Convinced that they are the last line of defense for Central Florida residents, the newly organized and insanely biased Sentinel Guild promises to soldier on.
By Jacob Engels
In late February, a collection of angry feminazis and limp-wristed “men” working at the Orlando Sentinel launched a unionization effort aimed at securing undeserved wage increases, health benefits and promotions. They claimed that the new majority owner of Tribune Publishing, which counts the Orlando Sentinel as one of its many newspapers, is hellbent on destroying journalism and their efforts in exposing corruption.
But it wasn’t the Orlando Sentinel who exposed corrupt longtime Seminole County Tax Collector Ray Valdes who formed dozens of shell corporations to purchase properties auctioned off by his office and make millions. It was our reporting that did that. It wasn’t the Orlando Sentinel who exposed Orange and Osceola State Attorney Jeff Ashton for exposing himself to bribery and blackmail attempts by operating a very active account on the extra-marital affair website Ashley Madison, it was our reporting that did that.
We could go on. There literally hasn’t been one legitimate case of corruption from elected officials or political candidates that the Orlando Sentinel has scooped us on in the past half-decade. Yet if you hear them tell the story, their reporting on LGBT this or women’s rights that is the exact reason you must take their unionization efforts seriously and even go as far as to support them. According to the Orlando Business Journal.
“This is about pushing back against owners who treat their employees like numbers on a spreadsheet rather than people hoping to build careers, raise families and retire with dignity,” stated a letter to staff sent by the Sentinel Guild Organizing Committee. “It’s about pushing back against executives who run this business as if we produce disposable widgets rather than a public service.”
But you are just employees on a spreadsheet. You work at a for-profit company that has refused to adapt to the modern world. Print journalism and reporting has been DEAD for quite some time. You are not entitled career advancement, the ability to raise your family, or to retire with dignity just because you think your reporting is important. You are disposable not because you are literal pieces of shit, you are disposable because you don’t help the bottom line and have not innovated.
In the end, you will have your election recognized by the National Labor Relations Board and you just might “unionize.” We can only hope that this proves to Alden Global Capital that they need to shutter the Orlando Sentinel and make the whole lot of you unemployed beggars on the corner of Orange and Colonial. How fucking creepy is it for them to continue to claim that they no better than we do? That only they can help us get through this thing called life?
The people of Central Florida do not respect you. We do not want or need your demented screeching to make the decisions that shape our lives. Let your careers die. Fade into nothingness.
Haven’t you taken a hint at this point? Readership is in the toilet and number of journalists manning the newsroom continues to dwindle. In your decline, the people of Central Florida have ventured out on their own to find the news they want and deserve, news that you refuse to provide and regularly ridicule.
Hell… you endorsed Pete Buttigieg less than 24hours before he scrubbed out of the Democrat primary for president. High school newsrooms have better sources that would have told them to keep your powder dry through Super Tuesday.
Every single one of the journalists behind the unionization efforts should be forced to reveal how they are registered to vote and where they stand on the issues if they want us to take their claims of providing real journalism to Central Florida seriously.
If they refuse to do so, we will reveal their political backgrounds publicly one by one before they vote to unionize later this month.
Something tells me that they hardly reflect the people of Central Florida they so frequently remind us they “represent” and “fight for”.
Jacob Engels is an Orlando based journalist whose work has been featured and republished in news outlets around the globe including Politico, Infowars, MSNBC, Orlando Sentinel, New York Times, Daily Mail UK, Associated Press, People Magazine, ABC, Fox News, and Australia’s New Dawn Magazine, LauraLoomer.US, and The Gateway Pundit.
Mr. Engels focuses on stories that other news outlets neglect or willingly hide to curry favor among the political and special interests in the state of Florida and beyond.
