Politico: Does the Media Care About Labor Anymore?

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/12/labor-coverage-decline-113320.html#.VIOuWTHF-20



With the middle class still down in the dumps, the beat’s more important than ever.
By TIMOTHY NOAH
December 04, 2014

Stteven Greenhouse, the labor correspondent for the New York Times, took a buyout this week. That decision immediately reduced by 50 percent the number of reporters at major U.S. newspapers who cover labor full-time—even as the dismal situation of the American worker becomes a central preoccupation for American politicians and policymakers.

To some extent, labor reporters are falling victim to the very same workplace trends they cover. “Newspapers are under the gun financially,” observes Greenhouse, “and they’ve laid off a lot of workers.” Editors, he said, don’t view labor as “the sexiest beat.”

Labor coverage’s decline—like that of labor unions—long predates print journalism’s circulation slide. At Newsweek, for instance, as long ago as 1985, covering labor was no more than an entry-level job. Bob Cohn (today president and chief operating officer at the Atlantic, then my fellow grunt at Newsweek) became labor and workplace correspondent at the tender age of 22. Back then, he and I would swap wisecracks about what a backwater the beat had become.

But by today’s standards, labor and workplace coverage was flooding the zone. “The 10 to 15 biggest newspapers all had labor writers,” Cohn recalls. “The newsmagazines all did.” Now, with Greenhouse’s departure from the Times, the only full-time labor reporter left at any of the big newspapers will be the Wall Street Journal’s Melanie Trottman.

FULL story at link.