By Federico Subervi –

As representatives of workers’ interests, labor organizations in the United States have had a long and complicated relationship with the corporate news media, according to academic research.

For decades, several authors have contended that unions receive scarce, and overwhelmingly negative coverage by diverse general market media (Martin, 2004; Puette, 1992; Bruno, 2009; Howard, 2002). They have also pointed to the media’s anti- labor discourse as one of the contributing factors for the gradual slide in public approval through the second half of the 20th century and into the first decades of the 21st century (Schmidt, 1993).

Two of the foremost scholars on media coverage of unions have condensed the collective findings of years of content analysis into a series of general, comprehensive “labor frames.” Puette (1992), as a conclusion to his work assessing how labor has been portrayed in a variety of national and local Hawaiian media—both enumerates eight “lenses” through which those media distort the audience’s perception of organized workers (p. 154):

1. Labor unions protect and encourage unproductive, usually fat, lazy and insubordinate workers.

2. America is unable to compete internationally in open markets because big, powerful unions have forced employers to pay exorbitant wages to unproductive workers.

3. Although some very poor and abused workers (particularly women and immigrants) may need to form unions to protect themselves, big international unions usually fail to represent the interests of such workers

4. Union leaders, because they do not come from the educated/cultured (privileged) classes, are more likely to be corrupted by the power they achieve than are business or political leaders.

5. Unions should be volunteer societies funded and led by unpaid professional staffs of selfless workers, and union dues should not be used to pay anyone’s salary.

6. There was a time, long ago, when unions were necessary (when some of our older friends and relatives were in the movement), but now things are different. Employers are enlightened and would not generally try to abuse their workers. In the few cases where they might, new federal laws (Fair Labor Standards Act, and the various civil rights acts, and the
Occupational Safety and Health Act) can provide reasonable protection against employer abuse.

7. Unions institutionalize conflict. Unions came into being to solve a specific labor relations problem. They solved the problem and instead of going away, they remain to dredge up conflict where there would otherwise be perfect harmony.

8. All unions are the same. All unions are, therefore, accountable for the corruption or excess of any one union or union leader and share the guilt or shame.

More recently, as a corollary to his analysis of a decade of union coverage in both print and national television news, Martin (2004) outlines five frames that delineate the boundaries of the mainstream media’s discourse on business and labor: (1) The consumer is king; (2) the process of production is none of the public’s business; (3) the economy is driven by great business leaders and entrepreneurs; (4) the workplace is a meritocracy; and (5) collective economic action is bad.

Martin argues that through the systematic deployment of consumption-centered news narratives of business and labor, the media limit the acceptable discourse on such complex topics to the concerns and views of consumers (and only as isolated individuals), and business elites, marginalizing the people and the processes behind the products and services.

In light of the above, in late spring 2012 the Communications Workers of America and The Newspaper Guild commissioned a study of the coverage of labor and labor issues in three years of national network television news outlets: ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN. The purpose of this effort was twofold: (1) to assess if and how during the most recent and contentious years of labor struggles, these particular national media outlets had presented such matters to the general American audiences; and (2) use the findings to consider recommendations for both labor and media that could contribute to improvements in coverage and public understanding of labor struggles and issues.

This summary report highlights the preliminary findings of an analysis of the coverage given to American unions and organized labor in general in evening television newscasts from three major U.S. broadcast networks and one cable news channel in the years 2008, 2009 and 2011.

Project funded by the Communications Workers of America & The Newspaper Guild

Prepared by Federico Subervi, Ph.D.
Professor & Director of the Center for the Study of Latino Media & Markets
School of Journalism & Mass Communication, Texas State University @ subervi@txstate.edu.