The Citizens' Voice
| The Citizens' Voice
|
|
|---|---|
| description | local American newspaper |
| language | English |
| publishing company | Times-Shamrock Communications |
| Frequency of publication | Every day |
| Sold edition | 20,968 copies |
| (Alliance for Audited Media, third quarter 2018) | |
| Editor-in-chief | Larry Holeva |
| editor | Donald Farley |
| Web link | citizensvoice.com |
| ISSN (print) | 1070-8626 |
The Citizens' Voice ( German mutatis mutandis , the voice of the people ) is a local newspaper , the daily in Wilkes-Barre in Pennsylvania appears. It was founded in 1978 by striking employees of the only daily newspaper in Wilkes-Barre to date, the Times Leader .
Distribution of the printed edition
The first editions of The Citizens' Voice had a circulation of around 45,000 copies.
According to the Alliance for Audited Media , the printed circulation in late summer 2018 was 20,968 copies on working days and 23,116 copies in the Sunday edition.
history
In the 1960s and early 1970s two daily newspapers appeared in Wilkes-Barre, the Times Leader, the Evening News and the Wilkes-Barre Record , which had been published by the same publisher, the Wilkes-Barre Publishing Company , since 1939 . With the June 27, 1972 issue, the two were combined into the Wilkes Barre Times Leader / The Evening News / Wilkes-Barre Record . In May 1978 the media group Capital Cities Communications acquired the Wilkes-Barre Publishing Company and its daily newspaper, which was renamed The Times Leader shortly afterwards .
Between the new owner and the Times-Leader's workforce, which was largely organized in the four unions Newspaper Guild Local 120, Typographical Union Local 187, Pressmen's Union Local 137 and Stereotypers' Union Local 139, conflicts arose over working conditions, pay and editorial content Alignment. In a climate of mutual distrust, Capital Cities commissioned a security company, the Wackenhut Corporation , to monitor employees in the editorial building in the summer of 1978 , to secure the company premises with a 3.5 m high fence and to draw up "emergency plans" for them the case of strikes. This was interpreted by the unionized newspaper workers as an attempt to intimidate them before the upcoming collective bargaining negotiations. After no agreement could be reached on the extension of a collective agreement that expired on September 30, 1978, the four unions called on October 6, 1978 for a stoppage of work . Around 210 employees, a large part of the workforce, answered the call. The strike lasted until 1982 and was finally ended after more than four years when the four trade unions were gradually deprived of their power of representation.
Some of the strikers founded their own newspaper, The Citizens' Voice , the first issue of which appeared on October 9, 1978. The first editions, now published daily except Sundays, were printed on the printing press of the Wyoming Valley Observer , a regional weekly newspaper. The Citizens' Voice should only appear for the duration of the strike and strengthen the negotiating position vis-à-vis the editors of the Times Leader through financial competition . With many readers switching to Citizens' Voice , the Times Leader's circulation actually fell significantly within a few weeks. However, the Times Leader continued to appear with remaining and new employees . Even after the end of the strike, The Citizens' Voice continued to be published as a “strike newspaper” with the financial participation of the trade unions involved; from 1984 with his own print shop. In 1989 the newspaper business was converted into a company whose shares were taken over by employees. After the regional Sunday newspaper Sunday Independent was abruptly closed in May 1993 and the Sunday edition of the Times-Leader, published since 1987 , would have been the only Sunday publication in Wilkes-Barre, The Citizens' Voice decided to publish on Sundays as well.
In May 2000, The Citizens' Voice was taken over by Times-Shamrock Communications , whose largest publication is the local paper The Scranton Times-Tribune in Scranton .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f Bob Kalinowski: The Strike That Launched the Citizens' Voice . In: The Citizens' Voice . October 7, 2018, ISSN 1070-8626 (English, full text ).
- ↑ Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, the Evening News, Wilkes-Barre Record ([Wilkes-Barre, Pa.]) 1972-1978. In: Catalog of the Library of Congress. Library of Congress , accessed July 3, 2020 .
- ↑ Thomas Keil, Jacqueline M. Keil: Anthracite's Demise and the Post-Coal Economy of Northeastern Pennsylvania . Rowman & Littlefield, 2014, ISBN 978-1-61146-176-3 , pp. 88-89 (English).
- ↑ Dennis W. Mazzocco: Networks of Power: Corporate TV's Threat to Democracy . South End Press, 1994, ISBN 978-0-89608-472-8 , pp. 71-75 (English).
- ↑ A bitter, four-year labor dispute between four striking unions ... United Press International , October 28, 1982, accessed on July 3, 2020 .
- ↑ Gregory Jaynes: Paper Strike in Wilkes-Barre Grows Bitter . In: The New York Times . November 19, 1978, ISSN 0362-4331 , p. 28 (English, full text ).