The Baltimore Sun Guild is demanding that the paper stop publishing articles, videos, photos and social media content from Fox45 and other Sinclair newsrooms — at least until management agrees to meet with the staff to discuss the arrangement.
The guild said there have been multiple times when the paper’s “ethical standards have been tossed aside under new ownership,” in a statement released Monday.
Unit Chair Christine Condon said there has been a lack of transparency at the paper on what the relationship between The Baltimore Sun, Fox45 and other Sinclair newsrooms is or will be.
In January, The Sun was purchased by David Smith, the executive chairman of Sinclair Inc., which operates more than 200 television stations nationwide. At some point after the purchase, content and news stories from Sinclair properties began appearing in The Sun.
“This has been happening without us knowing what’s going on,” Condon said. “We want our members to know what’s happening.”
The guild cited a Fox45 article that was republished in The Baltimore Sun on June 3 that used the term “illegal immigrants.”
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That term is not used by The Sun, according to the guild, in accordance with industry best practices by the Associated Press.
A story about “weekend crowds” in Fells Point that was published in The Sun on June 8 and updated on June 10 had the names of two reporters removed from it.
Condon said the names were removed because the reporters involved exercised the rights to remove their bylines after content from Fox45 was added to the story. The contract between the News Guild and The Baltimore Sun says an employee’s byline or photo credit cannot be used over their protest.
“We are concerned that the nature of the relationship between Sinclair and The Sun has not been made clear to us or to our readers. And one of the first articles published from Sinclair failed to meet The Sun’s standards,” The Baltimore Sun Guild’s statement said.
The guild also called out new Sun co-owner Armstrong Williams and his use of offensive language to describe transgender people, “flouting the best practices once adhered to by The Sun.”
They homed in on Williams’ use of phrases like “the ‘transgender movement,’ ” which he likened to “cancer” in a May 8 column titled “The rise of transgenderism.”
“While we want our opinion pages to include a diverse range of opinions, we believe at minimum, industry standards must be followed and articles published should not be discriminatory,” the guild wrote. “Our efforts to engage with management to address these content issues have not yielded change.”
In response to the union’s message, Williams said in a statement he respects the opinions of the Sun Guild.
“We both recognize the importance of valuing diverse viewpoints,” Williams said. “I assume the Guild reciprocally appreciates legitimate managerial prerogatives in the journalistic enterprise. Constructive criticism is always welcome even if ultimately found unpersuasive.”
In addition to demanding The Sun stop publishing Fox45 content, the guild demanded a meeting between Baltimore Sun management and all staff members “to address our concerns and explain the long-term strategy for the paper,” including any agreements with Fox45 or Sinclair.
The guild also called for ensuring that everything published in The Baltimore Sun adheres to “the same journalistic standards that we are held to as union members,” such as the internal cultural competency guide at The Sun created by the newsroom’s Diversity Committee.
Condon said the message was delivered to The Sun’s editor-in-chief and publisher Trif Alatzas earlier Monday. Alatzas did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Last week, The Sun’s longtime managing editor Sam Davis announced his retirement. It was the first big announced leadership change at the paper since Smith’s purchase, though in a note to staff Alatzas said Davis told him about his plans to retire “earlier this spring.”
The Sun’s news union has a contract, first agreed to in 2007, that has been extended multiple times. The current extension agreement expires on June 30 this year.
This is a developing story.
