UK journalists have embarked on the largest newspaper industry strike in recent decades.

Staff at Reach, one of Britain’s biggest newspaper publishing groups that owns Daily Mirror, Express and other publications, began a four-day walkout on Wednesday as part of the countrywide strike over pay.

“Having spent recent months reporting on how the cost of living crisis is affecting their readers, many journalists at… Reach say they are struggling to meet their own bills – and management is refusing to listen”, The Guardian reports.

The Washington Post, one of the biggest news publications in English, has been struggling with growth recently, particularly in the wake of a less intense news agenda followed by the election of Joe Biden as President of the United States.

Most notably, recent reporting by The New York Times shows that WaPo has fewer paying digital subscribers today than it had in 2020, when it boasted 3 million subscribers. By contrast, WaPo’s key competitors – The New York Times itself and The Wall Street Journal – have both added subscribers, even though the growth hasn’t been as rapid recently as at the height of the pandemic.

NYT reports that The Washington Post, which is owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, will lose money in 2022 after years of bringing profits. The reporting also highlights tensions within the organisation, including rumoured frustration with the leadership of publisher and CEO Fred Ryan.

Manana Aslamazyan, “the matriarch of Russian journalism”, was killed in a road accident in Yerevan this week.

Aslamazyan is best known as former director-general of the Internews Foundation in Russia.

She was forced to leave Russia in 2007, after the authorities launched a criminal investigation against her for a minor violation of currency regulations.

Aslamazyan started working for Internews in 1991, around the time the Soviet Union collapsed, and as The Moscow Times puts it, “thanks to her energy and dedication [she] made the non-governmental organization the premier training ground for television journalists and executives” in Russia and other countries of the former USSR.

Bonus — Four more stories you might want to check out:

The New York Times: Snap Lays Off 20% of Employees and Restructures
The Guardian: UK police asking officers to disclose any personal ties with news reporters
The Guardian: Labour [Party] pledges to strengthen the BBC’s independence and protect funding
The Economist: Media freedom in India is under threat, again

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Weekly Digest: UK Newspaper Industry Strike, The Washington Post’s Struggles