Why analyzing labor coverage is important

The Newspaper Guild/Communication Workers of America released Tuesday a summary report of their new “Labor & Unions in National TV Network News.”

The CWA and Newspaper Guild funded the study directed by Federico Subervi of the School of Journalism & Mass Communication at Texas State University.

The report is important. There is a big story here: over the past 30 years, public policies have dimmed the prospects for the working class (I use that term expansively – it includes most Americans) and increased the gap between the wealthiest and the rest. This study looks at three recent years – 2008, 2009, and 2011 – years in which the U.S. has struggled with the worst recession since the Great Depression, the years that gave rise to the global Occupy Wall Street movement, and years in which the right has gone after public sector unions with a vengeance.

Yet, the study finds, only 0.3 percent of network TV news in those three years covered labor issues. It’s a direct line from the decline of labor unions and collective bargaining to the decades-long economic slide of American workers, yet few journalists seem to be able to find the narrative thread.

There is a persistent notion in American discourse that labor unions are what are wrong with our economy, despite decades after the peak of labor union power.  It was right there last year in contradictory glory in candidate Mitt Romney’s 160-page “Believe in America: Mitt Romney’s Plan for Jobs and Economic Growth.”

On one hand, Romney’s platform had a pie chart documenting labor’s decline to just 7 percent of the private sector workforce; on the other, Romney insisted on calling unions “Big Labor” and had an entire chapter on “Labor Policy” that would weaken National Labor Relations Board enforcement, boost anti-union right-to-work states, and undermine union political power so “job creators” could “get the economy growing again.”

Christopher R. Martin is professor and interim head of communication studies at the University of Northern Iowa.  He is the author of “Framed! Labor and the Corporate Media” (Cornell University Press) and is working on a book about news media coverage of labor in the 20th century.

Unfortunately, that’s the same contradictory conclusion the news media seem to make: they can in one story report that organized labor is small and weak, and in another suggest that Big Labor is holding back our economy. As the News Guild/CWA summary concludes, “the [TV news] discourse and framing continues to fault the workers and their representatives for any conflict or impasse, not the business, company or government.”

Tuesday’s release was just a three-page summary of the study.  Coming soon is more analysis and policy recommendations, including “the need for more accurate teaching about labor reporting in schools of journalism.” Agreed, although we will not likely see a resurgence of a labor beat to cover unions and working class issues on a regular basis.  There are no labor beat reporters at national broadcast news organizations (including NPR), and only two newspaper labor writers left in the country – at the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

With continued cutbacks – by 2012 newspaper newsroom staffs have declined 30 percent since their peak in 2000, says the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism – it’s a good guess that journalism organizations won’t be creating new labor beat positions.  But, general assignment reporters and those covering business, sports, government, and the arts all interface with labor issues, and should be able to knowledgably tell stories that go beyond the “Big Labor” stereotype.

There may also be opportunities for enterprising journalists to develop their own independent news organizations to cover labor and the working class.  With network TV news devoting 0.3% of their programs to labor issues, there are certainly plenty of good stories left untold, and audiences who would be interested in seeing their lives accurately reflected in the news.