Don't Journalists Have Any Labor Leaders In Their Rolodexes?

[kpete]

Don't Journalists Have Any Labor Leaders In Their Rolodexes?

March 08, 2011 11:14 am ET by Jamison Foser

Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but it seems to me that if you're going to run an article in which the Governor of Wisconsin attacks unions over a budget dispute in which tens of thousands of protesters (and a strong majority of the public) -- stand with the unions, you should probably quote a union representative in response.

You won't find a union representative quoted in today's Washington Post article by Michael Fletcher. Or in this March 5 Post article, also by Fletcher, headlined "Thousands turn out for latest protest against Wis. governor's budget plan." That article reported that "Tens of thousands of demonstrators again descended on the state Capitol in Wisconsin … The protests … followed massive demonstrations the past two weekends … the demonstrations … have drawn throngs of rank-and-file union members and supporters." But not one such union member was quoted.

I don't mean to pick on Fletcher. Those articles are just two recent examples of the glaring lack of union representation in national media coverage of budget disputes that intimately involve unions. Most famously, the Sunday political talk shows have virtually ignored labor leaders.

This exclusion of labor's perspective from news coverage of labor disputes is extraordinary -- particularly when you consider how the media fell all over themselves to cover the so-called Tea Party in 2009 and 2010 (CNN even embedded reporters with the Tea Partiers.) And let's be clear: The Tea Party never produced anything like what's happened the last few weeks in Wisconsin: Tens of thousands of people engaging in sustained protests in a single location for weeks at a time over specific, concrete grievances, in concert with a walk-out by a group of elected officials that has shut down a legislative body.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201103080011

[eleny]

1. It's because they're sock puppets - not journalists

[rucky]

2. Because the ones they quote in the Madison paper

are sharp as a tack, and represent their unions quite well. That'll never fly in the MSM

[gratuitous]

3. No. No, they don't

Because labor leaders don't host swell cocktail parties for the drinky-drinky set. So neither journalists, nor the talk show hosts, nor their producers know anything at all about labor, labor leaders, and all that icky stuff like collective bargaining. All you need for a whiz-bang program about labor relations (or really anything else) is George Will, John McCain and Michele Bachmann.

[deaniac21]

4. I'm guessing that there are few journalists who have a Rolodex.

[quiller4]

9. It shouldn't be that hard to Google the WI State Labor Council

and collect the names and numbers of a good number of possible interviewees.

[kenny blankenship]

5. Journalists these days seem to aspire to a condition between white collar manager and celebrity.

Labor leaders are part of the grubby unfabulous world that they are seeking to get far, far away from.

[Aerows]

6. How many "journalists"

actually ask their own questions these days, much less arrange their own guests to come on the show? My guess would be very few. It's much easier to control the message with a team of writers and schedulers, and just have the pretty faces do the interviews. Well, other than John Stewart and Rachel Maddow, and even they have writers. Do you think the people on CNN and Fox actually have an say whatsoever of what they ask?

[jtown1123]

7. journalism is dead

[old mark]

8. K&R- No more "journalists", only pretty people on TV-no brains or scruples, but great hair...nt

[Uncle Joe]

10. Just the mothers of their offspring.

Thanks for the thread, kpete.