'New York Times' editors hustle to prepare stories for newsroom strike

More than 1,100 unionized New York Times staffers are intending to embark on a 24-hour strike today, leaving editors at the newspaper scrambling to put out a credible digital report for the day and print editions for the days following.

A protest featuring some of the paper's most celebrated names is scheduled outside the Times' midtown Manhattan headquarters for 1 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Pulitzer Prize winner Nikole Hannah-Jones is among those expected to speak.

" It's disappointing that they're taking such drastic action," Times Co. CEO Meredith Kopit Levien wrote in a memo late last night. She cited what she called "the clear commitment we've shown to negotiate our way to a contract that provides Times journalists with substantial pay increases, market-leading benefits, and flexible working conditions.

The paper's journalists have not had a working contract since March 2021. Negotiations between the paper's management and the Times Guild have broken down mainly over pay.

Union members, most of whom are journalists, but also ad salespeople, security guards and others, are questioning why they cannot share more concretely in the strong financial run The Times has enjoyed. In other words: If not during flush times, then when? And they say that drawing out negotiations has not aided them, contending that management only picked up the pace of concessions as the day-long strike neared.