Sixth-Day War At the ‘Journal’
Should “star reporters” ask for overtime?
Wall Street Journal publisher Karen Elliott House was probably trying to be reassuring when she told the Times last week that just because her paper was starting a Saturday edition, “people won’t be working six days a week.” Still, she couldn’t help adding, “But any of the real stars of the Journal work a six-day week now,” a comment that could explain why she’s so unpopular there. “People are furious,” says one reporter. “It’s demoralizing.” It’s all par for the course at the restive newsroom, which picketed contract negotiations last year and is acting more like a union shop than a professional-class aerie as benefits get cut and fewer people do more work. “There are a lot of really committed journalists at Dow Jones who do work six-day weeks,” says reporter and union rep Theo Francis. “But she shouldn’t take that for granted.” Reporters are eligible for overtime for weekends, but “there’s an immense amount of institutional resistance to paying for it,” partly because, as he admits, there’s no room in the strapped paper’s budget. Nonetheless, “we’re encouraging people to show their star status by putting in for weekend work.”