Striking reporters, photographers and other employees of The Vindicator went online Friday with their own newspaper.

  The first 50,000-copy print edition of The Valley Voice will be distributed Saturday by striking drivers to stores and subscribers, said Debora Shaulis, vice president of Local 34011 of the Newspaper Guild-Communications Workers of America.

Shaulis said the free online edition was posted to meet the union's promise to have a newspaper ready by Friday. The print edition, to be published weekly and sold for $1 a copy, was delayed by production problems.

The Vindicator, with a daily circulation of about 70,000 and 100,000 on Sunday, covers parts of northeast Ohio and western Pennsylvania. It has continued publishing since the strike began Tuesday.

Workers walked off the job over wages and health care benefits in the first strike since 1964. Top-scale pay for reporters is $713 a week.

Striker-produced papers are common in the industry. The Guild said the last newspaper strike by its members was 2000-2001 against the Seattle papers.

Both sides were awaiting a call by a federal mediator to return to negotiations.

Mark Brown, The Vindicator's general manager, did not immediately return calls seeking comment.