So, how was the Newton teacher's strike coverage?
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So, how was the Newton teacher's strike coverage?
Reporters' reflections on covering the recent strike, including "the biggest unreported story in Massachusetts education."
By Alexander Russo
On Monday, Newton kids and teachers went back into classrooms after a two-week disruption.
Though teacher's strikes remain relatively uncommon, this wasn’t the first such strike recently in Massachusetts or nationally — and it probably won’t be the last.
So it’s all the more important for education reporters and editors to reflect on the challenges and opportunities of covering teacher's strikes.
Journalists from the Boston Globe and GBH declined to comment or didn’t respond to repeated attempts, but editors from WBUR and the Newton Beacon were able to share their thoughts — as did one local journalist who wished to remain anonymous.
As you’ll see, these journalists describe how exciting — and exhausting — strike coverage can be to produce, the daunting range of teacher issues and parent perspectives that need to be included, and the tricky challenge of finding and telling the political backstory.
“The challenge was not just the duration of the strike… but ensuring we were providing sufficient context.”
STRETCHED THIN
“My team has covered other strikes in the last 18 months but none have lasted nearly as long as the recent Newton teacher strike,” emailed WBUR assistant managing editor Suevon Lee, who oversees the station’s education coverage.
“For us, as a slim team, the challenge was not just the duration of the strike that turned our focus away from other topics, but ensuring we were providing sufficient context and illuminating the key issues in the fight.”
EXCITEMENT & EXHAUSTION
“Let me first say I'm thrilled it's over,” Newton Beacon editor Bryan McGonigle told us via email.
“Covering the strike was actually fun (as a journalist — I'm sure it wasn't fun for those with actual stakes in the strike) and exciting. But after a while it was exhausting. By the end of the two weeks I was in shambles and didn't know what month it was.”
“By the end of the two weeks I was in shambles.”
THE POWER OF EXPLAINERS
According to McGonigle, who helped produce the Beacon’s hyperlocal strike coverage, the stories that worked best were based on talking with union reps, parents, and others who were impacted by the strike and included “explainer stories about how the union and the city got to that point and what each side essentially wanted.”
EVER-CHANGING DETAILS
The parts of covering the story that were especially difficult included trying to write explainer pieces with contract proposal details that were fluid and constantly changing. “Sometimes I'd post a story and some of the information would be outdated within hours because one side offered another proposal in negotiations,” wrote McGonigle.
PRESS CONFERENCE CATTLE CALLS
Also difficult was the fact that the union would have press conferences every night, followed by the school committee and mayor having a press conference right afterward — “both press conferences having different ‘facts’ that I'd have to sort out and clarify after leaving at 9 p.m. That happened almost every night.”
“The other reporters and I joked about how we were now just cattle," McGonigle wrote, "being led from one presser to another in the same building.”
“The other reporters and I joked about how we were now just cattle.”
FISCAL REALITIES
One under-reported aspect to the strike, according to an anonymous New England journalist, is the fiscal reality that towns — even affluent ones — “cannot support the rising cost of living, health care, and retirement packages usually expected by an educators’ union.”
“We all look at Cambridge with longing eyes — if only every town had a Kendall Square to pour millions of dollars of corporate tax revenue into the coffers. But places like Newton, Brookline, etc., can really only rely on property tax levies. Even taxes on million dollar homes can’t cover those costs — without huge tax increases, which voters are less enthusiastic about these days.”
TEACHER DEMANDS, PARENT IMPACT, POLITICAL CONTEXT
According to WBUR’s Lee, the broad range of issues that her team was trying to get to included union demands like “more mental health supports for students, higher teacher aide pay, etc.” as well as “the very real disruptions the strike posed to students and families in addition to the financial implications to the union.”
“It was also important to us to frame the fight in Newton as part of a broader push for teacher rights across Massachusetts,” writes WBUR’s Lee. “We’ve seen an uptick in contract disputes and subsequent strikes in districts in recent years.
“It was also important to us to frame the fight in Newton as part of a broader push for teacher rights.”
THE BIGGEST UNREPORTED STORY
No doubt, local news outlets produced abundant coverage of the strike. However, at least one local journalist felt like local coverage failed to give readers enough of the political backstory.
“The Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) is the biggest unreported story in Massachusetts education,” according to the anonymous local journalist. “I keep telling my colleagues to look into this, but there’s little to no enthusiasm.”
This echoes comments made last week by Contrarian Boston's Scott Van Voorhis, who described how local media "played it safe" with Newton strike coverage, downplaying confrontational tactics and political goals shaping events from behind the scenes.
"I keep telling my colleagues to look into this, but there’s little to no enthusiasm."
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