quote:

---

Scarborough, Ont. -- I completely agree with Kate Lawson's response to your on-line poll about the supposed irrelevance of the trade-union movement (Don't Ignore The Unions -- Nov. 13). The issue that Ms. Lawson raises is a crucial one: Why do major media outlets such as The Globe and Mail give virtually no coverage to labour issues, except, of course, when there is a strike?

Consider the following scenario: The Globe and Mail introduces a new section of the paper, entitled Report on Labour. Unimaginable, isn't it? People everywhere would protest that the section will be biased in favour of special interests. Why does no one protest that the Report on Business is biased in favour of special interests? Shouldn't the media devote equal time and space to the concerns of both?

-MARK LEBOURDAIS

---

I think the letter writers raise a really important point. Over the last couple of decades, mainstream media coverage of union and labour issues has dropped off substantially. It used to be that every major newspaper had a "labour beat" reporter. Now, as Mark points out, that idea is almost unthinkable. The only place you will read labour news in the Globe and Mail is as a small addendum in the Business section. Labour is only important these days, to the mainstream media, insofar as it may affect stockholders share prices.

At the same time, as a recent article in Labor Notes pointed out, independent media originating from the labour movement itself has also been in decline:

quote:

---

One of the most perplexing yet little observed phenomena of the past century has been the relentless decline of the so-called “labor press.” Once a widely adopted tool for reaching unorganized workers with the union gospel and for communicating within union ranks, the labor press today is at best an afterthought, at worst a public relations machine for union presidents to massage their images. Where once there were thousands of labor publications nationwide, today there survive only a couple of nationally-distributed independent magazines, a couple of scholarly journals and a declining number of union-produced magazines and newspapers with ever more infrequent publication schedules.

---

Link - The Labor Press: Watchdog, Lapdog -- or Canary in the Mine Shaft? (July 2003)

So here's my question: Is this collapse of relevant labour media coverage, both in the mainstream press and in the movement's own publications, a consequence, or a cause of unions' preceived decline?

[ 17 November 2003: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]

quote:

---

So here's my question: Is this collapse of relevant labour media coverage, both in the mainstream press and in the movement's own publications, a consequence, or a cause of unions' preceived decline?

---

Eric Lee has been operating the "Labour Start" webpage for a number of years. It's a great site with constantly updated labour news from around the world from a network of volunteer correspondents. Some of the story links are from "mainstream" sources and others are from independent sources.

They've also run quite a number of very successful e-campaigns. They've also got a labour news "ticker" that you can easily cut & paste into any web site.

...

But these sort of projects are small in number and often shaky in funding. What about print? In Canada we have Our Times, to which I am a longtime subscriber. But Our Times does tend to lack a critical edge, as another poster noted the last time the magazine came up. And they're always desperate for cash, too.

quote:

---

What about print? In Canada we have Our Times, to which I am a longtime subscriber. But Our Times does tend to lack a critical edge,

---

All Canadian magazines are struggling to stay afloat...lots have gone under over the years.

"Our Times" is heavily dependent on bulk sales to unions and on union advertising for revenue. If they become too critical of a particular union's internal politics it can have severe financial consequences... and this has happened in the past unfortunately.

quote:

---

Over the years the editors have learned to dance around internal union politics in order to survive.

---

It was cool because instead of being sponsored by corporations, it was sponsored by organizations like the AFL-CIO. It was a night of good humour and music, but it was also a very political event. There were artists doing slam poetry about working class issues and lots of union-themed and anti-FTAA songs.

I am really proud of the AFL for getting behind this and I think that this is a good example of how we have to be creative in getting labour's message out. Labour news doesn't always have to be in print form. It can be through spoken word poetry, and music. We have to just make labour part of discourse again, and it might mean that we have to do more stuff of this nature. We have to reclaim public spaces and take advantage of different mediums to get the message out.

Check out this article from NUPGE:

The Toronto Star asks itself a startling question: 'Why does this paper not have a labour reporter?'

quote:

---

The Star is the only newspaper in Canada that operates by a set of written principles instructing editors and reporters to adhere to certain social values, even if profit sometimes gets compromised in the process.

Unthinkable in today's corporate world, the principles were enunciated in the 1940s by Joseph E. Atkinson, one of the paper's founders. He set them out as a mandate to be "pursued, advanced and vindicated" by all Star editors and reporters - then and in the future.

The list includes: a strong, united and independent Canada; social justice; individual and civil liberties; community and civic engagement; the rights of workers and 'the necessary role' of government in society.

Sellar is the Star's ombudsman. To its credit, the paper printed his surprisingly blunt critique, an act of public self-examination that would never have happened at the competing National Post, for example, or probably any other paper in Canada.

"These guiding principles are important to a daily newspaper with proud, small-l liberal traditions," Sellar wrote.

"They mustn't be allowed to subside into ceremonial rhetoric. The newsroom needs to work on them every day. That invites a slightly embarrassing question: Why does this paper not have a labour or — in contemporary newspaper jargon — workplace issues reporter?" he asked.

---

Read the original Star article here:

'Labour: A gap in The Star's news coverage, by Don Sellar, Star Ombudsman

Gee, I wonder how comfortable Sellar, or even old Joe Atkinson would be with the Toronto Star's forthcoming further rightward lurch?

[ 03 February 2004: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]

Lorne Slotnik was the former labour reporter for the Globe & Mail and I do recall he raised quite a stink when the Globe decided to ditch the labour beat. Slotnik was an excellent reporter. He did a great series reporting on one of the Teamsters conventions back in the Jackie Presser days.

Also I know that Global TV got rid of their labour reporter Bill Trbovich in a purge a few years ago.