Entry Details

About the Entry

Category: 
Online > Online Breaking News Coverage > Mid Atlantic

Title of entry: 
Fast and deep coverage of the UPS-Teamsters contract agreement

Issue or Publication date:
7/25/23, 7/24/23, 7/27/23, 8/2/23

Publication name: 
Supply Chain Dive

Publishing/parent company: 
Industry Dive

View Website home page:
https://www.supplychaindive.com/

Description of the enterprising work that went into this entry and its significance or impact on readers:

July 25 marked a whirlwind 24 hours for Supply Chain Dive Senior Reporter Max Garland and his team.

Garland had been covering the UPS-Teamsters labor negotiations for months, writing day-to-day updates on the details behind the negotiations, analyses previewing the potential disruption that could result from a strike, and temperature checks from experts on the likelihood of a strike.

Supply Chain Dive's mission is to provide end-to-end supply chain managers with industry-leading news, trends and analysis. These labor negotiations were one of the most followed stories by our readers, as a strike would have major business implications, potentially leaving one quarter of U.S. parcels at risk months before the holiday season.

With tensions rising in July, and the contract preventing a strike expiring in August, Garland worked with Editor Kelly Stroh to prepare for all outcomes.

Starting on July 5, Garland pre-wrote a story on the parties reaching a tentative agreement — the outcome most likely to break unexpectedly and catch reporters who expected a strike off-guard. Stroh and Staff Reporter Alejandra Salgado edited the piece to ensure that when the news broke, the team could focus solely on reviewing newly released deal details.

With that story ready to go, Garland could pivot to other, high-value angles, while remaining confident he could break the big news, deeply and quickly, when it happened. He spent the next few weeks writing and reporting stories on each stakeholder's contingency plans — such as July 24's "Why some UPS shippers haven’t diverted volume even as a potential strike looms" — and updating the pre-write with additional details as negotiations unfolded.

When the contract agreement news finally broke close to 11:50 a.m. on July 25, Garland and the team moved quickly. All the preparation paid off as Garland updated the pre-write and published it within 10 minutes. We sent subscribers a separate breaking news alert, which linked to his story, by 12:13 p.m.

Equally important, the preparation helped give Garland the time to write insightful follow-up stories shortly after the deal. By the next morning, Garland wrote a round-up of top reactions from national leaders and trade associations, and within days he had prepared an in-depth breakdown of the new contract's highlights. The approach would help readers who had been watching the story for months move beyond the surface of the news development, and better understand its key details and implications.

In all, from early July to early September, Garland published 23 stories on the topic — a mix of spot news, news analyses and deep dives into single topics — with the help of his team.

But it was the team's foresight, preparation and strategic planning that allowed Supply Chain Dive to break the UPS-Teamsters deal news in a comprehensive story within minutes of its release, all the while providing readers with deeper looks as part of a cohesive package in the days before and after the news development.

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Please enter a URL that will direct judges to the entry: 
https://www.supplychaindive.com/news/ups-teamsters-tentative-national-contract-agreement/684895/
Additional URLs, if needed:
https://www.supplychaindive.com/news/ups-teamsters-strike-shipper-customer-volume-diversions/688796/
https://www.supplychaindive.com/news/ups-teamsters-contract-agreement-response-reactions/689105/
https://www.supplychaindive.com/news/ups-teamsters-deal-highlights-tentative-national-contract/689713/?preview_gate=0