The Media's Pro-Business Bias

A new report, "Journalists Give Workers Business," finds that "the media ignores ordinary workers and instead covers economic issues from the perspective of business." The analysis by David Madland, Director of the Center for American Progress' American Worker Project, looked at newspaper and television coverage of unemployment, minimum wage, trade, and credit card debt issues in 2007 and concluded that "the perspective of workers is largely missing from media coverage, while the views of business are frequently presented." A front page story in Wednesday's Washington Post, for instance, asked why Americans are "gloomier than the economy" but avoided talking to a single worker. The article failed to mention that incomes for most workers have declined since 2001, that health care and retirement benefits have become scarcer and more expensive, and that inequality has risen to unprecedented levels. As the report argues, this type of the coverage is the norm, not the exception. All too often the traditional media prefers "elite sources, such as government or business representatives, over ordinary citizens."
http://www.americanprogressaction.org/progressreport