Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/94610
production and graphics." Today, SAG-AFTRA represents broadcasters working under more than 200 contracts in delivered the news, they did so as union members. Since that first merger creating AFTRA to the recent merger of SAG-AFTRA, the sportscasters and more. hese voices and faces became some of the most trusted in our modern history, including SAG Life Achievement Award winner Dick Van Dyke, who started his stellar career as a local TV announcer and daytime talk show host before moving to national programs and then to TV comedy and film. Since the first reported radio program using a synchronous rotary-spark transmitter in 1906, radio and television broadcasts have been used to keep the world informed when disaster strikes, national emergencies take place, a team wins a national championship or a rover lands on Mars. From Walter Cronkite's emotional report that President John F. Kennedy was dead, Vin Scully's calling of Dodger Kirk Gibson's dramatic 1988 World Series home run to the rise of the "King of All Media" Howard Stern, these members — and many more — not only entertainment and media industry continues to evolve, with such platforms today as YouTube, Twitter and Spotify. Along the way, each category of SAG-AFTRA has evolved into separate and distinct professions. While a radio disc jockey may play a fellow SAG-AFTRA members' record album, their contracts are quite different. WHO ARE THE BROADCASTERS? SAG-AFTRA broadcasters are the people the public listens to and/or watches every day, delivering news, information and entertainment — from the early- morning local traffic reports to ABC nightly news and everything in-between. SAG-AFTRA broadcasters' reach is great. "Broadcasters are a pretty diverse group," said SAG-AFTRA Broadcast Steering Committee (BSC) member and National Public Radio reporter Jack Speer. "We run the gamut from DJs to newscasters like me, to people who do radio production work, to people who are doing the creative side — the television broadcast shops across the country. Many of the companies running broadcast shops are the same who employ SAG- AFTRA member actors and recording artists, such as NBCUniversal, Fox and ABC/Disney. Broadcast shops can range in size from the 16 news photographers who recently organized at KFOR in Oklahoma City, to mid-sized shops of a few dozen to 75 members, to the 400-plus members working for NPR. SAG-AFTRA executives form close working rela- tionships with these members and their shops, watching the industry trends and seeing how they're affecting those in their local. "he SAG-AFTRA News & Broadcast department is in negotiations with the networks and local stations on almost any given day of the year, and we are advocating for our members on issues related to their employment every day," said Assistant National Executive Director of News and Broadcast Mary Cavallaro. "Our members at each station, network or broadcast operation have their own needs and issues in many areas that we address in each negotiation, including onerous personal service contract provisions like non-compete clauses, compensation and benefits, new technology, media consolidation and convergence. Our priority must be to address those concerns in negotiations SAGAFTRA.org | Winter 2013 | SAG-AFTRA 49 Thinkstock.com