Save the SJ-R campaign gathering momentum

Our public campaign for a fair contract at the State Journal-Register in Springfield is gathering steam.

Anybody interested in support our fight to protect great journalism that important newspaper can visit our Save the SJ-R blog.

You can follow the fight on Twitter @savethesjr and like our campaign on Facebook.

Here is the first radio ad the United Media Guild started to run in Springfield. This ad will continue to run in that market and another ad is on the way.

Here is a Springfield television report on our public campaign:

The New York-based owner of the highly profitable SJ-R, the New York-based New Media Investment Group/GateHouse Media, has slashed the news-gathering operation in Springfield to a fraction of its former size. It has enforced a general wage freeze for more than seven years and hired new reporters at barely liveable wages.

Jim Romenesko has also chronicled the plight of our Springfield unit chair, Dean Olsen, on his influential media blog.

Romenesko also updated his readers in media circles on Olsen’s plight and our public campaign against GateHouse.

The Illinois Times was one of the media outlets covering our earlier public demonstration in Springfield. Here was that report.

Recently the Boston Globe profiled the success of GateHouse Media/New Media Investment Group but noted the downside of cost-cutting for newspapers like the State Journal-Register.

The money quote came from a decorated reporter who left another GateHouse newspaper after being denied a modest raise: “GateHouse is to journalism like what Olive Garden is to Italian food.”

Romenesko told the story of that reporter.

He also covered the carnage at Halifax newspapers purchased by New Media Investment Group and placed under GateHouse management.

Our colleagues at the Providence Journal suffered quite a bloodletting at the hands of GateHouse management after New Media bought that newspaper last year.