News’ Website
Opens Can of Worms:
Will Guild Be the Fish Gutted?

By Bob DiCesare
President

They’re calling it “Everything Buffalo.”

Must be “Everything Corporate America” was already spoken for.

And “Gut The Guild” also had been taken.

Or could it be that The News is trying to camouflage its agenda, hoping we won’t recognize the monster lurking beneath before we’ve been snatched, chomped and digested?

When you think about it, management is playing smart poker. The News forever dallied in placing its editorial content online until every other major newspaper in America had a website with a track record. The third floor has lived the last five years choking on embarrassment as our journalistic colleagues from across the nation mockingly inquired, “Where’s the website?”

So now, The News is going online and all we want to think about is The News Is Going Online!!!

And all the while management is thinking, “Just as we figured. They’re too damn happy to see the truth!”

And what’s the truth? The truth is that this website by its very design is intended to blur the Guild’s jurisdiction. It’s intended to put a stringer on every street corner. And it has the ability to undermine the journalistic standards The Guild has forever fought to uphold.

The Guild viewed “Everything Buffalo” as a work-in-progress earlier this month. It’s sharp. It’s snazzy. And it’s dangerous.

It has links to the Bills and the Sabres, to the Associated Press, to movie listings, and to Adelphia Sports and Entertainment. It was more than a year ago The News cited Adelphia as a competitor in attempting to revoke permission it had granted for members of the sports department to appear on the Empire Sports Network. Guess we’ve won that grievance. How can Adelphia be considered a competitor when The News has partnered the site with its “rival” and -- this is a beauty -- was playing Adelphia’s sports headlines over The News’ sports headlines on the opening page of “Everything Buffalo.”?

It is under the opening page heading, Visit Buffalo, that the more ominous threats to The Guild are hiding. There are a number of subheadings under “Visit Buffalo,” including Arts and Entertainment, Business/Finance, Education, Family, Government and Health and Fitness. And under each heading can be found links to websites throughout Western New York.

As we understand it, the stipulation for having a link uploaded onto “Everything Buffalo” is: no skin. Everything else goes. If the Town of Boston government wants to report on its own meetings, fine. It can. Unedited. Untouched. Unbiased?

And how long will it be before a Town of Boston website serves as our coverage of the Town of Boston because if there’s anything better than a stringer, it’s a free stringer. And so it will go throughout many a town in Western New York. “Journalism” turned over to the masses. Content for content’s sake.

And these satellite offices The News is opening via “Everything Buffalo” are being granted an advantage over journalists at The News. They can update and upload fresh pages at their whim. The professional journalists at The News will be hindered by the 24-hour update cycle The News is applying to its own online editorial content. Why the delay in updating breaking news? Because that would put Guild hands on the project, spoiling the bottom line.

Go ahead and call me crazy. The human resources director at The News says management’s executive committee calls me just that.

But why, then, did management ignore an agreement made during the last contract talks to inform and bargain with The Guild before creating a website that includes editorial content? Why did The Guild have to find out about the website from outside sources and confront The News with the information? Why is it that after I was quoted in the July Frontier Reporter asserting the Guild’s jurisdiction over editorial content on the website, The News answered with a letter that says in effect “We don’t see it that way?”

Go ahead, drop to your knees and thanks the gods The News has finally gone online. Do it quick, lest you find those knees cut off.