Happy New Year to the embattled News-Press reporters who’ve been ordered to be reinstated to their newsroom jobs. But the day they walk back into the “House that T.M. Storke built” could be months – or even years – away. The eight journalists who won a National Labor Relations Board judge’s decision may pop champagne corks tonight. But by dawn’s early light on January 1, cold-reality could sink in.
News-Press owner Wendy McCaw probably has her appeal briefs already typed up. And during the appeals process, which surely will take a year or years (would you believe til doomsday?), the reporters won’t be going back to work covering the community.
Ira “Buddy” Gottlieb, attorney for the Teamsters Union representing the journalists, told me Monday: “The Santa Barbara News-Press has a right to appeal to the [full NLRB] Board, and we expect it will. While any such appeal is going on, [the reporters] will not be reinstated. So we’re hoping that the agency will again consider going to court to get a federal court injunction to put them back more quickly than would occur using the usual process.”