A Media Blackout: Media Miss Story of Biggest Pay Cut in U.S. History

[Guest guest]

The people are consistently misled into voting against

themselves. The politicos are very good at doing it to

them and it has been going on for a long time. Maybe

the web will change some of that. F.

 

 

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mode=thread & order=0 & thold=0

 

A Media Blackout: Media Miss Story of Biggest Pay Cut

in U.S. History

 

Posted by : DavidSwanson on Friday, August 27, 2004

 

 

From ILCA Board and Staff By David Swanson, ILCA Media

Coordinator

 

Part of the Media Blackout series on underreported

labor stories

 

On August 23, the Bush Administration's Department of

Labor eliminated the right to time-and-a-half pay for

overtime work for millions of Americans in what

amounted to the biggest pay cut in American history.

The facts that should have made that statement a

headline in every paper in the country were easily

obtainable. Reporters had had months in which to

review the changes. Experts had written helpful

analyses. The specific ways in which various

categories of workers were being stripped of their

rights would have been no secret to a sixth grader

with internet access writing a report for school.

 

And if our national media couldn't take the time to

read the rule changes, the goals of the Department of

Labor and other parties involved had been made

abundantly clear. The DOL had published advice to

employers on how to avoid paying overtime. Both houses

of Congress had passed an amendment to prevent the new

changes from stripping workers of overtime pay, but a

conference committee under Republican leadership had

removed that measure. Business groups supported the

changes. Labor unions opposed them. And the Bush

Administration had spent four years building a solid

record of reducing worker rights and of lying about

its actions.

 

For the media to take seriously Bush Administration

claims that these changes would benefit workers would

require not only a strict avoidance of research, but

also the assumption that the administration was as

likely as workers' organizations to make honest claims

about what would help workers. Of course, the media

made this assumption, illustrating a fundamental

problem with contemporary journalism. Reporters

believe they cannot arbitrate between competing views

and that they must give extra deference to the

government. As a result, whether or not they do their

own research, they do not report on what they learn.

 

This was the lead of the AP story by Leigh Strope on

August 23: " Paychecks could surge or shrink for a few

or for millions of workers across the country starting

Monday, when sweeping changes to the nation's overtime

pay rules take effect. " What reader in the country was

wiser after reading that? The rest of the article was

no more enlightening, unless you've learned to read

between the lines. Strope betrayed no evidence of

having read the changes or of having drawn any

conclusions. To have done so would have strayed from

the ethic of " balanced reporting " in which two sides,

regardless of the evidence or their credibility, are

allowed to use the " unbiased " reporter as a

stenographer.

 

And it's not as if Strope didn't know who the players

were in this drama, having published the day before an

article that in its first two sentences did more than

almost any other to make clear what interests were at

stake – before moving on in the third sentence to the

traditional " balanced " approach:

 

" In an unprecedented overhaul of the nation's overtime

pay rules, the Bush administration is delivering to

its business allies an election-year plum they've

sought for decades. The new rules take effect Monday

after surviving many efforts by Democrats, labor

unions and worker advocates to block them in Congress

and kill them through public and political pressure.

The administration and business groups say the old

regulations were out of date and confusing, and were

sparking multimillion dollar lawsuits. The Labor

Department says no more than 107,000 workers will lose

overtime eligibility from the changes, but about 1.3

million will gain it. The Economic Policy Institute, a

liberal Washington think tank, says 6 million will

lose, and only a few will get new rights to premium

pay for working more than 40 hours a week. But no one

really knows. That makes the issue harder to demonize

politically, a benefit - or a problem - depending on

the side you take. "

 

What could be more even-handed and professional? It

just depends what side you take. And if the media

can't figure out which side is right, how should I

presume? That has to be the reaction many readers had

to articles like those bearing these headlines:

 

· " Overtime Law Clarification Is Hard to Figure " - San

Diego Union-Tribune

· " Labor Experts Disagree on What Overtime Overhaul

Will Mean " – Orlando Sentinel

· " Rules for Overtime Pay to Take Effect: Employers,

Workers Confused by Regulations on Eligibility,

Classification " - Washington Post

· " Unclear on Overtime Rules " - St. Petersburg Times

· " Overtime Changes Create Potential Minefield: Rules

Take Effect Tomorrow: New Regulations Expected to

Cause Some Confusion " - Seattle Times

· " Nobody Really Knows: Pay Confusion: Uncertainty

Lingers on Effect of New Overtime Rules " - Patriot

Ledger

· " New U.S. Overtime Rules in Effect: Bush

Administration Says the Change Makes More Workers

Eligible, But Opponents Say More Will Be Left Out " -

Los Angeles Times

· " Overdue Overtime Overhaul Is Overly Confusing " -

Lewiston Morning Tribune

 

Reading the articles that follow these headlines is an

experience not unlike reading the sports section.

There are always two competing sides, and they just

can't seem to agree. This is what the Tallahassee

Democrat told us, in a typical article: " Labor

department officials say the new rules will expand

overtime coverage to 1.3 million low-income workers.

But labor groups and other opponents charge the new

rules could result in at least 6 million people who

now get overtime being moved into classes of workers

not eligible for time-and-a-half pay. " (The Labor

Department always simply " says " things, while

" opponents " usually " charge " or " argue " or " claim. " )

 

Some coverage was worse than typical. The Austin

American-Statesman opened with this

mischaracterization: " New rules governing overtime pay

for white-collar workers go into effect today. " Here's

the lead from the Oklahoman: " A new study shows 17

categories of Oklahoma City employees will be eligible

for overtime under federal rules that take effect

today. "

 

Yet the Economic Policy Institute had explained in a

July report exactly how the rule changes would

eliminate the right to overtime for millions of white-

and blue-collar workers:

http://www.epinet.org/static/briefingpapers_bp152.htm.

And three former DOL officials who had served under

Reagan, Bush Sr., and Clinton had released a report in

July including very similar explanations:

http://www.aflcio.org/yourjobeconomy/overtimepay/upload/OvertimeStudyTextfinal.p\

df.

These weren't just claims, but detailed explanations.

Most of the media neither presented nor refuted them,

but simply cited their conclusions as " claims. "

 

Editors at the New York Times were able to recognize

the importance of these analyses and published an

admirable editorial on August 25, including this

sentence: " The administration goes so far as to say

that its changes will expand the pool of people

eligible for overtime, but research by liberal and

labor advocates PERSUASIVELY argue that the changes

would cut the number, by as many as 6 million. "

(emphasis added)

 

But editorials are where the media allow themselves to

occasionally admit that their government sources are

telling whoppers. The Times' article by Steven

Greenhouse on August 23 made no such admission.

Greenhouse simply gave both sides.

 

Greenhouse lacks neither intelligence nor familiarity

with the topic. It's impossible to believe he hasn't

formed some conclusion in his own mind. Yet, against

the enormous weight of evidence, he presents two camps

as equally worth listening to.

 

Is that a policy that benefits the public or merely

one that allows the Bush Administration to use the

media to deceive under the guise of " objectivity " ? If

our elected leaders can obtain a respectful 50 percent

of the media coverage by telling obvious lies, what

motivation do they have to tell the truth?

 

Variation in coverage of this issue came in articles

focused on businesses' struggles to comply with the

new rules and articles covering vice presidential

candidate John Edwards' campaigning. There were also

articles claiming certain state laws would protect

workers from the new changes. Typically these articles

admitted the destructive effects of the new rules but

claimed they wouldn't have any impact in some states –

an overly confident claim given states' tendency to

review their laws and conform them to federal

standards. Useful articles that conveyed to readers

what was being done to overtime protections were few

and far between, and almost all of them were labeled

" columns " rather than articles.

 

The Wichita Eagles' article was relatively

informative. The San Mateo County Times' wasn't bad.

The Hartford Courant published an excellent column

called " Selling Workers Snake Oil. " The author of the

EPI report had a good column printed in the Contra

Costa Times and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. AFL-CIO

President John Sweeney published a column in the

Charleston Gazette and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

The President of the New Hampshire AFL-CIO published a

column in the Manchester Union Leader. The Macon

Telegraph printed a column called " Stealth Attack on

Pay Rules. " And Cox News Service ran a column called

" Chutzpah and George Bush " that merits quoting:

 

" It will probably be years until the changes settle

and the outcomes are clear. But if you think this is

an administration that would set out to do workers a

great big favor and pester employers' bottom lines,

you ought to check your zip code. It may be time for

you to move back to Earth. "

 

But columns are framed as " opinion " , not " fact " . And

other columns expressed the opposing opinion.

 

 

 

On August 23, the AFL-CIO organized a rally outside

the DOL attended by two US senators. Strope from the

AP wrote an article that described the rally in detail

without substantively presenting the union's position

on the issue, but giving the administration's view of

the issue. The rally had become another opportunity to

present the administration's point of view.

 

Television coverage followed that same outline. ABC

World News Tonight showed union members yelling and

then included a sound bite from a Commerce Department

official who said " Most of their opposition is simply

political. Substantively there really is not that much

to complain about in this regulation. " CNN's Bill

Tucker showed a few seconds of the rally and then said

" But that's just the controversy, will it mean a pay

cut? Here's what the rule changes are…, " but he

omitted most of the changes. CBS MarketWatch gave

seven sentences to what the DOL " says " followed by one

on what labor " claims. " CBS Evening News presented the

DOL case, mentioned what " critics charge, " and then

aired two sound bites from the Heritage Foundation and

one from a management lawyer. NPR allowed some time to

a speaker from the National Employment Law Project,

but primarily pounded home again and again the notion

that the rule changes are too complicated to be

understood.

 

Fox News claimed: " [T]he people who will be affected

the most are those earning between $12,000 and $25,000

a year. They'll now be guaranteed mandatory overtime. "

Fox, to my knowledge, stood alone in claiming that so

many more workers were going to be paid more that

businesses were worried they would have to raise

prices.

 

Many media outlets did an excellent job of telling

this story, almost all of them labor and other

alternative media productions. On the

http://ILCAonline.org website are articles by Press

Associates Inc., the Union Advocate, the Newspaper

Guild of New York, and the AFL-CIO. TomPaine.com

published Sweeney's column, and countless other labor

papers and other alternative outlets published

excellent articles. Given the corporate media's

deference to government sources, the alternative media

is often the only place to turn for news, including

the story of the biggest pay cut in U.S. history.