THE MEDIACRACY

This comes from The Progressive review(news@prorev.com). I thought it was an interesting view of labor reporting.................Scott

EMENDATION

Our story about the media's war on labor referred to NPR's Marketplace.
We meant to say public radio's Marketplace. Marketplace is actually the
product of PRI not NPR as Corey Flintoff reminded us:

"I have to take exception to your assertion that NPR is anti-labor.
'Marketplace' is not an NPR program. It's produced by our competitor,
Public Radio International. NPR has a full-time labor correspondent,
Frank Langfitt, and if you look into some of his stories in the NPR
archive www.npr.org, you'll find he's doing excellent, straight-ahead
reporting on labor issues from workplace safety to pension benefits and
the decline of unions."

We apologize for the misplaced aspersion. As we have pointed out in the
past, however, it is significant that public radio features such a
business-centered program without any similar show serving American
workers. Even though they may not contribute as much to the annual fund
drives, there are more of them.

We have also received an e-mail from Steve Greenhouse, 'labor and
workplace reporter' for the NY Times: "I would strongly defend my
colleague Micki Maynard as being a scrupulous, balanced reporter who is
every bit as fair to labor as she is to business. Indeed, Micki has a
reputation for being tough on business and on G.M.-- and on some labor
unions. Her coverage of Northwest Airlines and the labor dispute there
was a model of toughness and fairness. Counting which paragraph goes
where is a cute idea, but it misses the point. The important thing is
to look at the overall fairness of a piece, not to count which paragraph
goes where. Besides, articles that are extremely unfair to labor might
do well under your test because they contain some labor response up high
before the rest of the article goes on to bash labor."

Greenhouse's comments were inspired by our count of the number of
paragraphs it took several papers - including the NY Times - to report
the reaction of labor reaction to the planned buyouts of Delphi workers
by GM.

Our graf counter is simply an application of one of the principles we
laid out a decade ago in our plan for a new newspaper called USA
Tomorrow: "Opposition to any policy will be reported on the same page as
the main headline and not on the jump page as is now commonly the case.
In fact, jump pages will be eliminated where possible and no story will
jump more than two pages. Editors know that few readers turn to the jump
page, which is why they bury so much good stuff there. "

Greenhouse's praise of Maynard may be justified but it does not in any
way answer the problem of the story in question. Nor does it explain
why so many stories are written in a similar fashion. Why do so many
papers bury so much good stuff in that journalistic dumpster known as
the jump page?

One reason, in the case of labor coverage, is the bias of newspapers
themselves. Beginning with the successful defeat of the Washington Post
pressmen in 1975, newspapers have become ever more hostile towards their
own unions. This idiosyncratic involvement in the story being reported
is seldom mentioned in the press.

But another problem is the unnoticed cultural slant of reporters
themselves who, in an increasingly socially and economically divided
America, have increasingly become among the winners in the split. No
conspiracy, no intentional bias is necessary, simply using office talk
and class presumptions is enough.

Thus we doubt that Micheline Maynard is even aware of how much more
concern she displayed in her article for the fate of GM than for the
fate of its workers. GM is "staggering under the weight of $10.6 billion
in losses," and "still has much more to do in its effort to rebuild
itself as a smaller, more competitive automaker after losing ground for
two decades in the United States against the growing strength and
sophistication of Asian and European rivals."

Then there is the problem for G.M.'s chief executive, Rick Wagoner,
"whose future is now in serious doubt. He must deliver even broader cost
cuts to save both G.M. and his own job. Already, he is under growing
pressure from the company's largest individual shareholder, Kirk
Kerkorian, whose representative has joined the board."

And, of course, the ubiquitous foreign competition: "Beyond the buyouts,
analysts said, G.M. must take further steps to become more competitive
or risk being pushed aside by strong rivals like Toyota, which could
unseat G.M. to become the world's biggest auto company as soon as
sometime this year."

The ever present 'Industry analysts' also have "raised fears that G.M.
could be forced into its own bankruptcy filing as a result of a flood of
bad news at the company." And " Analysts also said they were not
convinced that the plan had gone far enough to push G.M. and Delphi over
the hump."

But there are also workers who are staggering, who might be forced into
bankruptcy, for whom the plan might not have gone far enough to push
them over the hump, who need to take further steps to become more
competitive or risk being pushed aside when they look for a new job, who
still have much to do to rebuild themselves as smaller, more competitive
former auto parts makers, and are losing ground against the growing
strength and sophistication of outsourcing. But they never seem to get
the same level of concern in these stories.

Finally, the fact that our graf counter elicited a negative reaction
from a labor reporter is itself noteworthy. Another response might have
been to take the piece to the editor and say, "See, we've got to treat
labor better." And maybe even thank us for giving a little nudge to the
undernourished and noble cause of labor reporting.

[It may be assumed by some that your editor's views are related to his
being a member of Local 1981 of the United Auto Workers Union - also
known as the National Writers Union. This is probably not the case since
he has been strongly pro labor since he was about nine years old, when
his father gave him a record of union songs including one that went,
"After 30 years as a worker, they say 'My boy, the job you did was
swell.' And off you pack with an ache in your back and a pin for your
lapel."]

USA TOMORROW
http://prorev.com/usat.htm