to the Koch brothers as a springboard, a distinguished panel of journalists will explore newspaper ownership in the Internet age at a National Press Club forum Wednesday, June 26.

The event will be streamed over the web, making it possible for journalists and others interested around the country to participate.

The forum begins at 9 a.m. and is expected to last about 90 minutes. It is sponsored by The Newspaper Guild-CWA.

The panelists are Lena Williams, a retired senior writer from The New York Times; Christopher Assaf, multimedia editor at the Baltimore Sun, a Tribune-owned newspaper; Ryan Grim, Washington bureau chief for the Huffington Post; and John Nichols, Washington correspondent for The Nation. Mark Lloyd, director of media policy initiative at the New America Foundation, will moderate.

The session is titled, “Should the Koch Brothers Own the Tribune Newspapers?” but will go far beyond that one debate, Guild President Bernie Lunzer said.

“The Koch brothers are a good catalyst for this discussion because their interest in the Tribune newspapers has helped renew and expand the debate about who owns and who should own our newspapers, TV stations and other media, and how much of that media any one owner should control,” Lunzer said.

“We’ll be looking at the big picture: How does the media maintain independence with so much consolidated ownership, and in what ways, obvious or insidious, is money influencing press coverage?”

To attend the forum in person or participate by webcast, please RSVP to the AFL-CIO, which is helping coordinate the event. Please send your name, title, organization and contact information to: invest@aflcio.org. Indicate whether you plan to attend in person or by webcast.

Questions about the event can be directed to Lunzer at bluzner@cwa-union.org.

One year ago, about 200 now-former employees of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, including almost half the newsroom, learned they would lose their jobs and that their newspaper—175 years old, but still lively, potent, and deeply interwoven into the life of a great American city—would be seriously diminished. A former T-P reporter writing a book about the failed grassroots effort to save daily paper surveyed employees who were fired and those who remain and found widespread unhappiness.

Terry Kroeger, president and CEO of Warren Buffett's BH Media Group, told editors, reporters and publishers attending the Oklahoma Press Association's annual convention that he doesn't buy the idea that "the printed newspaper is somehow doomed in a few years." Kroeger, publisher of the Omaha World-Herald, said community newspapers bury the competition on breaking news, in-depth coverage, fun and entertaining stories, box scores and photographs. After the recent deadly tornado in Oklahoma, he said newspapers told the story with context, background and details, something competitors couldn't possibly provide. The national media appeared to do a flyover of damage pictures and "then escaped back to New York," he said.

A federal judge has ordered the US Department of Homeland Security to disclose the names of thousands of criminal immigrants released in the United States because their homelands refused to take them back, handing the news media a rare victory against one of the most secretive agencies in the federal government.

In a Pew survey of nonprofit news outlets, 39 percent said they favor “some form of government subsidies” to help fund organizations like theirs. More than a quarter (28 percent) said they were not sure. And another 30 percent said they oppose government subsidies to help finance nonprofit news outlets.

It’s all but a journalistic commandment: Thou shalt not have a vested interest in the story you’re covering. Otherwise, a personal entanglement could color a reporter’s neutrality or cloud public perceptions of fairness. An obvious area of concern: when a journalist’s relatives or spouse is part of the news. So what to make of all the family ties between the news media and the Obama administration? Photo: Columnist and former Guild member Connie Schultz with husband, Sen. Sherrod Brown.

According to a news release, Gannett is acquiring Belo Corp., which has 20 TV stations – nine in top-25 markets. The release notes that the Gannett-Belo combination “creates a broadcast ‘Super Group,’ catapulting Gannett into the nation’s fourth-largest owner of major network affiliates reaching nearly a third of all U.S. households.” Gannett will pay about $1.5 billion for all of Belo’s outstanding shares. The deal nearly doubles Gannett’s broadcast portfolio from 23 to 43 stations.

Russ Cain, a veteran Guild organizer and leader who ushered the union into the computer era, died Wednesday after a long battle with prostate cancer. He was 70. He is being remembered for his energy, kindness, brilliance and technical expertise that he shared generously with the union. “Everyone relied on him,” Guild President Bernie Lunzer said, “and the thing is, he really never said no.”

The Senate is dysfunctional. That's not news to anyone following the long list of agency and judiciary nominations that are going nowhere.

That might be okay for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its allies, which prefer that agencies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau don't function. Or that important courts like the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals limp along as qualified candidates to that federal court can't get a confirmation vote.

But it makes no sense for our democracy. And it will do a great deal of harm to our country.

Case in point: Workers have lost the vital safeguards because of the dysfunctional Senate's reluctance to confirm five members of the National Labor Relations Board. Since earlier this year, a growing number of corporations have seized on a DC Circuit decision that found President Barack Obama's recess appointments unconstitutional and are using it as an excuse to reject and block previous NLRB decisions. Pending a review by the US Supreme Court, judges have halted enforcement of NLRB rulings, causing workers to lose the protections of the law.

The NLRB is the only agency that enforces workplace rights for more than 80 million employed in the private sector. That's why workers, whether they're in a union or not, are saying, "Give Us Five" and confirm all five nominations to the NLRB. Working people know what's at stake. They know that even under the best circumstances, justice is hard to come by. Now, the Senate is making it virtually impossible for workers to gain the justice they deserve. And what does that say about our democracy?

The Senate majority has all the tools it needs to make sure that workers' rights are protected and labor law is fairly enforced. The Senate Democratic majority must adopt rules that allow for an up or down vote for these nominees. That's what democracy looks like, not obstructionism, not games playing, not valuing Senate "decorum" over the responsibility to constituents to get the people's business done.

The corporate agenda of obstructionism is all too real. For weeks, big corporate law firms have been lobbying hard on Capitol Hill, leading the fight for a split NLRB -- two Republicans and two Democrats. If the goal is to make sure that workers have absolutely no protection under federal labor law, this is a fine solution.

But that's not the function of the NLRB. Since 1935, the NLRB has worked to resolve workplace issues by taking on both employee and employer complaints, then issuing decisions that have the weight of law. We don't need a do-nothing agency. Workers are entitled to the protections of the law, and it's the function of the NLRB to enforce labor law, not ignore it.

Eight years ago, then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (a Republican) threatened to change the Senate rules to get a basket of judicial nominations confirmed. Rule changes weren't made only because the nominations moved forward.

If the Senate fails to confirm all five members of the NLRB, there will be no rules or decisions that support the right of workers to improve their working conditions or have a union without facing employer harassment, discipline or termination.

The Senate majority can't allow that to happen. It must get these nominations confirmed, or change the Senate rules to make it happen.

Give us five, by confirming a full, functioning, and yes, bipartisan NLRB.

What you can do:

1.Document occasions where the NLRB has assisted you or your locals in protecting workers’ rights. Send the details to TNG.

2. Call your US Senators and request that they vote to confirm the 5 NLRB nominees, and if necessary vote to change to Senate rules to permit confirmation votes to proceed with majority support.

3. Click “Like” at the Give Us Five Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/GiveUsFive. After you like the page, pick at least one thing on the page to like, share or comment on.

4. Click “Like” at the Protect Free Speech Online Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/FreeSpeechOnline. After you like the page, pick at least one thing on the page to like, share or comment on.

5. Sign up for the NLRB Rapid Response text list. Text NLRB to 69866.

6. For gmail users: Encourage members, officers and staff to use the email signature created for TNG featuring Deborah Zabarenko, a 27 year employee and reporter with Thomson Reuters and NY Local 31003 member. In the midst of contract negotiations, Zabarenko was officially reprimanded by her bureau chief for tweeting that the company “should deal honestly with the Guild.” Her reprimand came even as management encouraged reporters to use Twitter to discuss how to make Reuters the best place to work. Zabarenko had a way to fight her reprimand. The NLRB investigated and found that her right to communicate with her colleagues about working conditions had been violated.

For instructions on how to add a gmail signature, visit:https://support.google.com/mail/answer/8395?hl=en. 

Here's the link to the Deb graphic http://cwa-union.org/page/-/cwa-union/images/nlrb_no-voice_zabarenko.jpg

Speaking with Anderson Cooper on CNN on Tuesday night, Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) said that journalists who report on leaked material should be prosecuted.

A Federal District Court judge in Manhattan ruled on Tuesday that Fox Searchlight Pictures had violated federal and New York minimum wage laws by not paying production interns, a case that could upend the long-held practice of the film industry and other businesses that rely heavily on unpaid internships.

The Guild bargaining committee at the San Francisco Chronicle met Tuesday, June 11, with Hearst Corp. representatives along with a federal mediator in a renewed effort to settle terms of a new labor contract. Erin Spaulding of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service met with the union and management in a joint introductory session before convening privately with both sides.

In a recent article in Variety, IAC Chairman Barry Diller indicated that Newsweek might once again be for sale. "While the Guild has no further details about how likely a sale is or how it might proceed, we are committed to maintaining the protections and benefits of our contract for all members at Newsweek/DailyBeast no matter what happens," the local reports.

For several months, the Albany Guild has been quietly meeting with the Times Union to try to bring an end to the years of stalled negotiations and get employees long overdue raises. The local reports that "On Thursday, it became clear that those talks, despite the Guild’s best efforts, would not yield an acceptable agreement at this time." No further talks are currently scheduled.  “We have been and continue to be willing to offer flexibility on the issues of out-of-seniority layoffs and outsourcing,” Local President Tim O’Brien said. “We have offered all kinds of compromises."

Nearly 20 years after The Times began outsourcing system support jobs to Norfolk, Va., the Guild has reached an agreement to bring them back and add as many as 28 computer support positions to the New York-based staff. Times management said that up to 12 desktop support jobs and 16 help-desk jobs will be in the building and will be Guild-represented Times employees once again.

Appearing on "The Ed Show" June 1, CWA President Larry Cohen explains how and why the National Labor Relations Board is broken -- and how Democrats need to start behaving like the majority they are in the Senate, or they'll lose the union's support. "We can run primaries, too," he tells Ed Schultz. "Democrats need to decide which side are they on, the Chamber of Commerce and corporate law firms or on the side of the American people?" 

For years, the New York Guild says, it's urged members not to donate their time and talent to their employer by failing to claim overtime pay or comp time for working extra hours. "Our message was always, 'Don’t be a chump – get what you've earned.' Now Thomson Reuters management has taken our side on this issue, but with a hard sell. Its message: 'Don’t work for free, or you could be disciplined.'"

Check out the newly launched Facebook page, "Save the Sun-Times Photojournalists," to protest last week's mass firing of the Chicago newspaper's entire photo staff. Be sure to sign the petition of support. Find it on Facebook or click here.

As journalists in Rockford and Freeport, Ill, prepare to vote June 21 on whether the join the United Media Guild, Local President Jeff Gordon lays out an argument for the union. "Newspaper Guild representation has been extremely valuable to journalists caught in the historic upheaval in the media industry. Journalists in Rockford and Freeport should compare their experiences to what happened down south at the Peoria Journal Star and Pekin Daily Times, two neighboring GateHouse newspapers represented by the United Media Guild," Gordon writes. Those units fought back company attacks on job security and other rollbacks, thanks to the union's bargaining and mobilizing efforts.