Whew! Looks like a talked-about byline strike by hundreds of New York Times staffers has been avoided after the newspaper reached a tentative agreement with the Newspaper Guild on a new labor contract after more than 18 months of negotiations, notes Grumpy Editor
Times staffers last week were considering withholding bylines and photo credits to emphasize their unhappiness.
If all goes well, readers no longer will be “threatened” with looking at stories and photos with missing bylines/credit lines.
The withholding credits idea isn’t new. Staffers at other news outlets --- including The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and Associated Press --- have employed the tactic in recent years.
What credit-scrubbing news staff participants failed to realize: most readers --- other than family members, close friends and fellow staffers --- aren’t even aware of the vanished bylines/photo credits.
Veteran and retired newspaper editors will point out that in earlier days not every story was topped by the writer’s name. And not every photo carried the lensman’s identification.
Writers or photographers credits were scribbled in by editors for stories and art that involved exceptional merit. It was a reward for performance above and beyond routine, often involving difficult work in reporting/writing or photography.
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