http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/6898/why_do_media_ignore_workers_struggles/Last week, I caused a minor controversy when Huffington Post “fired” me as a blogger for helping a group of construction workers disrupt the Mortgage Bankers Association conference in Washington D.C. (I put "fired" in quotation marks because I, like the majority of people who blog for the site, was never compensated for my years of writing for the website, nor did I ever sign a contract for the privilege of doing so.)
My actions have raised legitimate questions about journalistic ethics. But perhaps we should also ask questions about the twin crises of the labor movement and labor journalism.
I received media accreditation for the conference based on my Huffington Post status, and then shared my accreditation with a union leader in order to help him gain access to this event. Workers demanded to know why Pulte Group's vice chairwoman was leading the summit and how her company obtained $900 million in bailout funds in 2009. Union workers say no jobs were created with that money. Because the conference was disrupted, The Wall Street Journal, CNBC—and even the Huffington Post!—ran stories on the unionists' criticism of Pulte Group.
Was helping union workers disrupt a conference of bankers an ethical thing for a journalist to do? Maybe not; I directly assisted activists. In my view, though, it's unethical for publications like the Huffington Post to not have a single full-time labor reporter and for corporate media to routinely ignore workers' struggles. Outside of the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and In These Times, no U.S. media—including the independent "progressive" press—regularly cover the labor movement.
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