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The Oregon Daily Emerald comes to resolution
After ODE went on strike in March, newsroom staff comes to resolution with directors
Taryn Luna
Issue date: 4/2/09 Section: News
After a controversial strike, a whirl-wind of media coverage and a week's worth of third-party professionally mediated conversations between the newsroom and the board of directors, the demands of the student staff of the Oregon Daily Emerald have prevailed.
"Once we entered mediation, it became apparent that both the board and the newsroom were on the same page," said ODE Editor-in-Chief Ashley Chase. "Essentially, the things we asked for are going to be implemented."
Mediation, which took place between March 11 and March 18, consisted of discussions among five representatives from the Emerald staff, three professional mediators and five members of the Emerald board of directors.
"It was a great opportunity to bridge the communication gap," Chase said before adding that the entire situation could have been avoided if the two parties had demonstrated better communication from the beginning.
As previously printed in The Daily Barometer, the newsroom went before the board on the evening of Tuesday, March 3 to issue a series of demands asking that the board: (1) retract the offer for the position of interim publisher to Steve A. Smith, (2) to stick by plans to perform a nation-wide search for a publisher, (3) to add to the contract that the publisher cannot work for the university, and (4) to give the student editor and publisher equal power, with the publisher unable to demonstrate power over the editor. To the editor-in-chief's surprise, the board rejected the demands.
"We really felt like our independence was threatened," Chase said.
The following morning, an editorial printed in the Wednesday edition of the Emerald sent a shockwave through the media and the UO community. Chase and Managing Editor Allie Grasgreen announced that the staff would be on strike until the demands that "address recent hiring decisions of the board that are far out of line with the Emerald's guiding values and ethics" were met.
The Thursday edition of the paper was the first Emerald published since 1900 without student generated content, with stories pulled from the AP wire and no photographs. In the Friday, March 6 edition, however, another editorial was printed. The strike had ended, and the newsroom would produce a regular edition of the paper for the following Monday.
"Once we entered mediation, it became apparent that both the board and the newsroom were on the same page," said ODE Editor-in-Chief Ashley Chase. "Essentially, the things we asked for are going to be implemented."
Mediation, which took place between March 11 and March 18, consisted of discussions among five representatives from the Emerald staff, three professional mediators and five members of the Emerald board of directors.
"It was a great opportunity to bridge the communication gap," Chase said before adding that the entire situation could have been avoided if the two parties had demonstrated better communication from the beginning.
As previously printed in The Daily Barometer, the newsroom went before the board on the evening of Tuesday, March 3 to issue a series of demands asking that the board: (1) retract the offer for the position of interim publisher to Steve A. Smith, (2) to stick by plans to perform a nation-wide search for a publisher, (3) to add to the contract that the publisher cannot work for the university, and (4) to give the student editor and publisher equal power, with the publisher unable to demonstrate power over the editor. To the editor-in-chief's surprise, the board rejected the demands.
"We really felt like our independence was threatened," Chase said.
The following morning, an editorial printed in the Wednesday edition of the Emerald sent a shockwave through the media and the UO community. Chase and Managing Editor Allie Grasgreen announced that the staff would be on strike until the demands that "address recent hiring decisions of the board that are far out of line with the Emerald's guiding values and ethics" were met.
The Thursday edition of the paper was the first Emerald published since 1900 without student generated content, with stories pulled from the AP wire and no photographs. In the Friday, March 6 edition, however, another editorial was printed. The strike had ended, and the newsroom would produce a regular edition of the paper for the following Monday.
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