As the largest digital newsroom yet looks to unionize, we should probably start asking when enough momentum in this media-organizing trend will begin to impact the nature of online journalism. The HuffPost campaign is just another in a recent spate of online newsroom organizing campaigns, including successes at Gawker, Salon, Vice, ThinkProgress, The Guardian, US and Al Jazeera America. Because the media typically leans left, it has tended to treat Big Labor kindly. But it brings up some new questions about conflict of interest, when the typical union constitution disallows any dissent or disparagement by its members against the union. Should we consider these newly minted union members extracted from the ranks of “unbiased” journalists? How much farther will this trend go before the impact in reporting is noticeable?
