Staff at the Financial Times recently had an impressive victory in standing up for four Chinese journalists. Management had planned to move the four to China and cut their pay by up to 50 Per cent. In only a few days NUJ members organised a mass chapel meeting and beat back the attack. Here, Father of the Chapel, Dave Crouch, explains how the victory was achieved and how it has improved morale on the paper
The NUJ Left will be holding a meeting on Saturday, 6 March in London from midday to 4pm. There will be a session on Expose, the media campaign against the BNP, which was launched recently. Also there will be sessions on the Press Association, union democracy and organising activists.
NUJ members around the country are continuing to fight back against attacks on jobs, quality and conditions.
The NUJ has welcomed a decision by the BBC to develop its Radio Foyle output in Derry, rather than scrap it. The change of heart follows a campaign by local NUJ members and leaders of all sections of the community to keep the service going.
The European Court of Human Rights has ruled in favour of journalist Pennie Quinton and Kevin Gillen who were stopped and searched under anti-terror legislation and prevented filming at an arms fair.
Judges ruled that police powers to stop and search without grounds for suspicion contravened section 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights
Missed this the first time. But Newsnight’s Paul Mason blogs movingly about Contract Journal, the magazine where he started his journalistic career. Contract Journal was closed last November after more than a 100 years of printing.
A story that could be told about many magazines
Last month saw many a retrospective on how the noughties had changed the media, entertainment and news. Some of it quite unexpected – who would have predicted social networking and twitter as media tools; then there were the more predictable parts such as decline of journalistic standards and the onward march of multinational control.
The Southport ADM has given the NUJ a strong platform to build a sustained campaign for action to resist a further assault on jobs, pay and the conditions under which we have to work. Here, Alan Gibson gives the highs and the lows of the conference and identifies some of the key issues in the coming year.
The NUJ Left will be at ADM. On the Thursday night we will be holding a public meeting at 6pm – 7.30pm, Southport Theatre and Convention Centre,
The Promenade, PR9 0DZ. So please come along to find out what we are about.
We here at the NUJ Left would like to congratulate Christine Buckley for winning the election for the post of editor of the NUJ magazine The Journalist. We wish Christine every success in the role and hope to work with her in the future to make The Journalist the best union magazine in the country.
