This post started about a really lame and uninspiring video that Big Labor released to rally the troops for the 2014 election, but changed when the video highlighted a newspaper union representative.  We did not realize that the newspaper union also covered the newsroom, as we discovered on the Denver Newspaper Guild website.  The union claims to represent members at The Denver Post as well as the Pueblo Chieftain.  The chair of the bargaining unit at The Denver Post is Kieran Nicholson.

Nicholson appears to normally cover crime for the Post and is listed as a breaking news reporter; however, PeakNation, you’ll never guess which story he jumped onto just recently.  He was listed as a co-writer of The Denver Post‘s story on the Jeffco Teachers “sick out”.  As a lead union rep at The Denver Post, is this not a conflict of interest for him to also report on what amounts to an illegal union strike?  Nicholson also oddly wrote some kind of puff piece about the union-backed Occupy’s willingness to step aside for the Veterans Day Parade in Colorado in 2011.  It just seems odd for a crime reporter to stray so far out of his lane for two issues that are explicitly pro-union.

Additionally, political reporter Joey Bunch is a member of the bargaining committee.  To be clear, we have not taken issue with his reporting, and find him to be a generally affable fellow.  And, as a media outlet, we empathize take no issue with journalists wanting to be paid more.  But, we have to wonder, with unions being the backbone of the Democratic election efforts both from a fundraising and labor perspective, is it appropriate for newspapers to have union members in the newsroom?  How many other journalists at The Denver Post are union members?