Newspaper Guild President: Media Covers What Advertisers Want, Not Worker Issues

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.laborradio.org/node/5057

Newspaper Guild President: Media Covers What Advertisers Want, Not Worker Issues

By Doug Cunningham

Commercial news media in America generally doesn't cover news from the worker's perspective and there is no real in-depth look at worker issues.
Those are a couple of observations made by newspaper Guild President Linda Foley in a speech at the National Conference on Media Reform in Memphis.

: "It's really what the advertisers want, not what the people want, in the media. So when you hear, oh people don't want to hear about those issues, that's not so. People want to know about their health insurance, people want to know about whether they can make a decent living, people want to know what's happening in their communities. It's not about that. It's about what the advertisers want. And the advertisers don't want to hear about it, so they don't run it. And that's really what's going on."

Foley says there are only a handful of reporters in America focused on covering labor while there are legions of reporters covering corporate news.

: "There are fewer than ten reporters in the United States - more like half a dozen - who are dedicated to labor. Most of them are concentrated on large newspapers. And that's quite a contrast from the 1930's when the labor movement was burgeoning and virtually every newspaper had someone who was dedicated to covering workers issues."

Foley says as ownership of media has grown more corporate and concentrated the media has become more anti-union and anti-worker.

AUDIO story here: http://www.laborradio.org/files/lo/winsheadlines.ram

[blm]

1. The corporate media actively works AGAINST Democrats since mid90s.

Anyone who thinks all that trumped up negative coverage of our top opposition Dems is just 'to sell papers' has been on snooze control the last 12 years.

[AX10]

2. I didn't notice.

:sarcasm: