Who are we?
We are reporters, photographers, copy editors, page designers and online editors. We have worked here for six months and more than 40 years. Some of us grew up here; others moved here from far away. But all of us care deeply about journalism and Southwest Virginia.
Why did we unionize?
For almost a decade, our larger parent company has been slashing our staff and the coverage that we provide. We unionized in 2020 to stand up for the preservation of local news. We must rebuild what we have lost in order to continue serving our readers and communities for the next 134 years.
Our Mission
For the second time in seven years, our hometown newspaper has been bought by a large corporation outside Virginia.
Lee Enterprises took possession of The Roanoke Times and nine other major papers across our commonwealth on March 16, 2020. In statements, Lee said how much money the sale will mean for them financially — including $20 million it will save by cutting resources.
We, the staff of The Roanoke Times, worry about what they didn’t say.
For years, we have shared our readers’ dismay with cuts that have stymied our ability to cover crucial stories about the environment, religion, business, technology, sports, social services, neighborhoods and education. We have had no say in these decisions. Our growing alarm and ideas for change have been ignored, and we fear this latest sale will make things even worse.
That is why we are coming together to organize with The NewsGuild-CWA, the union that represents thousands of journalists at publications across the country. We seek to:
Restore staff positions that have gone unfilled
Fight for fair pay, cost-of-living increases and fair severance and buyout packages
Negotiate affordable health insurance and equitable retirement benefits
Ensure that the diversity of our newsroom reflects our community
For more than a century, The Roanoke Times was operated by family-owned companies based in Virginia that understood the importance of local news. Today, we are owned by corporations headquartered far from our communities that are concerned more about shareholder profits.
Since 2013, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Media Company slashed our newsroom by nearly half. We have seen coworkers with decades of service to our community leave or be forced out. We have had no choice but to do more and more with less and less.
Our readers have suffered, too, with delivery problems, poor customer service and less local coverage. Print subscriptions have fallen from 90,000 a decade ago to about 30,000 today. That is why we, the employees of The Roanoke Times, must demand a seat at the table where decisions that affect our newspaper and our communities are made. In unionizing, the staff hopes to better help Lee navigate the challenges of dwindling print advertising revenues and changing reader expectations. We look forward to working with management to ensure the newspaper remains viable for years to come.
Over the decades, our journalists have exposed corruption and abuses of power and shared the stories of the most vulnerable among us — from retired reporter Mary Bishop’s Pulitzer-finalist series that forced the legislature to regulate unscrupulous pest control companies, to Laurence Hammack’s stories on the effects of the Mountain Valley Pipeline on the land and the people of our region. In between, we’ve been the public’s watchdog of government and corporations and told the stories important to our community.
Our coverage matters, not just to subscribers, but to everyone. When our journalists are in the room, the powerful act in the public’s best interests because we bring transparency to their actions. But what will happen when those journalists are no longer there? How will this community know itself when it no longer sees its faces, values, achievements and challenges reflected in the local newspaper?
For 134 years, the journalists of The Roanoke Times have stood up for our readers. Today, we ask our colleagues and community to stand with us to make sure strong local news survives.
Timesland News Guild
2020
Mike Allen • Michael Belcher • Mark Berman • Ralph Berrier • Dan Casey • Tad Dickens • Casey Fabris • Amy Friedenberger • Mike Gangloff • Shawn Garrett • Henri Gendreau • Matt Gentry • Alison Graham • Laurence Hammack • Neil Harvey • Christina Koomen • Aaron McFarling • Claire Mitzel • Tonia Moxley • Erica Myatt • Mike Niziolek • Alicia Petska • Yann Ranaivo • Luanne Rife • Brandon Ross • Heather Rousseau • Mark Shaver • Stephanie Sheehan • Jeff Sturgeon • Sam Wall • Luke Weir • Anthony White