Emerald Newsroom on Strike!

10 pm update:
1. The ODE board will meet with the striking newsroom editors at 8 am tomorrow.
2. The ODE Board has issued a statement after a board meeting. In its entirety:

The Oregon Daily Emerald Board of Directors looks forward to meeting with the newsroom staff Thursday morning, with the goal of ensuring the staff's participation in the continued publication of the ODE.
Steve Smith, who had been offered the position of interim publisher by the ODE board, has withdrawn. The board intends to undertake a national search for a publisher.
The editorial independence of the ODE continues to be of paramount concern, and at no time has the board attempted to undermine that.
In addition, the board remains committed to its responsibility of overseeing the financial stability of the ODE.
We look forward to a prosperous future of providing news to the campus community, as well as a valuable educational opportunity for University students.

3 pm update: We hear the ODE newsroom staff will meet with School of Journalism and Communication dean Tim Gleason at 4 pm. More on this in Update Seven ...

Thanks to Daniel Bachhuber and Kai Davis (Twitter), who posted this to Twitter, we can tell you that the newsroom staff of the Oregon Daily Emerald has gone on strike.

See this link for more info, and we'll post more as we talk to board members, editorial staff and others. Update: The ODE newsroom staff have begun to update their blog after a bit of a slow start this morning.

Basically? It's about student control of the paper, it's about financial health and it's about the board of the ODE making what the students see as a unilateral hiring decision. (Kai Davis' post linked above has way more on that.)

WAY more after the jump.

Looks from the article like R-G sports writer Rob Moseley participated in some of the decisions to which the ODE staff objected. We'll try to get in touch with Rob, UO School of Journalism and Comm prof Mark Blaine and others. Updates to come! Update: Moseley called back but said that Blaine's comments can stand for the board. He did add that the board is trying to figure out a meeting time for tonight.

UPDATE ONE:
Here are the "demands" of the newsroom staff (which Dave914, who says he's photo editor Dave Martinez, said on Twitter were "essential to the integrity of our student-operated newsroom"):

It is the consensus of the newsroom that we cannot and will not in good conscious continue our duties unless the Board of Directors meets the following four demands:

1. Immediately rescind the offer to Steven A. Smith to serve as interim publisher April 1, 2009 through June 30, 2010. UPDATE: Smith has resigned, and current and former J-school folk (or so they claim to be on the blog -- I have emails in to them) have left strongly worded anti-newsroom comments on his resignation blog post.

2. Conduct a nationwide search for a publisher, as originally voted at the Feb. 10 board meeting.

3. Stipulate in the chosen publisher's contract that he or she shall not be employed in any capacity by the University, including at the School of Journalism and Communication.

4. Stipulate in the chosen publisher's contract that he or she shall not have immediate supervisory control over the editor; rather, the publisher and student editor shall remain equals in the organization, as the general manager and student editor currently are.

UPDATE TWO:
Mark Blaine, a board member (and, full disclosure, colleague at the J-school, though we were clear that we were talking reporter to board member), says that the ODE board's hiring of consultant Steven A. Smith — a former editor at the ODE and also the man whose stand for public journalism caused him to resign as editor of the Spokane Spokesman-Review (PDF) when the paper cut 27 newsroom positions — as a one-year interim publisher happened through "an appropriate process."

When I call Smith a consultant, he was a consultant to the ODE about how to restructure the board and the financial status of the paper.

I asked Blaine about the newsroom's objections that Smith hadn't been interviewed; no references had been checked; and there was no salary negotiation. "He's been working for us," Blaine said. "This isn't Halliburton. Our assumption was that it was one year, and one year only." Note: I originally had the quote as "He's been working for us for a year," but Mark Blaine emailed me to say that Smith had been a consultant since the fall term only. Corrected on March 10.

Blaine also said that the board was dealing with trying to get a newspaper out tomorrow. "We have a commitment to publish every day," he said, but he wouldn't answer questions about who would be writing the stories for the paper.

News reporter Emily E. Smith (a former student of mine, full disclosure) said that she had no idea who would write for the paper tomorrow. "That's interesting," she said. She also said that "when newsroom concerns went ignored again and again, for a period of time, we started questioning the board in a really serious way." She referred further comment to ODE Editor Ashley Chase. We have a call into Chase right now ...

UPDATE THREE: Ashley Chase

Just talked to ODE Editor Ashley Chase, who said, "We believe that the Emerald is in a time of radical change, and we know we need to take serious steps."

She added, "We are not against having a publisher at the organization to make the changes that need to be made, but we are against some of the stipulations that were written into Steve Smith's contract."

The one they object to is that the student editor would report to the publisher, and they also object to letting the publisher work for the UO.

"In 1971, the Oregon Daily Emerald became completely independent, so we were able to report fully objectively about things that were happening at the UO," Chase said. "Generations of students before us have fought to maintain that independence."

Chase said she's got a call into ODE Board president (and UO student, and ODE staff member) Jeanne Long about meeting to discuss the newsroom staff's demands.

What about the financial issues facing the ODE? Chase said that she was alarmed that the board offered a salary to Steve Smith that the newsroom staff believed the Emerald couldn't afford. (She said it was an offer of $80,000 with $1,000 for moving expenses.) "It's not an unreasonable salary for somebody in that position," she said, but she thinks "the board decided to offer it to him without looking at what it would take for the Emerald to remain financially viable at the end of the year."

Again, more soon. I have emails & calls in to Smith, some other students and board members and Kathy Campbell, the former J-school prof who commented on Steve Smith's resignation blog post.

UPDATE FOUR: Steve Smith

Steve Smith and I talked for a while. I'm trying to snag a copy of his strategic plan from the ODE board, but he summarized it for me like this:

Fundamentally, I’ve suggested four big things as part of a 5-year plan:
1. Resolve the immediate financial crisis. I suggested a variety of cost-saving measures that the professional staff had already put into place.
2. I suggested strategies for increasing revenue. I believe there’s money in the market yet to be tapped.
3. The entire focus next year needs to be on rebuilding, rebradning and relaunching the paper’s website. I believe there's some revenue to be generated by a more contemprary and interactive website, so that should be job one for the coming fiscal year.*
4. I suggested some structural changes that would remove conflicts of interest from the board, change the job description for the general manager, which I retitled publisher and some slight changes for the editor.

Smith added that he "restated editorial independence, a principle I would fight just as hard for as the students are fighting right now."

He said that last Tuesday morning (Feb. 24), he'd received notes (I think that means emails) from several board members telling him that they expected to approve hiring him as a one-year interim publisher with a salary of $80,000. He said that though that was a "slight increase" over the salary that the general manager who was fired in June had been making ($68,000), it would have allowed him "not to take a financial loss" and to move for a year from Spokane to Eugene. He said it was, indeed, a drop in salary for him. He did get the job offer later that night, and he said that he told the board he wouldn't accept it until he received a formal contract.

Then ... Smith said he heard nothing about the controversy until the email at 10 pm last night saying that the ODE staff was about to go out on strike. "The best thing for the newsroom and the board is for me to get out of the way," he said. So he resigned (I've linked to his blog post twice above).

What about editor Ashley Chase's concern that the editor would report to the publisher? Smith said, "Thessue there is all about business. Under the bylaws, the Emerald editor is roughly equivalent to the general manager in reporting to the baord, so it's unclear when it comes to business decisions who’s in charge."

Smith said that the GM/publisher "needed to be able to tell the editor you’ve got 12 pages, not 16. The editor couldn’t come in and say we’ve got 32 pages to run even when we’ve only got advertising for 8."

And it looks like the ODE's in serious financial trouble, (I'm looking for links to financial info ... ) Smith said, "The paper is in a desperate financial position." He reiterated that his recommendations for bylaw rewrites and the strategic plan "were unequivocal in supporting editorial indepedence."

Do the ODE newsroom staffers misunderstand his recommendations? Smith said, "I think they have allowed their passionate commitment to editorial independence to maybe overcome common sense." (Calling Chase for a response ... )

Finally, Smith said, "If I have one concern, there’s not a lot of time for the Emerald to right the ship financially. This editorial staff is going to be in place for about two more months, and their decision has repercussions that extend far beyond their time with the Emerald."

*Two things here: 1. I understand the need to update a newspaper website (we're working on it, y'all, believe me) and 2. Daniel Bachhuber (Twitter) posted "Why I'm Leaving the Emerald" last November, in case you want to look at it.

UPDATE ... I HAVE LOST COUNT
1. Steve Smith's letter to the newsroom staff at Poynter.
2. The Chronicle of Higher Education !!! gets in on the action.
3. The Oregonian's info.
4. I don't see anything up on the R-G's website right now, but I know a reporter interviewed Ashley Chase just after I did. Here is the R-G's little link, story in print for them tomorrow (we will not have a story in print b/c, er, we're a weekly & when this broke, we'd already pretty much finished the whole paper).

UPDATE THE SIXTH
The conservative Oregon Commentator issues an editorial supporting the ODE newsroom staff. Whoa.

AND reader comments have been disabled at the ODE site, so the newsroom staff's blog posts them here. (Editorial comment from Suzi: I think ... I think it's a bad idea to disable the comments. That never looks good.) A friend told me on Twitter that comments were enabled again by 5 pm or so. Good call, ODE board!

LastNext to last update for this post
The Portland Biz Journal article. (H/t to Dave Martinez again. The ODE students are sharing linky love everywhere.)

Seriously final update, at least for the day, I predict
Earlier, I happened to have a meeting with students at the J-school just at the exact time that the ODE newsroom staff was meeting with Tim Gleason. Really. I planned my meetings on Sunday. But I did run into Ashley Chase, Allie Grasgreen, Robert D'Andrea, Emily E. Smith, Dave Martinez and some other folks whose names I didn't get, just outside of Gleason's office right before their meeting. (Nice to meet you, y'all.)

Chase said that Gleason had told them he'd tried to stay out of it because he knows the UO has no jurisdiction over the Emerald. She said, and everyone else nodded and made murmurs of assent, that they hoped the meeting with him would help them figure out a way forward. I wasn't able to talk with them or with Dean Gleason after the meeting, so I don't know what happened.

I do know that a. Photo editor Dave Martinez posted to Twitter that "Editors are meeting with board of directors tomorrow at 8 am." I have contacted Martinez to find out about the meeting with Gleason, and I'll call Gleason's office in the morning.

I'm traveling tomorrow and will not be likely to see or be able to produce many updates. For more info, I'd follow Kai Davis, Daniel Bachhuber & Dave Martinez (twitter linked above) on Twitter (Martinez is the only one associated with the ODE), read the newsroom's blog and of course check out tomorrow's (? Still don't know who wrote for it ... rumors are that it will run with a lot of photos?) Oregon Daily Emerald for more info.

Bachhuber has posted his thoughts on the strike and what he thinks should happen to the paper here.

Steve Smith says on his blog that he posted the strategic plan in the comments on an Emerald thread (I'm super-tired and can't find them ... anyone who does, feel free to link in the comments & I'll move it up here).