Everett Herald journalists to picket

The following is from the Everett NewsGuild:

Community members are invited to support the Everett NewsGuild’s fight for a fair contract on September 4 as management prepares its response to the union’s proposal

EVERETT, WA (September 2, 2025) — Journalists at The Daily Herald are looking for supporters of quality local news to join The Everett NewsGuild in an informational picket Thursday in downtown Everett.

The ask comes after the NewsGuild provided an offer to management at a recent bargaining session to finally get a long-deserved contract over the finish line. The only item left to fight on is stopping the company from tying reporters’ wages to story quotas, a potentially devastating requirement that would harm local news in the region. Carpenter Media Group has yet to respond to the union’s latest proposal.

At 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 4, reporters will gather at the intersection of Hewitt Ave. and Colby Ave. in downtown Everett to wave signs and make noise, letting their bosses know they deserve a fair contract. Community members who support the free press and quality local journalism are encouraged to attend.

Photo: Everett NewsGuild

The union is also encouraging attendees to bring signs — good slogans to use include “Support Local Journalists!” “Carpenter Puts Profit Over People,” “Honk For Local News,” and “Fair Contract Now!”

Since the NewsGuild formed in 2022, it’s been fighting for the fair wages, benefits and working conditions that allow us to produce impactful local journalism.

But Carpenter Media Group, the current owner of The Daily Herald that the union has been bargaining with since 2024, doesn’t care about local journalism. Last year, the company laid off more than half of The Herald’s news staff, and others left due to the grueling workload and low pay.

Now, as the union continues to seek its first contract after years of negotiations, Carpenter Media Group still wants to tie journalists’ salaries to the number of articles they write in a day.

Under the company’s current proposal, a reporter would have to write at least 10 stories every week to earn a $1 per hour raise. The base pay would remain the same — $20.50 per hour, barely above Everett’s minimum wage. That’s far below the cost of living in Snohomish County, which is $30.25 per hour for a single person with no kids, according to the MIT Living Wage Calculator.

If that proposal were to go into place, it would be devastating for local news coverage in the region. Journalists at The Herald won’t be able to give important stories the time they deserve for proper coverage. Tying wages to the quantity of stories will force them to choose between their livelihoods and quality journalism.

“After working for so many months to try and get a contract over the line, it’s disheartening that the company keeps insisting on tying my pay to arbitrary quotas,” said Will Geschke, a reporter at The Daily Herald. “You’d think they’d be smarter than that, but then again, these are the people that laid off half our staff just over a year ago. Everyone can see the effects that’s had on the paper.”

Quality local journalism is more important than ever as the number of news outlets across Washington continues to shrink. The state has lost 20% of its newspapers since 2004, according to a 2022 report from the League of Women Voters of Washington. U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell’s office reported in 2020 that Washington newsrooms lost 67% of their workers from 2005 to 2020, a higher share than the 59% loss nationally.

The union is also calling on community members to sign a petition online.