ACTION ALERT:Chris Matthews: Labor Doesn't Want to Debate

[Douglas Carpenter]

FAIR-L
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
Media analysis, critiques and activism

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2565

ACTION ALERT:
Matthews: Labor Doesn't Want to Debate

June 27, 2005

It's a fact that labor unions are seldom heard from in the mainstream
media. But when MSNBC host Chris Matthews brought up the issue on June
10, he blamed the problem on the labor movement.

"I watch Sunday television," Matthews explained during an interview
with Bill Moyers. "I never see a really good articulate labor leader on
television. What happened to the George Meanys and the Walter Reuthers
we grew up with? Where are the strong, articulate voices of the working
person, the working family out there? That voice that you're talking
about, who worries about trade policy, who worries about tax policy, who
worries about being trained for the job, where are those voices on
Sunday?"

Matthews is right that labor spokespeople are rarely heard on the
Sunday shows. A FAIR study found that in 19 months of coverage (June
1995-May 1996, June-December 1999), only two representatives of organized
labor appeared on the networks' Sunday morning talk shows.

Of course, Matthews doesn't just "watch" Sunday television--he hosts a
show of his own: The Chris Matthews Show on NBC. And a search of the
Nexis database turned up no labor guests on the show since its debut in
late 2002.

His daily MSNBC show Hardball hardly does any better. A search of the
last 15 months of the show turns up only a handful of appearances by
union representatives: AFSCME's Gerald McEntee was briefly interviewed
once (7/27/04), Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO made two appearances
(7/29/04, 2/20/04) and Teamsters president James Hoffa was on three times
(2/17/04, 3/2/04, 10/28/04). (Oddly enough, Matthews asked Hoffa during
his latest appearance: "I haven't seen a lot of union leader presence on
television the last couple of months. What's that about?")

But Matthews wasn't actually critiquing a problem with the media-- he
was blaming labor for not wanting to be on television, or not being good
enough to appear:


"They don't have speakers. I'm telling you, I can't think right now of
a labor leader that could match wits with a Dick Cheney on television.
They don't want to get out there and debate like they used to.... Who
are the great spokesmen against this administration's trade policies or
this administration's tax policies? Who are they?"


Matthews' invocation of Cheney's debating prowess is peculiar, given
Cheney's propensity for exaggerations and misstatements--not to mention
the fact that Cheney rarely "debates" anyone at all.

Matthews has criticized labor for its lack of media exposure before
(Chris Matthews Show, 8/31/03):


"Where is the voice of labor arguing loud and clear for a better shake?
Organized labor needs to crack through its encrusted seniority system
and pick a leader it can put on the evening news and Sunday television
and wake this country up to what it's doing to the most basic, the most
vital of all American institutions: the working family."


When Moyers explained to Matthews during their June 10 interview that
there are many articulate grassroots labor activists, and that they
deserve a place in the media debate, Matthews quipped: "Well, they should
get elected to Congress. Then we will put them on." Matthews' joke
provided a more sensible answer to his question than his suggestion that
labor leaders lacked the "wits" to debate with the likes of Cheney: There
aren't more labor leaders on Sunday shows because the Sunday shows are
reserved for powerful politicians--and it's powerful journalists like
Matthews that have decided that this should be the case.


ACTION:
Contact Chris Matthews and tell him he's right that labor spokespeople
rarely make it into the corporate media--but that's a decision made by
the media, not the labor movement. Ask him what he plans to do to
address the absence of labor guests on his shows.

CONTACT:
Chris Matthews
MSNBC
[e-mail]

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[napi21]

1. I gotta agree with Matthews a bit.

How did Howard Dena got all the media attention? By making sture statements that wee controversial!

I agree, I haven't hear anything from the labor leaders for a very long time! There sure haven't been any like Ruther!

Ya got to make your own news! That's what HOward is doing. Some may not like the way he's doing it, but that's OK. Most of the Dems love what he's doing, and the Union leaders, if there are any anymore, need to do the same thing!

[cynatnite]

2. I remember that

I thought he was asking where the strong labor leaders are? We don't have the ones that we used to. I didn't get the impression he was denigrating labor.

[Cleita]

3. Have any been invited to speak?

I can believe that there isn't one articulate spokesperson for labor. I can think of some right here at DU who could probably fit the bill.

[NorCalDem]

4. I wonder why corporate media

won't let labor spokespeople on? Hmm, I wonder....?

[Tommymac]

5. Plenty of fiery Labor types ...

... but why would the corporate owned media put on able spokepeople? That would be like a baseball manager letting the opponent's pitcher throw to their own side...

Tweety is just a passive/aggresive schill hawking the corporate mantra.