The Supreme Court’s decision that struck down federal law limiting campaign contributions by corporations is lamentable. Especially because the activist judges on the court took the opportunity to greatly expand the rights and powers of corporations — as if Bank of America or Exxon or AT&T needed protection from ordinary citizens like us.

If President Obama isn’t able to appoint sensible judges quickly enough to overturn this corporate friendly court, we may have to expend the lengthy and time-consuming effort of passing a constitutional amendment.

But in the meantime, lets face up to the fact that corporations and special interests could not buy elections if we didn’t let them. Nearly all the money spent on election campaigns goes for advertising, media blitzes, mail campaigns, billboards, etc. We should rename the ruling the “Broadcast Advertising Revenue Rehabilitation” decision.

Corporate campaign chests don’t buy VOTES. At least not directly. It’s all spent in the quest to persuade you and me to cast our votes their way. While surveys and polls can be commissioned that can skew opinions and make them seem to be more one-sided than they are, the only poll that matters is the ballot box.

These massive war chests are overwhelmingly spent on legal activities (not counting election fraud). Or in the case of Rupert Murdoch, the money is spent on buying his own network.

No one holds a gun to anyone’s head and forces them to vote against their own interests. If we are fooled by these flashy, expensive campaigns, we have only ourselves to blame.

So this next election, when you are bombarded by commercials, ads, phone calls and so on, take time to read a trusted publication the Post-Dispatch or the Labor Trib or Truthout.com or other respected news organizations. Study the issues and the candidates. Take the campaign hype with a ton of salt and vote intelligently.

They can’t steal our vote with a media buy, no matter how much they spend. They need our cooperation. If we let them persuade us with corporate-bought advertising, then we just committed the citizenship version of responding to a midnight infomercial for cellulite cream.

I hope U.S. voters are smarter than that.

Virginia Gilbert is a retired member of the St. Louis Newspaper Guild, a former unit chair at the Post-Dispatch and a volunteer in urban ministry.

Journalism is under assault, from evolving technology that challenges how news is distributed to media corporations whose only response to economic downturns is to slash and burn.

Journalists and our brothers and sisters in advertising see this as a time to strengthen our newspaper and improve our value to readers; Lee Enterprises and its corporate cousins see this convergence of technology and economy as a perfect storm, a convenient opportunity to cut staff far beyond what is required and to assault the foundations upon which our union is built.

These corporate suits and dollar-strangling publishers also are beginning to breach what for generations has been a solid wall between advertising and editorial. They see the newsroom as a potential arm of advertising, with tailor-made “niche” publications (”Style,” “Summer Fun”) and stories made to order.  Merging advertising and features, for example, would destroy our readers trust: Which stories are honest? Which were written in return for ads? Which were bought and paid for?

It is time to think about an ethics policy for the Post-Dispatch, one generated by the journalists and advertising professionals who work here. Let’s start a discussion right here. To kick things off, here are links to two ethics documents:

Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics

Newspaper Guild-CWA principles of Professionalism and Honesty in the News Media

Speak up! This is our union; this is our profession. It’s up to us to protect them.

(This post was written March 26, 2009; we apologize for the delay in publishing it — admin)

I was called in to HR on 2/27/09 to be told that I was amongst several being laid off that day at the Journals.  I was not allowed to return to my desk to gather my personal belongings….it was done FOR me and placed in a box and I was escorted out of the building.  I was told during my “exit” interview that it was me this time around…based on my numbers…sales.

It is easier for Lee Enterprises to lay off the Journals employees because they are NOT Union – I wish we had been.  The Union had approached the Journals at West County only to be told to vacate the premises….WE were told that if we valued our jobs we would NOT talk to the Union at all!  There is a person who is leaving my old department now – has taken a position at the Post-Dispatch and do you believe this?  There is a help wanted ad to replace her in my old department?!  Is this even legal if there was a layoff?  Aren’t companies supposed to CALL BACK employees that have been laid off?

I was so distraught that day over the complete shock of losing my job that I signed an agreement with the HR Director.  It was a termination agreement with a severance offer.  Mind you – our “severance” packages are equal to two weeks pay per year.  I was let go on 2/27 and my two years would have been on 3/1/09.  Therefore I only got 1 year severance – in which was taxed at a higher bonus rate to boot!  Over $400 in taxes was taken out of my check!   I am not sure if LEE got one over on me or not in my “lay off”….however….I really need to know from someone if they can re-hire in my department without calling back employees first?!  Or is Lee actually going to get away with it because the Journals are NOT Union.  That is the way LEE likes it…NO UNIONS!

Someone please advise me on this one because I am not only confused but livid at this point and want to make my point CLEAR when I call tomorrow!

David Swensen and Michael Schmidt, writing in a New York Times op-ed piece, suggest:

Although the problems that the newspaper industry faces are well known, no one has offered a satisfactory solution. But there is an option that might not only save newspapers but also make them stronger: Turn them into nonprofit, endowed institutions — like colleges and universities. Endowments would enhance newspapers’ autonomy while shielding them from the economic forces that are now tearing them down.

Read the entire column here.

Thank you, Lee and P-D management, you’ve helped answer a question many of us have faced on questionnaires: What is your occupation?

All these years, we’ve been writing in “journalist.”

But in this week’s layoffs, our top editors made clear that they exempted reporters, photographers and designers from the guillotine because they didn’t want to adversely affect “journalism” and lose more “journalists.”

Copy editors and online content folks, among others, were fired. Now we know why. By your definition, they are not “journalists.”

It’s good to know.

And it’s good to know – as if we didn’t know before – that we retain your professional respect.

Let us assure you that you also have ours.

Marty Kaplan writes in the Huffington Post:

The trouble with this conception of journalism [so-called balanced and objective] is that it inherently tilts the playing field in favor of liars, who are expert at gaming this system. It muzzles reporters, forbidding them from crying foul, and requiring them to treat deception with the same respect they give to truth. It equates fairness with evenhandedness, as though journalism were incompatible with judgment. “Straight news” isn’t neutral. It’s neutered – devoid of assessment, divorced from accountability, floating in a netherworld of pseudo-scientific objectivity that serves no one except the rascals it legitimizes.

Check out Kaplan’s bio: professor, writer, former journalist, former White House speechwriter, former movie and TV producer, etc.

Read the complete column here.

The following is from a post by Philip M. Stone at followthemedia.org:

With companies like Gannett and McClatchy, the two largest US newspaper publishers, slashing away at just about anything that moves these days there are plenty of signs that their boardrooms are convinced there is no light at the end of the tunnel, and there can be no question that Wall Street’s problems are also the problems for newspapers, too.

That’s really a double whammy that Wall Street has dealt newspapers – first it downgraded newspaper shares so much (how much short selling was in there?) that newspapers valuations on the market are ludicrously low, and now that Wall Street is getting its comeuppance, newspapers suffer again because if advertisers can’t gain access to credit, lines of credit and all the rest, then they’re going to pull in on what they spend, and that means less advertising spending, especially for traditional media. It’s as simple and cruel as that.

This post also includes a reference to last Friday’s layoffs at the Post-Dispatch. (For some reason, Stone thinks Mr. Shannon is actually Ms. Shannon!!) Read the full post here.

Author Ted Rall, writing in an alternative weekly in Hawaii, has three suggestions for newspapers interested in turning around the slow, painful slide:

… All three of my suggestions are predicated on the simplest principle of capitalism: scarcity increases demand. Newspapers have made news free and plentiful, which is why they’re going broke.

First: newspapers should go offline. If the last decade has proven anything, it’s that you can’t charge for a product–in this case, news–that you give away. So stop! All the members of the Newspaper Association of America should shut down their websites. At the very least, papers ought to charge online readers twice as much as for print subscriptions–searchability must be worth something. Want news? Buy a “dead tree” newspaper.

To find out more, click here.

“Those who do not edit do not understand the keen pleasure that comes from taking up a text and leaving it tighter, clearer, and more accurate. Working against deadline provides a structure and a stimulus. And it is far from widely understood how smart and funny copy editors are as a group.”

– John McIntyre, copy desk chief, Baltimore Sun

Read more about John McIntrye and the wonderful world of copy editing here, in the Christian Science Monitor.

The “reorganization” of the newsroom is typical Post-Dispatch and, at the same time, a fitting metaphor for the Lee Way.

Forget, for a moment, the practical problems created in some departments — some copy editors, for example, will need to file for monthly mileage expenses to communicate with their designers. Forget, too, how the “reorganization” was first billed as a system in which the continuous news desk would be encircled by rings of designers, then copy editors, then reporters etc, all feeding back to the center and a modern, 21st-century, print/online production team. Now, all of the traditional fiefdoms have been preserved.

Instead, take the coat locker/file drawer/bookcase units. No please, take them. Away. That must be what management heard after they asked us, “What furniture would you like to keep?” And we told them, knowing full well that 1) they didn’t care to really know, and 2) they had already made up their minds. But like Charlie Brown, we placed our trust, however shaky, in Lucy one more time … and then the football was snatched away.

What reason did you hear for the removal of the lockers? Here are three: 1) They’re ugly. 2) There’s not enough room. 3) The bosses can’t see us hiding behind them (obviously, this our favorite). But the answer depended on who you asked. Oh, and who made the decision? That kept changing, too. It’s Chinatown, Jake. What reason were you given?

The truth is that it’s not about the coat lockers; sadly, it’s about us. We are the furniture.

And furniture doesn’t need to be consulted, listened to or respected. It just needs to be moved, or tossed out. Our brothers and sisters in advertising and circulation know this all too well. Now our Post-Dispatch security guards know it, too, and unfortunately they didn’t have the protection of a union contract.

They will be out on the street, treated like furniture tossed to the curb for bulk-item pickup day. They were told they could apply for jobs with Whelan Security — for half of what they make now. And oh, by the way, that 5 weeks vacation time they haven’t used? Well, here’s the thing: It’s not Lee policy to pay unused vacation time.

Furniture.

A colleague who took the buyout six months ago recently discovered that she has no dental coverage. When she called Delta, she was told she had “opted out” when she signed her early retirement papers in September.

“No, I didn’t,” she said.

“Yes, you did, we have a paper with your signature on it.”

“Well, I don’t remember signing it and, besides, I don’t have a copy of it,” she said. “Can you send me a copy?”

Delta said no, they can’t. So our colleague called HR in Davenport and was told the same thing; no copy. No COBRA dental coverage. No recourse except to get your own insurance because, anyway, six months have gone by and it’s too late.

“Is this the way you treat retirees?” our friend asked.

“Well,” the HR lady in Davenport answered, “you Post-Dispatch people are the only retirees we’ve ever had to deal with.” (Presumably because nobody in a nonunion Lee paper felt it was worth sticking around long enough to have a career and retire. But we digress.)

“You Post-Dispatch people.”

You furniture.