Guest guest Posted August 30, 2004 Report Share Posted August 30, 2004 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. http://www.ilcaonline.org/modules.php?op=modload & name=News & file=article & sid=434 & \ 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.