James Berger of Salon writes about how the media has a pro-business bias and ignores labor coverage.
Berger writes, “Every newspaper in the country has a business section – a whole section of the paper, every day, with extensive tables and reporting on various equity and bond markets, and features on different industries, particular companies, and individuals in various areas of commerce. In addition, every television network has programs devoted entirely to the workings of capital. There are cable stations which devote nearly all their programming to aspects of this topic. NPR, of course, has ‘Marketplace’ in both evening and morning editions.
“On the other hand, alongside this extensive coverage of business and investment, there is almost no coverage of labor. No newspaper I’m aware of has a ‘Labor’ section. There are no television networks or programs devoted primarily to labor issues. There is some coverage, of course, some in the news section, some in the business section. There are some farther Left web publications like In These Times that provide a lot of coverage of work and labor topics. But, overall, really, there’s very little.
“It seems quite natural though, doesn’t it? One must naturally know every day what the markets are doing. One wants to know every time the CEO of a major corporation is hired or fired. There are so many pieces of the business world that must be reported on. Where are the major currencies going? Will the trade deficits continue? How will the latest war affect the price of oil? And so on.”
Read more here.
