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Edited By Ron Donoho Newspaper, Writers Joust Over Contract
On a scorching mid-September afternoon, 20 freelance writers for the San Diego Union-Tribune sat around a conference table strategizing with Jonathon Tasini, head of the National Writers Union. The freelancers were part of a group of 30 angered by the U-T’s sale of its archives—containing their articles—to databases like Nexus-Lexis. The writers, who have collectively written 3,000 articles for the newspaper, owned by Copley Press Inc., never gave their permission nor received extra compensation.
Also galling them was the contract the newspaper began sending out last December, which gives it the right to electronically reproduce or sell a freelancer’s articles—without added compensation. That makes it difficult for local writers to resell their own work elsewhere. But if writers don’t sign, they can’t work for the U-T.
Last year, similar copyright-infringement concerns spurred Tasini and other freelancers to sue The New York Times and other entities; they won on appeal. The decision said newspapers have one-time rights to stories. Everything else is owned by the writer, unless changed by written contract. (The author of this story, a former freelance writer for the U-T, signed a standard contract with San Diego Magazine, which does not resell freelance stories outside the San Diego market.)
A few days after that New York Times decision, Miriam Raftery, a U-T Home section columnist, received a contract in the mail. “I told them I wouldn’t sign it. [The U-T] paid me a kill fee for the column I had just turned in,” she says, “and told me I couldn’t work for them anymore.”
Raftery isn’t the only columnist who got the shaft. Dave Horrigan, the former Mac Track columnist in the newspaper’s ComputerLink supplement, also refused to sign, and was dropped.
Former San Diego Press Club president and freelance writer Caron Golden says the U-T holds a monopoly. “As the only daily newspaper here, there aren’t other options for the writer who wants to write for the community daily. If they don’t play by the U-T’s rules, they have nowhere else to go.”
Harry Youtt, the National Writers Union’s grievance officer, asks, “Who do you think winds up signing this contract? Probably not the best writers. It inhibits the quality of journalism for the entire community.”
In early September, Youtt sent a letter to Copley Press vice president and chief legal officer Harold Fuson Jr. in an attempt to resolve differences. Shortly afterward, Youtt says he and Fuson had an “encouraging” conversation. At press time, however, there was nothing new to report.
Fuson says Copley isn’t negotiating directly with the writers’ union but with individual writers. “Of the 30 involved, we have differences with about nine freelancers. And we remain open to conversation with these folks,” he says. “We have 500 contributors to the Union-Tribune. Nine out of 500 is not a big deal.”
Tasini calls those numbers “highly suspect. There’s no question that people signed [contracts] under duress. The U-T basically said, ‘Sign or starve.’ If the numbers game makes the U-T proud, shame on them for essentially behaving like an early 20th-century sweatshop.”
Despite the language in its new freelance contract, Fuson insists the U-T is not opposed to compensating writers based on all uses of their work; it’s just that the company doesn’t have the technology in place to track that information.
“We’re not against deals in which revenue is shared,” he says, “as long as it doesn’t cost more to administer the process than it costs us to buy the article in the first place.”
Still, temperatures continue to rise. Legal action is being contemplated. Youtt likens local freelancers to 1960s civil-rights activists. “These writers are heroes,” he says. “If they stand up and struggle here in San Diego, we may end up with real progress.”
—Eilene Zimmerman
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