The hallways were impassible outside the daily Page One meeting of the senior-most editors at The New York Times on Wednesday afternoon, due to an unfortunate series of events that has almost 600 journalists up in arms. An internal memo obtained by Poynter described the event as a "quiet, 10-minute display of unity … to show our common dismay over contract negotiations" for the members of the Newspaper Guild. The full memo reads as follows:

Please join us at 3:50 p.m. on Wednesday for a quiet, 10-minute display of unity, around the entrances to the Page One meeting room on the third floor. The point is to show our common dismay over contract negotiations <http://saveourtimes.com/index.php> in which management seems determined to seriously compromise our financial welfare, our access to health care and our security in retirement. We hope that senior editors who witness and understand our mutual resolve will convey the gravity of the situation to management.

This comes after half of the Times newsroom expressed "profound dismay" in an open letter to acting CEO and owner Arthur Sulzberger Jr. (We've written a decent amount about why everybody is upset.)

This all seems pretty serious and dramatic for so sophisticated a place as The New York Times headquarters in that fancy midtown Manhattan skyscraper. But it's happening, and if it escalates to the point of a strike, you could be missing some news in the blue bundle that shows up on your doorstep every morning. 

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Adam Clark Estes