From: PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu (David Veal)
Subject: Re: CNN Anchor Admits Pro-Clinton Bias
Organization: The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 18:24:12 GMT

In article <1992Sep11.234634.26800@techbook.com>
gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane) writes:

>
>nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson) writes:
>
>>   But again, you're doing what the other poster did, which is equating
>>   "labor" with "organized labor".  In 1992 only 17% of the workforce
>>   in the US is in some kind of union.  But all of us who work for a
>>   living are "labor".   BTW, the Wall Street Journal does a better
>>   and more complete job covering strikes and union organizing efforts
>>   than any other paper I've seen.   And while it might seem natural
>>   to accuse a capitalist institution like Dow Jones of bias in
>>   this topic, if you can illustrate any systematic anti-labor bias
>>   in their coverage of such topics I'd be interested.  I've certainly
>>   read coverage of related stories in the WSJ that seemed, if any-
>>   thing, pro-labor and anti-management, such as an article they did
>>   early this year on working conditions at some southern poultry
>>   plants.
>
>>   As I said to the other poster, organized labor is a tiny subset of
>>   all labor and having a "labor" section devoted to union or unionizing
>>   issues is like having a Business section which only covers municipal
>>   bonds.
>
>
>>---peter
>
>The fact that newspapers no longer have labor reporters, as they once
>did, and the fact that organized labor is in decline are, I suppose,
>unrelated?

     It could be.  The newspaper industry has changed a lot over the
years.  They no longer do just about anything like they used to.
     Maybe the decrease in organized laber was the cause of eliminating
labor reporters.  If you're suggesting that the newpapers are somehow to
blame to loses to organized labor by eliminating labor sections and
reporters, I think you're stretching.

>There are any number of issues which you might define as
>only of interest to union members, but which would be of great interest
>to those who for a great number of reasons are prevented from organizing
>-- or carry distorted ideas of what organized labor means.  This,
>clearly, is the sort of information that a Labor section would carry.

     Most newspapers only have three or four major sections and a couple
of minor sections in those.  Not everything can have its own special
area.


>Quite honestly, I don't read the Wall Street Journal (altho sometimes
>pick up the editorial page is my blood pressure is down).  But, frankly,
>it doesn't suprise me that they would take a "pro-labor" stance on the
>working conditions at southern poultry plants -- they are so bad that
>they give business a very bad name.

     This is an interesting perspective.  That the only reason the
Wall Street Journal would be pro-labor would be to protect business
image.
     It's obviously not pro-labor, because we've previously defined
it as pro-business!!!

>You may think that organized labor is so small a group that it isn't
>worth regular coverage (although there are certainly regions of this
>country in which this isn't true): why then do all daily newspapers
>devote pages to the stock market when an even smaller fraction of the
>community owns stocks?

     The stock market is of great interest to even people who don't own
stocks.  (And a *lot* of people own stocks, anyway.  Probably a lot more
than are in Unions.)

========================================================================
| David Veal  PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu                                  |
|             University of Tennessee Division of Continuing Education |
========================================================================
Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton,alt.news-media,talk.politics.misc