Politico: Does the Media Care About Labor Anymore? [View all]
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/12/labor-coverage-decline-113320.html#.VIOuWTHF-20
With the middle class still down in the dumps, the beats more important than ever.
By TIMOTHY NOAH
December 04, 2014
Stteven Greenhouse, the labor correspondent for the New York Times, took a buyout this week. That decision immediately reduced by 50 percent the number of reporters at major U.S. newspapers who cover labor full-timeeven as the dismal situation of the American worker becomes a central preoccupation for American politicians and policymakers.
To some extent, labor reporters are falling victim to the very same workplace trends they cover. Newspapers are under the gun financially, observes Greenhouse, and theyve laid off a lot of workers. Editors, he said, dont view labor as the sexiest beat.
Labor coverages declinelike that of labor unionslong predates print journalisms circulation slide. At Newsweek, for instance, as long ago as 1985, covering labor was no more than an entry-level job. Bob Cohn (today president and chief operating officer at the Atlantic, then my fellow grunt at Newsweek) became labor and workplace correspondent at the tender age of 22. Back then, he and I would swap wisecracks about what a backwater the beat had become.
But by todays standards, labor and workplace coverage was flooding the zone. The 10 to 15 biggest newspapers all had labor writers, Cohn recalls. The newsmagazines all did. Now, with Greenhouses departure from the Times, the only full-time labor reporter left at any of the big newspapers will be the Wall Street Journals Melanie Trottman.
FULL story at link.