A conflict about electronic rights between the San Diego Union-Tribune and a group of its free-lance writers is awaiting its next step: the completion of a proposed pay system.
The system is being drafted by the free-lance writers and Harry Youtt, a representative of the group assigned by the National Writers Union.
It is being done at the request of Harold Fuson, vice president and chief legal officer of the Union-Tribune’s La Jolla-based owner, the Copley Press, Inc.
Last month, Fuson was sent a letter from Youtt on behalf of the writers. It was prompted by the Union-Tribune’s demands that free-lance writers sign a contract that in part allowed the paper nonexclusive electronic rights to their work.
The contract gives Copley the right to license each free-lancer’s work when it licenses the paper’s archives.
The paper began circulating the contract in October of last year, soon after a decision in the case of Tasini vs. The New York Times, a suit filed in 1993 about the electronic copyright of free-lance articles sold to a print publication. The case focused on whether the articles should be available on the Internet or through electronic databases to which the publications’ licensed their archives.
Court Decision
Last September, an appeals court had reversed a federal district court decision against the plaintiffs, saying additional use of the free-lance work on electronic mediums without the authors’ permission constituted copyright infringement. The case is now awaiting appeals.
Fuson would not disclose how much money the Union-Tribune’s license fees generate.
The Union-Tribune licenses its archives to a few services, including Lexis-Nexis, said Fuson, who did not divulge the others.
The free-lancers have found their work on services and search engines such as Westlaw, DataTimes and Northern Light, said Caron Golden, one of the free-lancers protesting the new policy.
According to Fuson, 400 of the Union-Tribune’s free-lance writers signed the paper’s free-lancer agreement.
The Union-Tribune’s contract was an option until last month, when free-lancers who refused to sign it were told they could no longer write for the paper.
After that, 30 free-lance writers banded together in protest and the writers union assigned Youtt, a Los Angeles-based free-lance writer, to represent them.
The letter to Fuson asked for an opportunity to discuss the new policy, Youtt said.
More Information Requested
Fuson’s response to the letter asked for more information on how the free-lance writers wanted to be paid for electronic rights.
In an interview, Fuson noted the group of 30 writers included writers who had already signed the agreement and other writers who hadn’t written for the paper in over a year.
Golden is among those who hasn’t written for the Union-Tribune recently, but has joined the free-lancers represented by the letter to Fuson.
The copyright issues the contract invokes are important to all free-lance writers, and that’s why she’s involved, Golden said.
Free-lancers’ loss of electronic rights to their work impairs their ability to resell their articles in other markets , something the writers often depend upon, said Golden, who is past president of the San Diego Press Club.
The writers also have no control over which organizations their work is sold to, she said.
In explaining the paper’s position, Fuson said it is focused on its ability to protect what he called “the integrity of our archives.”
The paper’s management views electronic versions of the newspaper as an extension of microfilm and bound volumes, he said.
The Union-Tribune’s pay policies drew additional attention earlier this month, when a departing business reporter sent the paper’s 2,000-plus employees, including upper management, an E-mail criticizing the organization’s leadership.
Internal Memo
The memo, written by high-tech reporter Mike Drummond, discussed high turnover in the paper’s business department. Drummond denounced the Union-Tribune’s management for not paying wages competitive with papers in comparable markets, naming publications such as the Los Angeles Times, the Sacramento Bee and the San Francisco Examiner.
At the time, Drummond’s Union-Tribune salary was slightly more than $50,000, he later said in an interview.
In the memo, Drummond had also written that management was unwilling to consider other options for employees such as regular flexible work hours or telecommuting and seemed comfortable with mediocrity.
Fuson did not answer Drummond’s remarks in the memo.
He said: “The San Diego Union-Tribune is a very good regional newspaper with many hundreds of very hard-working, very dedicated employees Mr. Drummond is one person who has chosen to make statements for his own reasons, whatever they are, but it’s very difficult to even understand where he’s coming from, let alone respond.”
Within a half hour of sending the E-mail, Drummond was asked to leave the building, he said.
Drummond had already given notice more than a week before, having accepted a feature writer position with industry magazine Business 2.0. It was a job he had not sought, he noted. His new salary would be double his pay at the Union-Tribune, Drummond said.
Media Attention
Drummond only sent the E-mail to staff of the Union-Tribune, he said. However, news of the memo and a copy of it quickly landed on a media news Web site operated by the Poynter Institute, a Florida-based journalism education nonprofit group.
Drummond was also called that day by a producer for “The Roger Hedgecock Show” on radio station KOGO-AM.
That afternoon, he appeared on the talk show, discussing his memo and other problems with the newspaper.
Any talk Drummond’s E-mail and appearance on the Hedgecock show created will have a limited effect, said Dr. Tim Wulfemeyer, who runs the journalism program at San Diego State University.
“I think people who don’t hold the Union-Tribune in very high regard can point to something like that and say, ‘See there’s proof of what I’m talking about,'” Wulfemeyer said. “Those people who think it’s a pretty good paper probably aren’t going to be affected too much by it.”
For the paper, it’s not something that’s likely to have a lasting effect on readers, he said.
“As long as they’re getting satisfactory information from their media organization, I don’t think the public cares what journalists are getting paid,” he said.
