By Luisa Loi
La Conner Community News
After nine months of unsuccessful contract negotiations with publishing company Adams MultiMedia — which owns Skagit Publishing — reporters from the Skagit Valley Herald, Anacortes American and Stanwood-Camano News went on strike Friday to demand better wages and limits to the use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom.
Together, they make up the Skagit Unit of the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild. The unit, which includes seven reporters and one copyeditor, also goes by the name “Skagit News Reporters.”
The unit decided to strike with a unanimous vote last week, claiming that Adams MultiMedia wants “‘no limitation on the use of Artificial Intelligence,’ including the generation of news content, and has denied its journalists any protections from AI at these newspapers,” according to a press release.
La Conner Community News has reached out to Adams MultiMedia for comment.
Friday morning, the reporters — all of whom wore red shirts — gave a press conference and held signs outside the Skagit County Courthouse in Mount Vernon to raise awareness, ask readers to refrain from clicking any articles from their newspapers for the remainder of the strike, and encourage the community to reach out to Adams MultiMedia to voice their support for the cause.
Negotiations will resume Monday, and if successful, the reporters will return to work Tuesday, according to Courtney Scott, executive officer of the PNW Newspaper Guild.
The reporters shared that the possibility of facing repercussions from Adams MultiMedia has been on their mind, but since there has been little to no progress in the negotiations that started in November, they felt a strike was the best way to send a strong message to the Minnesota-based company.
“We want them to take us seriously. This is where our line is,” said Skagit unit secretary and Herald reporter Emma Fletcher-Frazer. “I think the strike shows that we’re willing to put ourselves on the line in order to do that.”
‘We have to be able to afford to live here in order to work here’
For the first time in about 20 years, Adams Multimedia offered no pay increase when the negotiations first started, Fletcher-Frazer said, recalling feeling disrespected and surprised upon hearing the proposal.
Like many of her colleagues, she emphasized the role of local journalists in ensuring readers can make informed decisions, stay safe during emergencies and learn about the community around them.
“It was pretty clear that they did not value us and our work,” she said. “I think it’s fair to say we’re pretty angry.”
The Anacortes American and Stanwood-Camano News joined the union in February 2026.
Adams Multimedia is now proposing no more than a 2% annual wage increase, which the strikers argue is the very bare minimum to keep up with the rising cost of living.
The reporters earn between $19.10 and $22.29 per hour and are asking for the minimum pay to be increased to $20 per hour. Adams Multimedia is instead proposing $19.48.
According to Indeed.com, the median pay for a journalist in Washington state is $49,000 a year. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s living wage calculator determined a living wage in Skagit County in February 2026 was $23.87 for a single person without children, or just about the same at $49,650 a year.
When Washington State University set the wage for the WSU Murrow Fellows/Report for America fellowships, they argued for $55,000 a year for journalists because most are college graduates and have student loan debt to pay.
Most of the reporters, including Fletcher-Frazer, hold college degrees. After three years of working for the Herald, she earns $21.23 per hour, and is still paying off her student loan debt.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, households are considered “cost-burdened” when they spend more than 30% of their income on rent, and “severely cost-burdened” when they spend 50% and above. Since half of Fletcher-Frazer’s paycheck goes towards rent, she falls in the “severe” category. In order to build enough savings to rent a place in Anacortes, she had to live with her grandmother for about seven months — the kind of support that, she acknowledged, many do not have.
“If you don’t have that resource, you may not be able to choose this job,” she said. “We have to be able to afford to live here in order to work here.”
Vince Richardson has been working as a reporter at the Skagit Valley Herald for over 20 years and has 35 years of journalism experience. He has two children in college, mortgage payments, car payments and other living expenses. He makes $22.29 per hour.
Had it not been for his wife’s income, he said, they could not afford living here.
Cameron Martinez, who has been reporting for Skagit Publishing since 2023 and became a full-time Herald reporter in 2025, lives in Bellingham with their fiancée Natalie Forger.
The two of them rent a condo owned by Forger’s grandmother, which helps ease Martinez’s financial burden as they earn $19.10 per hour, without accounting for the occasional freelance photography gig.
But the commute is long and only adds to Martinez’s expenses, which include $2,000 worth of much needed car repairs they don’t know how they will pay for.
Furthermore, being a nonbinary 25-year-old, Martinez worries about being unable to afford gender-affirming care once they turn 26 and age off their parents’ plan.
Stanwood-Camano News’ lone reporter, Libby Williams, earns $19.10 per hour, which she said is less than what she makes at her second job at a coffee stand — without counting tips.
Herald reporter Milo Whitman, who makes $19.10 per hour, said he can only rent a place because he shares the lease with two roommates, but his budget is “pretty tight” nevertheless.
Nicholas Johnson, who has been a reporter since 2010, said he lives paycheck to paycheck, with only $5,000 in his savings account. He believes the pay does not match all the responsibilities he has as the Anacortes American’s only reporter, where he has been working since 2025.
“I am unable to set aside anything,” the 38-year-old said. “If I were to have a major car repair… I would be in a really tough spot. And that’s been true for me for years.”
Keeping the news human
The Skagit News Reporters are also asking for the contract to include rules over the use of AI, ensuring it’s used as a supplementive tool with human oversight rather than a replacement for human workers — and, collaterally, a source of misinformation.
The reporters argue AI fails to capture emotion and results in formulaic writing, and that readers simply prefer content created by real, local reporters who know the community.
The Skagit News Reporters have no intention of backing down and will keep the fight going until their demands are met, Fletcher-Frazer said, expressing hope she and her colleagues will be able to continue doing the job they love.
“People who value local journalism need to speak up or it will be gone before they know it,” Johnson said.
For updates, follow the Skagit News Workers on Facebook and Instagram. To make a donation to support the reporters during the strike, visit gofundme.com/f/help-keep-ai-out-of-your-newsrooms
Luisa Loi is a general assignment reporter for La Conner Community News.
