On the Media; 1996-09-01; Covering the Conventions; Part 2; Reporting on Labor

Is where you have this great dichotomy between far removed managers and the people in the field or the people on the floor. Don, thank you very much for your call. Bob in Mansfield, Ohio, you're on the air. I think your last statement. Do you find a problem when you're in a small company and you're able to adjust whatever it is you're doing between your customer and your suppliers and your employees to the real conditions you can come up with in an infinite number of recipes for this, for which the government and large corporations and unions try to come up with rules that defeat this. And I think you ought to in your reporting, when you said there's an infinite number of things and small business, get down there and report how the recent thing in the campaign that they get time and a half or they get time and a half off like they used to in our city workforces. And you ought to note that the same government that can take some of your relatives and employ them in a foreign war that you don't approve of has to reciprocate in some kind of a manner to relate to the fact that you are mortal and

there are other values in life other than time and money. Well, let me ask you, Ron Blackwell, when you when we talk about the idea of small business, the coverage, the idea also of unions and management working together, which was something that got a lot of attention and ink a few years ago anyway, when the Japanese were perceived to be pioneering in that way and we were trying to revive our automobile industry. Is is this part of the significance of the story or is this something that is really not all not on on? Well, how should I put this is not part of the agenda of the AFL-CIO anyway. Oh, absolutely it is. But I want to you need to make a distinction here, Stephen, when he said that workers like their jobs, that's usually from polling data. It's hard to interpret what that means. Workers like their work and they like the people they work with. And most of the problems don't come from the work, although we need to think about that work and how it's organized, how it to make it safer and more meaningful. But it comes from the employment relationship and the fact that there is in so many workplaces an adversarial relationship in which the interests fundamentally

collide and which, you know, chief executives are paying themselves 140, 170 times what a frontline worker makes. Well, now listen. But the danger here would be in focusing on small business. In some ways, the scale of it is very good. As you're saying, it's tougher to work side by side with somebody that you see every day and, you know, for a long time. It's easier in a more a bigger organization. But I'd be careful with generalizing and think small business isn't as a panacea because small business has been growing in part from the outsourcing, from big business. When you talk to the Japanese, it's very important to state that they forcibly retire. Everybody is 50 except the president of the company. They outsource everything. And those people or outsource do 24 hour, seven day weeks jobs that are way beneath the dignity of your work. We seem to be moving rapidly in that direction, too moderate. So thank you for your call, Steve Franklin. I want to go back to something a moment ago that we were talking about in terms of Kathie Lee. And that is how does how does a story come to your attention?

How does some somebody reach out and grab your attention so they can get attention in the Chicago Tribune to their story on labor? It can be a million ways. It could be someone who calls me and says, I just been laid off from my company. I'm 53 years old, and they are with a 32 year old worker. I get a lot of calls that way. I read a lot of newspapers and magazines are problems that people don't know what to do. They don't know who to tell the story to. And so you have to constantly look and and decide. So it's my responsibility to figure out why is this important? Now, when you hear when you hear Ron Blackwell talk about the Kathie Lee Gifford gimmick, which is really, in a way, what it was to get the story sort of, you know, you catapulted onto the front page, what do you think? How do you feel about that? I'm less judgmental than other people when they talk about ways of getting stories into newspapers. Some people say, well, that's a that's a routine and that's a that's a trick to get it. And I if that's the way people feel, they have to get the story in the paper, that's fine. Um, I would say, however, that, you know, we

like the meaning, the Chicago Tribune. We like to go about looking at stories on our own and looking in. And we have done stories, for example, talking about how workers in Mexico have been paid and workers in the Philippines and Indonesia. We have dealt with those stories. And I was just not and I wanted to raise our own flag, but I was looking back at a wonderful piece written by Barry Bearak in the Los Angeles Times. I think it was not December looking at how workers in Haiti were being paid. One of the problems, and I tell us always to union workers and because they often asked it to to be told how to do that is they don't they're they're frightened of the mess. They don't they want to talk to the press. They don't want to they don't want to tell us the stories as far as the rest of America. Eighty five percent of the population who. Who are not represented by unions. They very rarely we unless it's in a crisis stage. Get in here because I'm sure your listenership, with the impression that this was a gimmick, this was not a gimmick. This was this was raised by the National Labor Committee when they were testifying before Congress.

And they mentioned that among the brands was Kathie Lee Gifford brand. What I don't listen to this. It was all it was done. And then Kathie Lee hears about it and she makes a big deal on her show the next day, you know what I mean? You know what? But, you know, this was but it's very important because this was not done in order to get a story in the media. I say, well, OK, it's done in order to to bring a young woman worker to the U.S. Congress because they have no voice there either. But the reality is, Ron, that that's how the story got into the media. That is something your your listeners to think that this was just a gimmick, that we had done this in order to have a big story. Well, I mean, what we did, if you got to touch it, we changed several laws behind it. Well, if you could attach, you know, you know, Sylvester Stallone to some other union or labor story, I would think that would probably be something that you would want to do. But we might want to do that. But here's the meat. The dilemma for the media is this. There are sweatshops. I mean, old fashioned sweatshops growing in every major city, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, New York, whatever. They're there and anybody wants to find them.

I walk down this afternoon. We'll go we'll go visit some workers at work. But but the media wasn't covering those workers. No one was asking them any questions. And when this young worker came in to our justice center in New York with looking for his back wages with a pocket full of Kathie Lee's labels on them, it was the it was the volunteers at the justice center who had to take this young woman over to the Daily News to get a story put. And the story was a dynamite story on the front page and all that. But but the workers aren't going to know to come. They're not going to a lot of these people don't have documents. They don't know. They don't think the major media has anything to do with their lives. Peter Kilburn, how do you react to this? Yeah, I was just going to say I keep sort of I hate to sort of be in a defensive posture, but Alex and Ron, maybe you remember a piece about a year ago where we had a Chinese speaking. I know an undercover excellent piece, you know, at the top left front page, this extraordinary story about a Chinese sweatshop right there in Manhattan. I think it was special report length.

We gave it every possible word we could. And it was on a Sunday, too. Yeah. And it was a Lulu. It was an excellent piece. I want to make the point here, though, Ron, that, yeah, there are sweatshops out there. We know it. We go out and try to deal with them sometimes. But there are all kinds of obstacles. And I don't mean to say we're lazy, but it's very hard to get into some of these places. It requires a commitment of time and resources that we don't always have. But we but where we have opportunities, where we can seize opportunities like that one in particular, or like the sweatshops in Los Angeles that we've covered, we go after them. That's right, dear. But you can get into these sweatshops. You can get into those chicken plants. You're talking about those catfish plants. You can get in there. Yes, we don't. We've gone at all of them. I want to get some more of our listeners on the line. Being in Manhattan. You're on the air. Hi, how are you, gentlemen? Mr. Blackwell, is it Lachmann? Yes. Blackwell Yeah. Blackwell You know, you really do strike a chord in my heart and had my my problem with media is that they almost have a kind of built in and self centered censorship because

they do work. I mean, newspapers depend on advertising. Advertising is big business. Big business doesn't want readers to reflect on the abysmal situation between the gap between the wealthy and the poor, the size of the pie and the smaller and smaller segment that the majority of Americans are getting. But I mean, you know, you live in Manhattan and The New York Times is probably a paper that you see frequently. Yeah, well, you know what they say about The New York Times, all the news that's fit to print. And I say all the news that fits well, just extremely, extremely selective about where it puts information. And one of the important things about news. Well, let me ask you, Peter Kilborn. I mean, I don't want to know I don't want to ask Peter Kilborn because it puts let me let me speak to this. I mean, I read The New York Times. I have read many stories, especially in the last couple of years, in fact, more than more there than anywhere else about the disparity of income and about the disparity in wealth in this country.

Ron Blackwell, am I seeing things now? You're not seeing things. I mean, Steven Greenhouse, you to tell Peter all and many others have written stories in there. And it is not because I wasn't because of New York Times, but I. May I please finish? Yes. I would like to make the point that for every story you have about sweatshops, etc., I think we should have very good, hard stories about corporations, CEOs, the salaries they get, the books they keep. I mean, I know some of the some of the people that I. Well, our accountants were huge accounting firms that do a lot of work for these big corporations and they shuffle money around like crazy, OK, beat it. That's another that's that's an interesting point. Let me ask one. This would be just for a second. But yeah, I do think I agree very much with her on this point, because if you were to get to the bottom of what's going on with wages and working conditions, it's in a very problematic employment relationship and the shift in income that's taken place in recent years, if a larger shift from poor and middle income people to wealthy people in our

countries. Well, in recent decades, at least since the war is taking place because of a shift in power between the people who employ people and the people who work. And it is true that, you know, the major media are major employers themselves. They do depend on advertising dollars from major employers, some of them involved in heated battles, even declaring war on their employees, as is the case presently in Detroit. This is a factor that's out there that we shouldn't be blind to. I don't think it justifies a wholesale critique of it because we do excellent work in spite of all that. But that's a factor of major media. And in the United States today. Well, I don't. Let me if I can just speak for the rest of America outside of New York. Oh, Steven, I'm sorry. Go ahead. But let me speak for the rest of America. Well, at least outside of New York City, in answer to what is your name right in there, Mark Beina. I think that the public is a cynical sometimes we are about our intentions. And I think most of us who work for a living on newspapers truly try and be honest and

never think about how this will affect stories. I know for a long period of time I've I've covered a major dispute here in the Midwest between the Caterpillar company, the United Auto Workers, and I know on both sides, both the unions and the and and the company have complained to my bosses. And I've never been told to change any of my coverage. I also recall about 15 or 12 years ago, in the height of the auto depression in Detroit, Michigan, when unemployment was 20 and 30 percent in Detroit and Flint, that the Detroit Free Press wrote a massive series of articles attacking the safety. The American auto industry. If anything, that newspaper was biting the hand that was fueling it. We tend to be junkies, newspapers, people that is on our own, our pride of doing a good, responsible job. Sure, we have limitations, but we I think most of us still go abide by those rules. Peter, thank you very much for your call. We're going to be back in just a moment with more calls and more conversation on the coverage of labor.

This is on the media, on the media from National Public Radio. And she never was afraid. That being said, the company thinks the deputy sheriffs have made the raids at the union hall meeting was called, and when the boys came around to see all this stuff, you can't scare me to you. That was Judy Collins and Pete Seeger singing one of the most famous union songs

the union made. We're talking today on the eve of Labor Day about the coverage of labor with Steve Franklin, labor reporter for the Chicago Tribune, Ron Blackwell, director of corporate affairs for the AFL-CIO. And Peter Kilbane, a national correspondent for The New York Times. Peter Kilburn. When you hear that song like the union made, does that seem like such an anachronism these days to have that kind of a song rolling around in our brains? I think I think it probably does. I don't I don't think it resonates among people out there. I think there are a lot of other issues that resonate to pick up Ron Blackwell's point, the wage gap. If there were some if there were a way that people found to, you know, set that to music, I think it would resonate more. Can I just pick up one other? Surely. I think Ron made a very constructive point about the shift in income and its relationship to the shift in power within the workplace or within the economy. I don't know as one should necessarily blame

the messenger for that. Some people attribute its origins to President Reagan's having having broken the air traffic controllers strike in 1981. But a lot of erosion or a lot of erosion of what seemed to be union power, both in the law and in other respects, has has has produced that gap and has produced that shift. You can blame us if we want and maybe maybe we could do a better job of chronicling that shift. But I think he's hit the nail on the head. Peter, something wrong? In my tone of my voice, because I wasn't aiming at a criticism of the media, I was saying that's what's going on in the economy. You're exactly right. And what I think is, is a request for the media to do more on my part is to investigate these causes. There's a lot of loose talk about technology and we know what the hell it means. Nobody asked very hard questions about what what policymakers mean when they say that

people say globalization, as if that's some kind of reason. No one's asking any hard questions so that when, for example, at the end of that, the publication of that series in The Times, which was again, excellent, the editorial page when they talked about what could be done, it was like nothing. And we get the same kind of response by almost every major institution, political, media, academic, I think can be done. We just scratch our heads and that's simply not the case. How is it possible that in the richest country in the world, we have to suffer declining living standards for 80 percent of our people and nothing can be done? Clinton, Clinton in Columbus, Ohio, you're on the air. Yes, you gentlemen seem to be. And the media in general seem to miss the point. The last comment that was made is really pertinent to what I have to say here. We have minimum wage making more than what most of the people in this country make in a week, and they make it one hour. Where is this money going? It's gone to the taxes.

We work six and a half months or, you know, about six, six and a half months for the government. That's why it takes two or three people to take and make a living, because we're paying for this monstrous government that produces nothing and is about three times bigger than the national product. Well, the show is on the media, but and we shouldn't get too far away from that. But we need we do need to clarify one thing here. The major shift in power and especially in money, 85 percent of that shift is before taxes. Well, let me. Only 15 percent is accountable by tax. When you're talking about being out of touch. I'd like to come back to the issue of the of the of the class item in the media that Ron Blackwell raised a moment ago. You know, the fact is that the media has changed. It is especially the media and the major media. And those are the ones who are doing most of this kind of coverage. How much importance do you attach to that? You know, Steve Franklin, I know you said earlier rather eloquently that it didn't matter that Chicago Tribune and the people who work there are working people, even though

they fit into Ron Blackwell's upper 20 percent, which I assume Ron Blackwell also fits into. Absolutely. Let me confess. So, Steve Franklin, what about, though, the larger issue of the fact that the media and I'm not talking about the owners, I'm talking about reporters in all are college educated. They're not blue collar. They don't live in blue collar areas. They don't really slug it out at the minimum wage level. How much difference does that make? And there's no question that's a problem. It's not just that. One of my biggest issues is that. The people who cover the the labor and everything else should be men and women, they should be they should be white yellow, they should be Latino, they should be Asian American. We don't have enough of that. And that's one of the problems that we run into. And that's part of our lack of sensitivity to the to the issue. But let me make a valid point. I I've been a reporter for over 25 years now, so I remember when newspapers didn't you didn't need a college degree and you didn't have to come from a well-educated background to get in. One of the advantages, however, of having better educated reporters who were more professional is that we can look at the story.

And so when a company tells us, well, you know, globalization is the reason we have to move to Mexico to pay 30 cents a day, we can challenge them. And I think it's a bit nostalgic and romantic to look back at the idea of newspapers being the equal employment opportunity place for anyone who walks in the door. We have a much more complex story to tell today, and you have to have the intelligence to tell that story. And I'm not saying you have to go to Harvard or southern Illinois to get there, but you need the education. And that's why I believe that that's part of the, you know, part of our middle class growth of our policies. Let me ask you, as a guy who covers the covers labor, do you think that there's going to be now with the growth of the power of labor, of organized labor? I mean, are there going to be is labor itself going to come under harder, harsher scrutiny? Is there going to be tougher kind of reporting about labor unions? Well, I think there is already. First off, just by the very fact that the Republicans are challenging, you're seeing that already. But I hope there would be because most you know, there is this this cut-throat approach. And most journalists say, what is the real story going on here? And if journalists are looking at how effective all the major unions are, they're going

to be questioning it. One of the problem in the past is that a lot of labor writers, like the people covered the police and city hall and the legislature were friends of the people that covid and they weren't critical enough. And they didn't look at the failure of this union to to why did they walk into the strike? And that's the real problem also of of of labor writers. We haven't questioned the approach of the leadership. Let me ask. We've got about 30 seconds left. Ron Blackwell, give us quickly, how do you expect labor coverage to evolve in the next few years? Well, I think the new administration of the AFL-CIO describes itself as the new voice of American working families. And I think that's exactly the way that we see ourselves. And if the press will pay attention to what's going on in the lives of working families, they're going to find the labor movement and they're going to find about what's best in the labor movement and what's what's vital about the labor movement. So I risk content with what we're going to how we're going to be treated institutionally by the press, although I do expect some hard attacks from our enemies on the right wing in this country.

That's going to have to be the final word on this subject for today. And I thank our guests, Stephen Franklin, labor reporter, the Chicago Tribune, Ron Blackwell, director of corporate affairs for the AFL-CIO, and Peter Kilbane, national correspondent for The New York Times. The producer for On the Media is Judith Hepburn Blank with associate producer Jennifer Nix and assistant producer Kavita Menin, production assistant Devora Clar. Our technical director is George Edwards with audio engineer George Willington. And thanks special thanks to Carol Freer for additional engineering help. From WBEZ in Chicago, I'm Alex Jones. If you have questions or comments about on the media, call one 800 three, four, three three three four two. Funding for on the media is provided by the Johns and James L. Knight Foundation, the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, the Edith and Henry

Everett Foundation, the WNYC Foundation and National Public Radio. This program is a production of WNYC New York Public Radio in association with the Poynter Institute for Media Studies at St. Petersburg, Florida. This is NPR National Public Radio.