Strikers Publish Online Paper

by Laura McCreery

Striking newspaper workers in Detroit have launched two newspapers of their own, hoping to draw attention to their labor dispute and give their employers a little competition. The bitter and sometimes violent strike against Detroit's two mega dailies, the News and the Free Press, has dragged on since July 13. The strikers put out their first issue of the Detroit Sunday Journal on November 19. The new weekly promises to deliver a direct hit to the advertising revenues usually enjoyed by the two dailies. All six unions striking the News and the Free Press helped finance and publish the new paper in time to compete for the attention of holiday shoppers. The tabloid-size weekly's first press run of 300,000 copies went fast. The majority were delivered free to homes and businesses, and about 50,000 were offered for sale around Detroit at 60 cents a copy. The Detroit Sunday Journal is a companion publication to the Detroit Journal, an electronic daily published by striking journalists since September. The Journal, available on the world-wide web (http://www.rust.net/~workers/strike.html), includes both strike coverage and regular news and feature contributions by News and Free Press writers and columnists. The Gannett-owned Detroit News fast-tracked plans for its own electronic edition in time to put it up on the web the first day of the strike. The Free Press, a Knight-Ridder publication, plans to offer a web site soon but has no online services now except multimedia information offered through CompuServe.

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