I heard yesterday that starting today there would be a strike by Washington Post staffers in protest of a contract offer by management to their union. Rather than refusing to work, they are striking by withholding bylines from stories and photos running in today’s and tomorrow’s papers. (story here)
My question is, how does this hurt the paper? Is there a convention that people should not buy a newspaper that doesn’t have bylines, or is it more of a “sending a message” kind of thing?
I don’t see how this could hurt the paper either, unless other papers or sources refuse to buy stories from the Post unless they are bylined (assuming, also, that the Post actually markets the contents to other outlets and charges them for the privelege of reprinting them).
As I recall from reading her memoirs, K. Graham broke the printer’s union strike at the Post in the mid-70s and I suspect that her son will take a similar hard line.