Lee Enterprises' message to stockholders this month is clear: The company, and its newspapers, are in a strong and growing financial position. Now is the time for the company to share that success with its journalists across the country.

Lee Enterprises last week offered its unionized newsroom at The Daily News in Longview, Washington, a wage package that amounted to one sentence: Minimum salaries are $16.69 an hour. The proposal included no wage scale or cost of living increases.

This is an unacceptable example of this growing company's failure to invest in the very journalists who are driving the company's success. While chief executives enjoy six- and seven-figure compensation packages, Lee ignores the growing cost of living on the West Coast. It undervalues the work of its employees who have been with the company for many years.

The Daily News in Longview has played a critical role in telling the story of this community for nearly a century, including with its Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting of the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens. Longview's journalists were on the front lines of providing lifesaving information to our community throughout the COVID-19 pandemic – all while facing months of chronic understaffing.

Let's borrow the words from Lee Chairwoman Mary Junck, who said this month that an unsolicited offer by Alden Global Capital, LLC, "grossly undervalues Lee and fails to recognize the strength of our business today."

Lee's offer grossly undervalues its journalists and fails to recognize the strength of this storied community institution. It fails to cover the growing costs of renting in Longview, of maintaining the vehicles journalists need to drive to assignments, of going to the doctor after possible COVID exposures while on the job, of seeing a therapist for the overwhelming toll this career can have on journalists' mental health. Lee must do better and commit to paying its employees a living wage.