Update, June 10:  With our contract set to expire in November, the BANG-East Bay bargaining committee is already preparing for upcoming negotiations. That means we need to hear what your goals and priorities are for our next agreement with the company.

You may have already received a copy of a bargaining survey from your shop steward. If not, your steward will be approaching you in the coming days to fill out a copy of this short, anonymous survey. We hope you’ll take a few minutes to complete and return this to your steward, and help our unit get ready for negotiations.

Also in this update:

• Online filing
• Membership clarification
• San Francisco Chronicle bargaining update
• Sacramento Bee tentative agreement
• Hawaii Newspaper Guild merger

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Update, Nov. 27: We met with company officials Wednesday at the Oakland Tribune to discuss the recently proposed online ethics policy.

Because the company hopes the language will be shared between the BANG-EB and Mercury News newsrooms, our committee included representatives from both bargaining units.

Still in draft form, the proposal states:

Staff members should avoid espousing viewpoints on public issues or individuals online unless offering opinion is part of their job. Given the public nature of online posts and other sharing of content — even those on an ostensibly private social network — it is critical that we do nothing that might cast doubt on our impartiality when  reporting the news. In some common-sense circumstances, staffers may offer opinions about topics that are sufficiently distinct from their job duties (the city hall reporter could do movie reviews on his blog, for instance). Online, as in other instances involving our private activities, we should avoid trading on our Mercury News (BANG-EB) affiliation. It is the staffer’s responsibility to make certain no lines are crossed; consult with the managing editor if you have questions.

We think that’s common sense, and in line with the standards journalists already follow in other areas.

“We want respectability too,” said Karen de Sa, the new Mercury News unit chair. “We appreciate that we need to have the highest level of professionalism as journalists.”

But because the policy is, as editors note, “deliberately less specific” than those imposed at other newspapers, our primary concern is to ensure that the guidelines, once finalized, don’t have unexpected disciplinary consequences.

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MediaNews papers will soon begin charging readers to view at least some online content, according to CEO Dean Singleton.

In an extensive interview with a Salt Lake City television station, Singleton outlines the philosophy behind the shift.

“We can’t continue to give everything away for free,” he told KSL-TV. “When you give it away for free, it has no value. When you begin charging for it, it has some value.”

Click here to view the report — and for a longer explanation, toggle to “Full Interview with Dean Singleton.”