On the website of the Newspaper Guild \u2014 the union that represents most major newspaper newsrooms in the United States \u2014a headline accompanied by a raised fist urges members to “Stand with Wisconsin.” Another report tells reporters “How to help the Wisconsin workers.” And a Guild Reporter story celebrates that “D.C. unionists mass 2,000 to show solidarity with Wisconsin workers.”<\/p>\n
In the Republicans vs. Big Labor standoff in Wisconsin, Big Media has taken a decidedly pro-labor tone. Even as newspapers frown on reporters joining the protesters, the Guild site offers an insight into how much today’s media sides with them. Today’s MSM is not only uniformly liberal \u2014 it is also one of the few American workplaces still unionized.<\/p>\n
As a result, the Mainstream Media has sided with Big Labor \u2014 representing just 13 percent of America \u2014 against the majority of Americans whose newly-elected representatives are trying to stem the sea of red ink caused by unsustainable union benefits.<\/p>\n
The Wisconsin battle highlights how out-of-touch union benefits have become in the public sector. “The showdown in Wisconsin over fringe benefits for public employees boils down to one number: 74.2,” writes Robert Costrell in the Wall Street Journal. “That’s how many cents the public pays Milwaukee public-school teachers and other employees for retirement and health benefits for every dollar they receive in salary. The corresponding rate for employees of private firms is 24.3 cents.”<\/p>\n
“Facing a $137 million budget deficit, (Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker) has decided to try to avoid laying off 5,500 state workers by proposing that they contribute 5.8 percent of their income towards their pensions and 12.6 percent towards health insurance,” reports John Fund in the same newspaper. “That’s roughly the national average for public pension payments, and it is less than half the national average of what government workers contribute to health care. Mr. Walker also wants to limit the power of public-employee unions to negotiate contracts and work rules \u2014 something that 24 states already limit or ban.”<\/p>\n
But you’ll have to go to the editorial page to find Costrell and Fund’s reporting.<\/p>\n
On American news pages, by contrast, reporters have largely taken up the Big Labor line that Wisconsin (and other state budget battles such as Michigan) are about fundamental worker rights.<\/p>\n
For example, under a front page headline, “Battle over union rights boils over,” The Detroit Free Press “news section” on Sunday editorialized that (Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s) decision to stay out of a growing national fight over whether public employees should be able to negotiate hours and benefits, go on strike and otherwise collectively bargain may be wiser than he knows.”<\/p>\n
The Freep’s accompanying “sidebar story” followed a union worker in Wisconsin with the headline: “‘Every worker has sacrificed more than enough.'”Readers of these stories will find nary a word on the outrageous benefits that public workers enjoy, the inherent problems that collective bargaining in the monopoly government market poses, or even the highly controversial move of Democratic state lawmakers to leave Wisconsin in order to throw a wrench in the democratic process.<\/p>\n
“Good evening. From the Mideast to the American Midwest tonight, people are rising up,” said NBC news anchor Brian Williams last week. “Citizens uprisings are changing the world. \u2026 Tonight, we’re going to begin in Wisconsin. The state capitol has been taken over by the people.”<\/p>\n
Media critic Bernie Goldberg – himself a onetime Big Media insider – took Williams and the rest of the media to task.<\/p>\n
“Surely Brian Williams understands that there are far more differences than similarities between the desperate protesters in Cairo and the middle class union workers in Wisconsin. But that didn’t stop him from making it sound like they were all in it together, somehow united to break the chains of their oppression.”<\/p>\n
Williams’ bias is typical of an MSM that reduces all labor disputes to civil rights stories. Like the debate over Obamacare, the MSM has abdicated its responsibility to report the news fairly. Obamacare, we are told, was about “health care rights” and now balancing state budgets is about “workers’ rights.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On the website of the Newspaper Guild \u2014 the union that represents most major newspaper newsrooms in the United States \u2014a headline accompanied by a raised fist urges members to “Stand with Wisconsin.” Another report tells reporters “How to help the Wisconsin workers.” And a Guild Reporter story celebrates that “D.C. unionists mass 2,000 to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,87],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6691"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6691"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6693,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6691\/revisions\/6693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}