Fort Worth Report could become Texas’s sixth unionized newsroom

Texas could have its sixth unionized newsroom this month. Workers at the Fort Worth Report are set to vote on unionization on March 9 after management decided not to voluntarily recognize the Fort Worth Reporters Guild, a decision the union said it was “disappointed in.” 

“We had hoped that management would recognize the value in strong workplace conditions to strengthen the longevity of our growing newsroom,” the guild told The Objective via email. “Their refusal to do so highlights their depreciation of our journalists, the very backbone of the Fort Worth Report.” 

Staff went public with their union campaign on Jan. 15 after several months of organizing, with 85% of eligible staffers across the newsroom and business sides of the Fort Worth Report signing union authorization cards. In a statement sent to staff on Jan. 28, the Fort Worth Report board of directors said it believes “a direct, independent relationship between Fort Worth Report and its staff has been central to our ability to serve this community with agility, trust and local accountability.” 

The Fort Worth Reporters Guild called that portrayal a “mischaracterization” and said its twelve members live in Tarrant County (which encompasses metro Fort Worth) and lead the union themselves. 

“We collectively have decided this is the next necessary and vital step forward for the company,” the guild said. “We haven’t been influenced by an ‘outside organization.’ The guild reached out to the Media Guild [of the West], which currently serves an advisory role. Every decision made by us so far is based on the opinions and desires of guild members, and that will not change.”

Journalists across other Texas newsrooms, both corporate-owned and nonprofit, have been leading union drives in recent years to improve their working conditions in a state with a strong history of hostility toward labor organizing. When workers at the Dallas Morning News unionized in 2020, the state had lacked a unionized newsroom since 1993.

The first Texas media union to ratify a contract was the McClatchy-owned Fort Worth Star-Telegram Guild, in 2023. Fort Worth Report CEO and publisher Chris Cobler supported the union’s strike fund with a $100 donation during the guild’s work stoppage. 

The Dallas News Guild ratified its contract for Dallas Morning News workers the same year. The Austin NewsGuild, representing the Austin-American Statesman, followed suit in 2024. 

Though managers voluntarily recognized the San Antonio Report Guild and Texas Tribune Guild after both announced their union drives in early 2024, only the former has secured its first contract. The Texas Tribune Guild is still in negotiations for its first collective bargaining agreement. The other unionized nonprofit newsroom in Texas — the Houston Landing, whose management also voluntarily recognized the union — shuttered last year. Cobler referenced the Houston Landing several times as a cautionary tale, the Fort Worth Reporters Guild told The Objective. 

In a Facebook comment responding to last week’s board statement, he said he would “immediately and strongly recommend” voluntary union recognition to the board if a union supporter would come forward with a $250,000 donation to the newsroom, the amount he alleged both The Texas Tribune and the San Antonio Report spent during their first year of negotiations with their respective unions. 

While the Fort Worth Report is poised to grow as other Texas newsrooms lay off workers, its unionizing workers say a newsroom union could become a model for valuing employees “so young journalists aren’t overworked, fearmongered and devalued until they quit.”

The union’s focus is on organizing for professional standards across the newsroom to better improve their work “to ensure we can all do our best work to serve our community,” including written, consistent, and clearly outlined policies for job duties and newsroom standards, formal human resources processes, and a competitive and transparent pay scale. 

“Current and former staff have faced inconsistent standards, heavy and ever-shifting workloads, and retaliatory management,” the union said via email, adding that guild members have been contacted by board members and donors who warned organizing “could harm the company’s financial support.” 

Last week, a representative from the Labor Relations Institute visited the Fort Worth Report’s office to talk with reporters, who say they were not told in advance about the meeting, about unionizing. The LRI was profiled as part of an award-winning HuffPost series as “corporate America’s favorite ‘union busting’ firm.” 

In a statement on March 3, the volunteer board’s co-chairs Wes Turner and Bill Meadows said the representative was brought in as part of an “educational campaign,” calling the union drive “entirely new territory for all of us, including our employees, management and board.” 

“The specialist helped us understand the NLRB [National Labor Relations Board] Act and distributed government-produced pamphlets about the process,” Turner and Meadows wrote. 

Cobler told The Objective via email the Fort Worth Report is respecting the legal process, echoed by the Report’s volunteer board statement on Jan. 28. 

“The Fort Worth Report has become a model for sustainable local news across the country,” the guild said. “Strong local news needs journalists ingrained and invested in their communities. The union will position Fort Worth Report as a newsroom where young and old journalists alike can thrive and build long-lasting careers.” 

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James Salanga is the co-director of The Objective.

This piece was edited and copy edited by Marlee Baldridge.