Ogden Continues to Scrooge The Maui News

The elections are over, Thanksgiving is over. You know what’s not over? The Maui News staffers’ attempts to get West Virginia owner Ogden Newspapers to do anything about ongoing contract negotiations. I use the term “ongoing” lightly, as contract negotiations have been going on–or not going on—since the last contract expired in April, 2020 (although it technically remains in effect until a new agreement is reached).

And as we move into the holidays, it looks like Ogden only intends to deposit its home state’s main export—coal—into The Maui News’ stocking. Staffers plan to hold an “informational picket” near the paper’s 100 Mahalani Street office on Tuesday (Dec. 13th) afternoon.

Despite widespread media coverage, an angry public petition, and a pro-Maui News resolution from the Maui County Council, Ogden continues to behave like the North Korea of the newspaper world.

I have written previously about this company’s abhorrent antipathy towards this once-valuable local paper (or any of the other papers it owns) and warned about the consequences if The Maui News disappears. At present, it seems like Ogden intends to leave its Maui holding little more than a puddle of ink by the time it’s finished grinding the paper’s employees under its corporate heel.

Nothing from Nutting

Let’s review. The paper employed 30 editorial employees when it was purchased by Ogden in 2000. In the ensuing 22 years, employees have received exactly one raise, and have seen their numbers decline to nine editorial employees, five of them reporters. Ogden currently owns 54 daily newspapers around the country, and as far as I can tell, none have improved under its erstwhile stewardship. The Maui News is anorexically thin, delivered only by mail to many island households, and down to 6,000 subscribers.

The billionaire Nutting owners aren’t picky about what they trash, apparently. They also own the Pittsburgh Pirates, consistently ranked among the worst baseball teams in major league baseball. In fact, things got so bad in 2018 that an online petition was launched demanding that the Nuttings sell the team; it got 60,000 signatures.

Ogden wants to cut newsroom, circulation, and advertising employees’ workweek to 30 hours. It wants to outsource work—including reporting and photography—to the mainland. In September, Ogden representatives walked out of a contract bargaining session rather than allow union members to watch, as they are entitled to do by the National Labor Relations Act. In fact, according to Maui Now, the entire half hour of bargaining was spent arguing about this very point.

Since then, there haven’t been any negotiations at all. In response to a recent pro-employee letter writing effort by subscribers and others, Maui News Publisher/Ogden minion Chris Minford suddenly changed the paper’s editorial page rules and now forbids the publication of further letters of community support for employees.

The Guild has filed a federal unfair labor practice charge against Ogden, and I hope it sticks and pays dividends. I am sick to death of this corporate Darth Vader masquerading as a news organization.

Do you think I’m being too harsh? Well, go read something else. But if you don’t pay attention, that something else won’t include The Maui News.

Managed Decline

Representatives of The Pacific Media Workers Guild, the organization representing Maui News staffers, are more than familiar with Ogden and its anti-union tactics, especially now that Ogden has retained union-busting Nashville attorney Michael Zinser.

Guild Executive Organizer Kaitlin Gillespie previously worked at The Columbian in Vancouver, Washington. There, prolonged unpleasant negotiations with Zinser and that paper’s owners resulted in the union’s collapse and exit from the paper in 2021. It’s clear that’s what Ogden is hoping to do on Maui.

Gillespie said in an interview that the Guild has been trying for months and months to understand Ogden’s exact position on the new contract. “Until we understand what their proposal even is, we can’t make a meaningful counter-proposal.”

However, she adds, “They refuse to answer basic questions, even in terms of day-to-day operations. In one of our first bargaining sessions, we asked, ‘What’s the vision for the paper here? What’s the long-term goal? Where do you see the paper going?’ And they refused to answer.

“The language they’ve given us [so far] makes it clear they don’t want to invest in the paper. They want to manage its decline. It’s totally unacceptable.”

Reporters Speak

So frustrated are Maui News employees that several made the rare decision to step out from behind their bylines to voice their frustration with Ogden’s truculent behavior. Photojournalist Matt Thayer told County Council members during a presentation this fall, “All of us at the paper would prefer to be covering news rather than being part of it. But in this instance, standing on the sideline will not suffice. The future of the paper that I care so much for is at stake. The current tactics of the company’s hired mainland negotiators, and the proposals they have put forth, seem designed to break our union and to forever diminish the way this newspaper covers this island.”

From veteran sportswriter Robert Collias, a 32-year employee: “Executives in West Virginia believe they can dictate what this community receives from its beloved newspaper, but the populace here is not willing to settle for anything less than local people delivering their local news.”

And Wendy Isbell, whose tenure in the paper’s advertising department spans 34 years, says, “Years and years have passed without a raise in pay… Rather than finally doing the right thing for employees, the company is talking about cutting hours and outsourcing work.”

News homicide in Aspen

Ogden made national headlines this summer for the outrageous actions it took in regard to the 141-year-old Aspen Times, which it purchased late last year and gutted like a fish. Subsidized employee housing (a must in this nosebleed-expensive ski town) evaporated. Then, a Soviet Union-born billionaire resident sued the paper for calling him an “oligarch” in an opinion column (which is protected speech). Instead of hiring a First Amendment attorney to quickly dispense with the nuisance suit, Ogden signed a settlement agreement promising never to call him the “O” word again. Out of 13 editorial employees, who either quit on principal or were fired after objecting to Ogden’s capitulation and news suppression, only one reporter remained.

Former Aspen Times writer and editor Andrew Travers, who was fired in the “oligarch” aftermath, subsequently wrote a scathing piece in The Atlantic and another in the Colorado Sun which described the once venerable Aspen Times as a “ghost ship.” Looks like The Maui News may be sailing into the same waters.

Now, Aspen’s citizenry and its government–bless their hearts–did not take this lying down. Its council voted to strip The Aspen Times of its “paper of record” status and gave the contract for publishing public notices to longtime competitor The Aspen Daily News. (Imagine that–two newspapers in a town of 7,000 residents!). Maui County is 150,000 strong and we’re silent bystanders to our only daily paper’s slow suffocation.

The Maui County Council did pass a resolution this fall in support of Maui News employees. But could the county do more? Sure. In fiscal year 21-22, the administration spent close to $140,000 paying The Maui News to publish public notices. And that doesn’t account for additional public notice expenditures by the County Council. Why not follow Aspen’s lead?

Since the Aspen City Council made its move, which definitely hit Ogden in its pocketbook, the Aspen Times has hired another reporter. Coincidence, perhaps, but surely our local government can bring some pressure to bear that’s more significant than some words of support on a piece of paper.

It’s the least the county could do, considering it played a part in weakening the Maui News last year. It announced plans to buy the Maui News building, which led to employees being shoved into a new newsroom—more or less a shed in the building’s back yard. At the time, staff was promised that the purchase would result in a new, improved website and more hirings. False on both counts. And then the deal never went through.

What can you do?

 For one, go find the picketers on Mahalani Street Tuesday afternoon (from 2:15-2:45 p.m. and 4:15-4:45 p.m.) and show support. Write more letters, encourage other news organizations to write stories. Call Chris Minford. Make some noise–especially you, advertisers.

The Maui community has also weighed in by signing a petition that’s circulating around social media (well, and trying to write letters to the editor..). I advise you to sign it if you haven’t. Whether or not you’re a subscriber, what those dedicated remaining reporters produce generates community conversation and serves to hold those in power accountable for their actions. Many of you complain about its anemic news content these days, but you try to put out a daily paper with five reporters and no financial support. That these employees continue to work in journalism is a testament to their passion. There are better paying jobs for writers, but most of them involve public relations. And canned news is all you’re going to be served if you let The Maui News die without a battle. Yes, Civil Beat and Maui Now make admirable contributions, but in journalism, more is always better.

I again turn to former Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan, who wrote in her 2020 book Ghosting the News: Local Journalism and the Crisis of American Democracy, “The newspaper ties a region together, helps it make sense of itself … [it] serves as a village square whose boundaries transcend Facebook’s filter bubble.”

As Sullivan wrote, studies have shown that a lack of local reporting can actually raise taxes, since, without media oversight, borrowing and spending by governments increase. Absent local media watchdogs, she writes, “politics will become even more polarized; government and business corruption will flourish; the glue that holds communities together will weaken.”

In other cities, well-heeled, civic-minded residents have stepped forward to reclaim their newspapers from greedy hedge-funders and other non-journalistic owners. Do we have any local philanthropists left on Maui? Or are we just going to go to the beach and get our news from Tik Tok, Facebook, and Twitter instead?

Ogden, if you don’t want to nurture our paper and its employees, then sell it and get off the island. Turn your mainland papers into glorified “shoppers” (ad-packed papers with “filler” news) and let The Maui News continue under an owner who actually respects journalism, rather than holds it and its purveyors in such utter contempt.