WASHINGTON—The 11 editorial staffers at the Talking Points Memo Website have voted unanimously to
join the Writers Guild of America East, they announced May 10. Editor and publisher Josh Marshall responded that he was “happy” to recognize the union voluntarily, saying it was consistent with the news and opinion site’s values. “Our effort to unionize is driven by the desire to make TPM even better,” the staff said in a statement. “We see ourselves as part of the broader unionization movement across digital news media—an industry wracked by the constant disruption that Josh Marshall has written about extensively and many of our employees have experienced firsthand. Unions are becoming standard across online publications, particularly progressive ones, and it’s important to us to stand in solidarity with that movement.” The WGAE’s organizing digital-news outlets over the last few years has increased its membership from about 4,000 to 5,000, with staff at the Onion, the Huffington Post, VICE, The Intercept, ThinkProgress, MTV News, Salon, Slate, and Gizmodo Media Group joining. Staff at Gothamist and DNAinfo also voted to join WGAE last fall, but their billionaire owner closed both sites in spite. Read more
