Examples of Bias

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Author’s Note: My special appreciation for the contributions of Eric Smith and Kat McClellan, who were both graduate students at the University of Illinois at Chicago at the time the study was conducted, and to Jennifer Schneidman for her contributions to the analysis.

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Evidence of Bias in the Chicago Tribune Coverage of Organized Labor A Quantitative Study from 1991 to 2001 Robert Bruno University of Illinois

Labor leaders contend newspaper coverage of unions is unjustifiably negative and is usually fixated on conflict and corruption. While this attitude is broadly shared across the union spectrum, there has been little actual objective analysis of labor news report- ing to substantiate or discredit the common belief. In an attempt to assess the accuracy of labor’s claim, a ten-year content analysis of industrial relations coverage in the Chicago Tribune was conducted. Unlike conventional media studies of organized labor, the Tribune analysis is an attempt to define and quantify the “tone” of news coverage on the basis of multiple content variables.

Keywords: labor union; organized labor; labor organization; labor movement; media analysis; media bias

Over the past three decades, organized labor has grown decidedly more troubledabout the quality of coverage it receives from daily commercial newspapers. From an earlier twentieth-century period when newspaper reporters dedicated their investigative and journalistic careers writing about unions, to the contemporary near disappearance of the newspaper “labor beat,” labor reporting has undergone a dra- matic de-emphasis (Serrin 1992). Accompanying a reduction in the importance of labor relations news has been a general claim that the print media have not done a fair and balanced job in characterizing the behavior of organized labor (Martin 2004; Solomon 2002; Parenti 1993; Puette 1992; Hoynes 1994; Tasini 1990). Labor leaders contend and research has found that too often, newspaper coverage of unions is unjustifiably negative and is usually fixated on conflict and corruption (Meister 2002; Flynn 2000; Oshagan and Martin 1999; Erickson and Mitchell 1996; Jarley and Kuruvilla 1994; Schmidt 1993; Mort 1992; Walsh 1988; Coulson 1980; Hartmann 1975). The heavy emphasis on conflict reporting is suggestive of the 1930s to 1940s’

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discredited newspaper practice of overtly siding with employers during labor dis- putes by conducting what amounted to “scientific strikebreaking” (Tracy 2001, 299). While there have been many qualitative analyses of the media, quantitative studies have been more difficult to find, and hard data on labor coverage in the media are even scarcer.1

In an attempt to assess the accuracy of labor’s claim that it gets bad press, a study of industrial relations coverage in the Chicago Tribune was conducted. The study examined press accounts of industrial relations events and subjected each story to a quantitative multivariable content analysis. Before describing the nature of the study, it is important to note that I did not attempt to measure any trends in labor coverage. It was not the author’s intention to suggest that labor reporting had become more or less good or bad but simply to test organized labor’s belief that it is not fairly treated by the press. What follows therefore is a descriptive assessment of news coverage over a designated time period.

The study also offers no comparisons of the Tribune with other major city dailies. Ideally, such comparisons would have better established that the Tribune is either broadly representative of labor news coverage or an abnormality in the industry. While the study’s generalizability would have been enhanced by including more papers, the Chicago Tribune was selected for a single case assessment because its editorializing on labor relations has routinely communicated a hostile point of view and its assaults on organized labor have a long pedigree.2

As a single case, the Tribune is also worth assessing because it is one of only two daily mass circulation papers in one of the most unionized large cities in the coun- try.3 Additionally, Chicago has a long labor history and lays claim to having more number one chartered union locals than any other American city.4 Finally, the paper is a critical holding of a large news media conglomerate, the Tribune Company.5

Thus, in assessing the labor reportage of one of the company’s holdings, the study is targeting a media entity with sizeable public reach. In short, before embarking on a more extensive examination of print media, the author decided to first determine if organized labor’s concerns about reporting bias were substantive when leveled against a notorious anti-union employer.

The question of the validity of labor’s charge against the editorial and reporting practices of the newspaper industry is critically important to how citizens and partic- ularly nonorganized workers view labor unions and the modern workplace. While annual Gallup Polls taken since 1936 have found that at least 55 percent of the public has approved of labor unions (Cornfield 1999), union leaders contend that their efforts to organize new workers, negotiate better agreements, and win strikes are handicapped by a lack of balanced news reporting. Labor officials may be reacting to polls like those taken by the National Opinion Research Center that have consis- tently ranked labor unions near or at the bottom of a list of institutions the public has a “great deal of confidence in” (Powers, Rotham, and Rotham 1996, 66).

The importance of accurately assessing media bias is heightened by the realiza- tion that labor reporting in the last three or four decades has been influenced by the changing demographics of who is writing the stories. Increasingly, reporters come from and live within a middle-class, well-educated social milieu. This is in contrast to the “high working class activity” that James Fallows (1996, 75) claims defined journalism until about the middle 1960s. Fallows quotes longtime Washington Post correspondent Richard Harwood, explaining that before the mass consumption of television programming, “reporters regarded themselves as working class” (p. 76). But by 1980, according to Fallows, journalism had undergone a “status revolution,” bringing higher pay and celebrity credentials to newspaper and television press corps. At a Committee of Concerned Journalists forum, New York Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez (2002) noted that there is a “class divide between those who produce news and information and those who receive it” and that a “class bias” in news cover- age treats working-class Americans as if they were “less important in society” (p. 5). Gonzalez was adamant that “there’s a class unconscious and sometimes conscious bias toward working Americans in the mass media” (p. 6).

For the purposes of constructing the Tribune study, the most influential previous scholarship was John T. Woolley’s (2000) article titled “Using Media-Based Data in Studies of Politics.” Woolley’s work summarized earlier media studies and the con- texts in which that research was undertaken. He noted that a “new cynicism” might explain the focus on the negative reporting aspects of organized labor. While this cynicism has many sources, it has in part fostered and then reinforced persistently poor labor coverage. But Woolley’s principal finding is that “in studies of media focus, the variable of interest is media attention per unit of time—number of stories, number of column inches, amount of television time—per month or year” (p. 161). In the study described below, Woolley’s basic elemental structure was utilized to construct a field of quantifiable variables.

The article is divided into three sections. After an explanation of the Tribune study methodology, section 2 includes the study findings. In the Conclusion, the author discusses recommendations about further research and some concerns about the quality of union public relations’ efforts.

Study Methodology

In the summer of 2001, a research team conducted an independent media analysis of the Chicago Tribune’s coverage of organized labor. The study was designed and implemented by the team, and it was responsible for all interpretations and findings. Using the Chicago Tribune’s electronic archival database and the NewsBank World News Service, we conducted a ten-year retrospective search from July 1, 1991, to June 31, 2001, of Tribune newspaper articles. Collecting articles was done in two stages. Initially, full articles that deployed the word “labor” or “union” in the title or

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that included the keyword phrases “labor union,” “organized labor,” “labor organiza- tion,” “labor movement,” and “union” in the body of the story were downloaded and examined. A preliminary word search identified 520 possible labor articles. After a close reading of each article by the author, 134 were rejected as inappropriate, leav- ing a useable database of 386 news stories. A second search was then done to con- centrate on the high-profile labor-management stories that developed principally within the farm equipment and sugar processing industries in central Illinois. The items searched were associated with the biggest labor-management stories in Illinois during the period analyzed. Utilizing the phrases “Caterpillar-UAW” and “Staley,” an additional 166 appropriate stories were identified for a total of 552. Items were excluded from the study if they were not about or made no reference to American unions, union members, and union leaders or if they made no actual reference to union activity within the context of labor relations.

Variables and Scoring

For each of the articles, the following six demographic variables were recorded: date, author, title, section, page number, and word count. While these items reflected editing decisions that defined the importance of the respective article in the minds of the editors, they were not considered appropriate variables to include in determining whether the stories were “positive,” “negative,” or “neutral.” However, the authors did subject each of these variables to a separate analysis. Unfortunately, due to the limi- tations of collecting the data from an electronic news service, section (with a couple of exceptions) and page number proved impossible to accurately discern.

In addition to the above items, six substantive variables were also selected to measure the character of each news story. These variables included the story lead, content frame, labor signifiers, information sources, internal agency, and external agency. A brief description of each variable follows.

The story lead is customarily presented within the first two paragraphs of the piece but often appears in the first sentence. It typically signifies the thesis or most impor- tant point of the article and provides a guidepost to the reader for what is to follow. The lead was assessed according to how it appeared to characterize labor’s activity in the story. A positive, negative, or neutral score was then assigned to this variable.

While the content of a story identifies the subject of the story and informs the reader what the article is literally about (i.e., a union election, a labor personality, a strike, etc.), study examiners did not assign values to articles based on a predeter- mined understanding of what constituted positive, negative, and neutral content. For example, labor agreements are typically defined as positive, while strikes and union corruption are viewed as negative. However, the mere identification of a story’s con- tent does not suggest a bias. Therefore, only after the researchers read the articles did they assign positive, negative, or neutral scores to each piece based on a subjective interpretation of the way the writer framed the content. For example, if an ostensibly

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negative story line about union corruption is presented from the perspective of how rare actual criminal behavior is within the labor movement, then a positive score is assigned to the content frame variable.

Labor signifiers are adjectives used to describe labor unions, labor activity, or labor leaders. Common examples of such signifiers appearing in news coverage of union activity are “labor bosses,” “Big Labor,” and “protecting workers.” Each article was screened for the use of descriptive words or phrases, and the identified signifiers were determined to be positive or negative. The signifiers were then separately added up into positive and negative categories. Based on the cumulative totals, a positive or negative score was assigned. If, however, no signifiers appeared in the story, or if the positive and negative ones were equal, a neutral score was awarded. It is impor- tant to note that a “negative” score did not necessarily mean untruthful or inaccurate reporting. The assignment of “negative” or “positive” scores to descriptive language was done to reflect how a reporter’s word choice characterized typically complicated real-life situations.

Information sources refer to citations within the story from “labor,” “business,” and/or “other” individuals. Article sources were simply scored numerically, and the variable was evaluated as positive or negative depending on the number of labor ver- sus other sources that were used. More union sources than other sources generated a positive score, an equal number of union and nonunion sources would be scored as neutral, and fewer or no union sources would produce a negative score.

Internal and external agency are both variables intended to account for the use of “active” and “passive” voice within the article. The study assessed whether journal- ists referred to labor events as simply happening or to conditions faced by workers without describing what created those events or conditions. Internal agency measured whether the newspaper story credited organized labor for a particular outcome (good or bad). If, for example, the article credited labor with a positive outcome, then internal agency was recorded as positive.

External agency, on the other hand, referred to an agent (i.e., the employer or gov- ernment) outside of the labor movement responsible for a reported condition or event (good or bad). The author contends that external agency is an important item because it provides the reader with additional information about the article’s course of events. Thus, if no external agent was identified, the variable was scored negatively. If, however, an external agent was identified, a positive or negative score was assigned on the bases of how the agent’s actions were described.

As previously noted, the team members separately read all of the articles in the data set and independently measured each variable. For each article, a qualitative and quantitative analysis was used to measure every variable. Quantitatively, positive (+), negative (–), or neutral (0) values were assigned to each of the six assessment vari- ables. Each article was then assigned a final cumulative “tone quotient” by adding the negative and positive scores and multiplying that sign (i.e., + or –) by a “weight” (i.e., points) given to each article. It was the examiners’ judgment that longer articles

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would amplify and shorter articles would diminish any of the issues that the jour- nalist focused on. Articles were weighted according to the following word scale: over 1,500 = 6 points, 1,499 to 1,000 = 5 points, 999 to 500 = 4 points, 499 to 250 = 3 points, 249 to 100 = 2 points, and 99 to 1 = 1 point.

The content analysis was performed by the author and two additional readers. Each of us coded both manifest content information (e.g., the number of union sources) and latent content information (e.g., the content frame). Readers familiarized themselves with the labor media coverage literature referenced in this study, and preparatory sessions were held to establish a baseline of understanding as to how to evaluate each article. We adopted a simple percentage approach to determine how a variable was ultimately scored. After separately analyzing each article, readers’ scores were compared, and they had to be in complete agreement (100 percent) as to whether a variable was finally coded “positive” (1) or “negative” (0). In cases where disso- nance on a particular variable (i.e., at least one coder disagreed) could not be harmo- nized, the variable was assigned a “neutral” score. Although using percentages can overstate intercoder agreement, in this case, instead of measuring a sample of units, every variable in every article was coded by three readers, and 100 percent agreement was necessary before a final score was assigned. Final weighted tone quotients ranged on a duo axis-scale from –36 to +36 and reflected both the article’s direction and the strength of its direction. While interpretive judgment cannot be avoided, the authors added this numeric dimension to the methodology in order to determine whether a particular story has a “positive,” “negative,” or “neutral” tone. Together, of course, the sign and numerical score did not elucidate any information about the article’s specific biases. However, the individual variables and cumulative scores of the examined articles did make it possible for us to genuinely report a quantitative trend in the Tribune’s overall labor coverage.

One final important note about the Tribune study is that it diverges from conven- tional media analysis in not limiting its focus to one or more major labor relations’ cases. Past studies have privileged stories with a national audience (Christen, Kannaovakun, and Gunther, 2002). While the high visibility of certain labor relations events made them obvious targets for media analysis, too often, midsize, small, and unexceptional stories flew under the analysis radar. In order then to do a comprehen- sive analysis of how a particular media source covers the subject of organized labor, this study created and examined a database of published local and national stories.

Study Findings

No News Is Good News

An analysis of Tribune news coverage of organized labor from July 1, 1991, to June 31, 2001, reveals that there is surprisingly little of it to analyze. For the time

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period studied, the electronic archives produced only 552 labor union–related cases, averaging 55.2 stories per year. At first impression, the number of stories raised the question of the reliability of the electronic databases. A discussion with reporters from the Tribune suggested that they had filed many more stories on the workplace than indicated in this study. The discrepancy, however, is best explained by distin- guishing workplace stories from union or industrial relations articles. While an unde- termined number of “working” articles may have been written, only pieces with a clearly defined union or labor-management focus were included in the study. Additionally, assuming that the Tribune did not publish more than one union story per week (a fair assumption according to Chicago observers) for the time assessed, the average of approximately 55 stories is not too far off from the forty-eight cases that might be expected.

It is of course possible that the word search was not inclusive enough to pick up all available stories. But as Miller and Riechart (1994) have pointed out, only when addressing complex issues that embody diverse viewpoints is an a priori decision problematic as to what themes might be identified by the news media and how they might be covered. While the Tribune may have chosen to cover a multitude of labor- related stories, content analysis on union activity is very likely to pivot around a relatively small number of keywords. Also, even if the databases and word search were faulty, there is no reason to assume or any evidence that it was faulty in a way that undercounts “positive” stories.

Allowing, therefore, for a degree of inefficiencies in the database, the unexpect- edly low number of labor relations and union stories raises questions of journalistic judgment. While the Tribune assessment did not compare labor relations accounts with other types of news coverage (i.e., human interest, political events, economic conditions, and scandals), the sheer volume of unionized economic, political, and community activity in the city of Chicago alone should have garnered considerably more labor press coverage than occurred. Thus, an initial study finding is that the Tribune has largely ignored organized labor.

However, disregard for labor relations is not without consequence. The Tribune’s meager attention to workplace relations places added value on the substance of those stories that do get written. An examination of the cases reported revealed that 56.7 percent of the stories were negative, while slightly more than a third (36.4 percent) were positive (see Table 1). Negative stories outpaced positive ones for every year of the study with two significant exceptions.6 In 1996 and 2000, there were more pos- itive stories than negative articles (see Table 2). The years 1996 and 2000 are note- worthy because they occur in the post–AFL-CIO national leadership change period.7

After the election of John Sweeney to the AFL-CIO’s presidency in October of 1995, the Tribune’s press coverage underwent a discernable shift. In the pre-Sweeny period (August 1991 through September 1995) covering forty-nine months, only 28.2 per- cent of the stories were positive. But in the seventy-one months covered after Sweeney’s election (October 1995 through August 2001), there were 39.3 percent

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positive articles printed. The more affirming reporting has not, however, increased labor’s visibility. Prior to the AFL-CIO’s leadership transition, the Tribune printed 5.6 labor union–related stories per month. But in the period that followed, the number of articles actually decreased to 3.9 a month. It seems that as the Tribune’s labor reporting became slightly more positive, its coverage of industrial relations activity also occurred less often.

Story Leads and Content Frames

Despite the paper’s unmistakably negative in toto reporting tendencies, readers were not often aware of the nature of the coverage until they read beyond the lead paragraph. While most “story leads” were negative (50.4 percent), there were enough positive (41.1 percent) and neutral (8.5 percent) opening sentences to suggest a more balanced overall record. However, the same cannot be said for how the paper “framed” the content. In 63 percent of the cases, the author framed the subject in a negative light, as opposed to 28 percent in a positive way.

This discrepancy between “story leads” and “framing” may come as a surprise to most observers. It would be normal to expect that a story that begins on a positive note would likely finish on one. However, in a small number of cases, the opposite happened. Approximately thirty Tribune stories began with either a neutral or posi- tive reference to some labor activity and then sharply shifted to a more critical

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Table 1 Cumulative Breakdown of Chicago Tribune Labor

Coverage (N == 552), 1991–2001

Direction Number Percentage

Negative 313 56.7 Positive 201 36.4 Neutral 38 6.8 Total 552 100.0

Table 2 Comparison of Labor Stories Pre- and Post-Sweeney Election

Number Number Stories Percentage Percentage Time Period of Months of Stories per Month Positive Negative

August 1991 through 49 275 5.6 28.2 62.5 September 1995

October 1995 through 71 277 3.9 39.3 50.4 August 2001

approach. This contrary effect also occurred roughly the same number of times in the opposite direction (i.e., negative to positive). While the number of these cases (11.7 percent) is minor, it does suggest that the Tribune’s opening paragraphs were not a perfect barometer of a story’s tone.

Contrary expectations aside, news reporting, which cumulatively portrayed union behavior in an unattractive fashion, is actually more balanced then the paper’s edi- torializing. During the time frame studied, there were seven editorials and thirteen opinion pieces published in the first section of the paper about a labor-related issue. In all but one case, the editors’ and authors’ point of view was strongly critical (i.e., negative) of union behavior.

Content Type

Deconstructing the data by content type demonstrated a preponderance of stories dealing with work disputes. Consistent with other media studies of labor relations coverage, our analysis reveals that the Tribune prioritized conflict as a subject over other content types. Over a third (37.8 percent) of all cases were about strikes, lock- outs, and assorted “labor disputes” (see Table 3).

By comparison, stories about productive negotiations and the settlement of labor relations disputes accounted for only 16.6 percent of all cases. A further breakdown of the data reveals that labor dispute cases alone accounted for more negative stories than all other negative types combined (see Table 4). In addition, despite the signifi- cantly higher number of negative stories, the mean value for a positive story was nearly identical (+13.7) to that for a negative story (–13.4) (see Table 5).

It may seem odd that although the Tribune published many fewer positive stories than negative, its positive labor coverage had the same mean value as its negative coverage. However, a closer examination of the types of positive stories suggests that the equivalency is not an anomaly and ironically may further support labor’s bias charge (see Table 6). By a wide margin, positive ratings occur most often for “labor agreements” and “contract talks.” Stories about how collective bargaining worked (or was working) successfully accounted for 34.8 percent of all positive stories. No other positive content type amounted to even half as many cases. By prioritizing labor agreements, the Chicago paper implies that when labor is acting affirmatively, it is reasonable, compromising, statesmen-like, and most importantly, not uncooper- ative or militant.

It is unquestionably in the interest of the labor movement to publicize the far more common occasions in which workplace agreements are peacefully reached. However, the effect of the Tribune’s decision to give wider positive coverage to con- tract settlements than other story content is not benign. As indicated in Table 6, there were only seventeen and sixteen positive cases, respectively, of union “political behavior” and union “organizing” and less than one story a year on the role of unions in “improving working conditions.” Now imagine the characterization of the labor

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Table 3 Chicago Tribune Labor Coverage by Content Type, 1991–2001

Content Type Number Percentage

Labor disputes 209 37.8 Labor agreements 68 12.3 Labor and politics 62 11.2 Labor and legal affairs 36 6.5 State of labor (overview) 30 5.4 Contract talks 24 4.3 Union corruption 18 3.2 Union organizing 16 2.8 Labor leader profiles 13 2.7 Labor and trade issues 14 2.5 Miscellaneous 12 2.1 Labor’s economic impact 10 1.8 Labor and community coalitions 9 1.6 Working conditions 7 1.2 Labor Day history 5 0.9 Unions, gender, and race 5 0.9 Rank-and-file profiles 6 0.7 Labor and immigration 4 0.7 Labor-management partnership 4 0.7 Total 552 100.0

Table 4 Chicago Tribune Negative Labor Stories by Content Type, 1991–2001

Content Type Number Percentage

Labor disputes 169 53.9 Labor and politics 35 11.1 State of labor 24 10.7 Union corruption 18 7.6 Labor and legal affairs 13 4.1 Contract talks 13 4.1 Economic impact 10 3.1 Miscellaneous 7 2.8 Labor agreements 9 2.8 Labor and trade issues 5 1.5 Unions, gender, and race 4 1.2 Labor profile 6 1.2 Total 313 100.0

movement proffered by the Tribune if it had given wider coverage to successful orga- nizing drives or to the effectiveness of unions to act on behalf of their members’ political interests. How would labor’s public image be altered if readers were reminded of the healthier and safer workplaces brought to the community by the labor movement?

In addition, there was a much larger range of positive content types than negative. Positive stories were divided among thirteen different content types, and negative cases were categorized into eight separate types. While identifying more positive con- tent subjects than negative appears to portray the many-sided goodness of the union

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Table 5 Normative Scores of Chicago Tribune Labor Stories, 1991–2001

Percentage

Score Positive Negative

1–5 19.6 18.3 6–10 23.8 25.8 11–15 21.2 21.7 16–20 22.2 26.1 21–25 9.3 5.7 26–30 2.5 1.3 31–36 1.0 0.6 Mean value 13.7 13.4

Table 6 Positive Stories in Chicago Tribune Labor Coverage, 1991–2001

Content Type Number Percentage

Labor agreements/contract talks 70 34.8 Labor and legal affairs 23 11.4 Labor disputes 22 10.9 Labor and politics 17 8.4 Union organizing 16 7.9 Labor leader profiles 11 5.4 Labor and trade issues 8 3.9 Working conditions 6 2.9 State of labor 6 2.9 Labor and coalitions 6 2.9 Labor Day history 5 2.4 Rank-and-file profiles 5 2.4 Labor and immigration 3 1.4 Labor-management partnerships 3 1.4 Total 201 100.0

movement, the scant number of articles within this content range has troubling impli- cations for how labor’s public image is shaped. The Tribune’s “bundling” of negative stories has the effect of raising the profile of the most dominant negative story (i.e., disputes) and also consistently defines a set of union “negatives” for the reader. The message to the reader is that labor is definitively flawed for the reasons consis- tently addressed. Positive content, however, has a much more random, occasional, and uncharacteristic quality. The reader is left with the impression that while there are good things about some unions, there are few positive elements that are institutional, broadly shared, or genuinely characteristic of the labor movement.

An examination of story content also included delineation by industry. Driven predominately by a long-running labor relations struggle between Caterpillar Inc. and the United Autoworkers Union, the tumultuous multiyear trinity of manufacturing disputes that rocked Illinois’s farm equipment (Caterpillar), rubber (Bridgestone- Firestone), and food processing (A.E. Staley) industries accounted for 171 stories (see Table 7).8 Not only did the troika of stories represent 41.3 percent of all the stories that could be grouped by industry, but the infamously named “War Zone” dispatches ubiquitously appeared in every year of the study between 1991 and 1998.9

Unfortunately, the extensive coverage did not serve to improve central Illinois’s labor image with the Tribune’s readership; an overwhelming proportion (62.5 percent) of articles were given a negative score.

Surprisingly, the industry receiving the second most prominent coverage by the Tribune was professional sports. The Sports section offered up forty-three cases, with a large majority focused on work stoppages in major league baseball (58.1 percent) and a smaller proportion (25.5 percent) on labor disputes in professional basketball (see Table 8). Despite being widely covered, however, union athletes fared consid- erably worse in the Tribune’s portrayal than other union members working in less glamorous occupational fields. While no industry’s labor organization fared well, 79 percent of labor-sports stories generated a negative tone. The significance of the paper’s relative intensive and unflattering sports-based labor coverage is multidimen- sional. First, the Tribune Company is an owner of a professional sports franchise, the hometown Chicago Cubs. As a consequence, the paper has an employment relationship with the unionized sports workers it covers. And in the case of the Cubs, the Tribune Company is confronted with arguably the country’s strongest union, the professional Baseball Players Association that staged two work stoppages during the time period of the study.

Second, the paper has dedicated an increasing number of staff and resources to its Sports section in an effort to compete with city newspaper rival the Sun-Times. The Tribune maintains an editorial sports staff of more than sixty people compared to no more than forty at the Sun-Times, and like most papers, nearly a quarter of the Tribune’s editorial space is dedicated to sports coverage (McCormick 2002). A study done in 1997 by the Committee of Concerned Journalists indicated that newspapers were dedicating a smaller proportion of resources to straight news stories. The expansion

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of sports coverage without a corresponding increase in the amount of column inches dedicated to conventional news means that athletics has become relatively more important in attracting advertisers and readers. It also means that the Sports section serves as the principal vehicle for educating the public about organized labor and industrial relations. Third, the very high profile and labor market uniqueness of

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Table 7 Identification of Chicago Tribune Labor Coverage by Industry, 1991–2001

Industry Number Percentage

Farm equipment 149 36.1 Sports 43 10.4 Municipal/county/state 32 8.4 Auto 26 6.3 Airline 24 5.8 Transportation 16 3.8 Tourism 16 3.8 Food processing 13 3.1 Teaching 13 3.1 Health care 13 3.1 Rubber 9 2.1 Entertainment 8 1.9 Utilities 7 1.6 Textiles 7 1.6 Newspaper 6 1.4 Communications 6 1.4 Construction trades 5 1.2 Steel 5 1.2 Service 4 1.5 Miscellaneous manufacturing 4 0.9 Broadcast 3 0.7 Food and restaurant 2 0.4 Brokerage 1 0.2 Total 412 100.0

Table 8 Listing of Sports Stories in Chicago Tribune Labor Coverage, 1991–2001

Sports (by Professional League) Number Percentage

Major League Baseball 25 58.1 National Basketball Association 11 25.5 National Football League 3 6.9 Other 4 9.3 Total 43 100.0

professional athletes makes them particularly unrepresentative examples of how unionism works for the vast majority of working men and women.

The only exception to the paper’s negative labor coverage of particular industries was reserved for public-sector workers. Slightly more than half (53.1 percent) of sto- ries about municipal, county, and state labor relations were positive. This anomaly is perhaps best explained by noting the preponderance of short pieces focusing on police and fire unions and their respective public employers. Many of the uniformed person- nel stories were characterized by straightforward reporting of moments of employer- employee cooperation (i.e., contract signed) or incidents of labor success (i.e., new unit organized or a positive state labor relations board ruling). However, most of the coverage of county and state office employees accentuated points of disagreement (i.e., contract demands) with their public-sector heads. In biasing their public-sector labor relations reporting by occupational type, the paper subtly advanced a segmented anti-union message. Police and firefighters, for instance, are portrayed as good workers and reasonable union members. But clerical employees, for example, at the Cook County courthouse are characterized as unworthy employees and irresponsible union members. Covering labor in this bipolar manner only feeds the public’s well- chronicled general unhappiness with public bureaucracy and those workers supported by tax dollars.

A review of positive story content also highlights the important absence of any productive role for organized labor in the city of Chicago’s economy. The study did not reveal a single story that acknowledged the labor movement’s contribution to the city’s well-publicized 1990s economic prosperity. A reader of Tribune industrial relations and business news would be unable to identify, for example, the Chicago Federation of Labor as a major partner with the city’s Chamber of Commerce and municipal leadership in creating economic opportunity. Labor’s efforts as an eco- nomic engine are a notable exception to the Tribune’s otherwise positive coverage of labor-management cooperation events.

Finally, it is worth noting that the time frame of this study also included the very public and contentious debate over Congress’ consideration of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and fast-track trade authority legislation. Public discussion about “free” trade legislation typically focused on what the net effect would be on the nation’s manufacturing job base. Prior to the 1993 congressional vote on NAFTA, the issue had particular salience in Illinois, and once the trade bill was imple- mented, local complaints about job loss escalated. According to estimates based on applications for government trade assistance, as of April 2002, approximately 11,734 Illinois jobs have been permanently lost as a direct result of NAFTA.10

Prior to and shortly after the vote, the paper ran five stories about the NAFTA debate, including three under the following critical headlines: “Labor Plain Wrong on NAFTA,” “Clinton Attacks Labor on NAFTA,” and “Labor Lost But Showed Muscle.”11 The volume of job loss should have provided the Tribune with plenty of additional manufacturing storylines to pursue. However, despite the importance

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of NAFTA on Illinois’s economy, from 1993 until July 2001, the paper published only a single story about the bill’s devastating economic impact on the state’s manu- facturing base.12

Word Length

Examining the average story’s word length further reveals the Tribune’s tepid acknowledgement of positive labor events. A comparison of the top positive (i.e., con- tract talks and agreements) and negative (i.e., labor disputes) stories reveals that the average negative story is nearly one and a half times longer. Articles about labor dis- putes weighed in at an average of 647 words, while labor agreement pieces tipped the scale on average at a much leaner 355 words. The longest labor agreement/contract talk story reached 1,424 words. In addition, there were only twenty agreement/ contract talk stories over 600 words, while there were thirty-seven labor disputes stories over 1,000 words alone (see Table 9). The single longest story in the study at 3,630 words was a negative one published about a labor dispute on September 9, 1992, under the sobering headline “Caterpillar Strikers Face the Bitter Truth.”

The spatial imbalance is further realized by noting that 78.3 percent of all labor agreements stories were written with less than 600 words, but 72.3 percent of labor disputes exceeded 600 words. Story length of course is not inherently predictive of how the author has framed the coverage. But to the degree that it is reasonable to interpret column inches and the number of characters as a sign of the story’s importance to the editors, then the far larger negative stories are clearly more important to the Tribune’s coverage of organized labor than union image building, positive cases.

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Table 9 Word Length of Chicago Tribune “Labor Agreements”

and “Labor Disputes” Stories, 1991–2001

Number

Word Length Agreements Disputes

3,999–3,000 0 1 2,999–2,000 0 3 1,999–1,000 3 33 999–900 1 19 899–800 4 29 799–700 4 40 699–600 8 27 599 and less 72 60 Percentage above 600 21.7 72.3 Mean 355 647

Labor Signifiers

Along with article size, the tone of Tribune labor reporting can also be deduced from an analysis of the labor signifiers (i.e., descriptive language) used to characterize labor leaders, the labor movement, unions, union workers, and union activity. Here the Tribune’s reporting is as unambiguous as it is resoundingly negative. A numerical accounting of the words used to signify labor identified 77.8 percent (n = 426) as negative descriptors. Out of 552 stories examined, only 121 positive adjectives could be found about labor leaders, the labor movement, unions, and union activity (see Table 10a).

The Tribune negatively branded organized labor in large and short stories. A nearly 3,000-word story about the United Autoworkers Union–Caterpillar struggle referred to “big labor” and labor unions “lacking vision.”13 In a very sparse 148-word article announcing the end of the United Autoworkers Union–Caterpillar strike, union workers were described as “betrayed,” “depressed,” and “exhausted.”14 Now workers likely were “exhausted,” and some may have been “depressed” and felt “betrayed.” But it is also possible that some of the striking workers could have been described as “proud,” “courageous,” and “loyal.” Given the overwhelming disparity in descriptive language, it is not surprising that even in positive stories, a fair number of negative signifying occurred. For instance, in positive stories about labor agree- ments, roughly 41 percent of the descriptive language about organized labor was negative. The Tribune, however, was not as generous in the cases of negative stories. In articles dealing with labor disputes, 95.3 percent of all signifying language was negative.

Overall, 52.7 percent of all stories (n = 291) included a discernable labor signi- fier, and in 89 percent (n = 259) of these pieces, a negative descriptor was used. By comparison, positive descriptors occurred in only 39.5 percent (n = 115) of the cases. While the overwhelming number of pieces included only one type of signifier, in a small number of articles (n = 35), a positive and negative signifier both appeared. When this occurred, however, negative language examples (n = 17) far exceeded positive (n = 1) references (see Table 10b).

Story Sources and Authors

Consistent with other media studies of labor coverage, our analysis included a record of the use of identifiable sources in individual stories. In this instance, the Tribune does appear to give equal weight to both labor and nonlabor voices (i.e., man- agement, company representatives, government officials, industry experts). Only a little more than half (51.2 percent) of all sources were of the nonlabor variety (see Table 11a).

Additionally, in stories where union and nonunion sources appeared, a little more than a third (35.6 percent) of them had equal numbers of both types of sources.

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However, in 52.7 percent (n = 291) of the stories, no union source was cited (see Table 11b). The end result is that labor’s important role as a public educator on industrial relations subjects becomes minimized while managerial opinions and exper- tise are elevated.

Internal and External Agency

The study also assessed how Tribune stories credited organized labor for a par- ticular outcome or condition (internal agency) and whether any other entity was acknowledged as contributing to the occurrence of that condition (external agency). Before assessing labor’s role in the events reported, it is worth noting that unions appear in nearly all of these cases (n = 479) as having significant responsibility for the events under consideration. Labor is rarely characterized as a passive or inactive recipient of fortune. In other words, labor is nearly always causing something to happen. Unfortunately for the labor movement, according to the Tribune, more often than not, that happening thing is not good.

In those stories where labor’s actions can be clearly assessed, we found a negative internal agency in 57.7 percent of the cases and a positive one in 42.3 percent. Cases

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Table 10a Type of Labor Signifiers in Chicago Tribune Labor Stories, 1991–2001

Type Number Percentage

Negative 426 77.8 Positive 121 22.2 Total 547 100.0

Note: Signifiers appeared in 291 stories.

Table 10b Breakdown of Stories with Labor Signifiers in Chicago

Tribune Labor Stories, 1991–2001

Stories with Signifiers Number Percentage of All Stories

With at least one positive 115 39.5 With at least one negative 259 89.0 With at least one positive and negative 35 12.0

Percentage of Stories with Number Positive and Negative

Negative > positive 17 48.5 Positive > negative 1 3.0 Positive = negative 17 48.5

scored as negative typically characterized union behavior as being responsible for the following conditions: (1) an outbreak of labor-management conflict, (2) infla- tionary pressure on the economy, (3) disregard for consumers and/or taxpayers, (4) failed efforts to win bargaining objectives, (5) inability to organize new members, (6) lack of political influence, and (7) corruption. Positive outcomes were sometimes cited where labor agreements were signed but were more common in stories about union-initiated legal action against an employer. For instance, a number of articles about union-filed National and State Labor Relations Board charges and court rulings concluded with a successful outcome for the workers represented.15 It appears from a comparison of cases that the Tribune attributes little positive agency to union activity that occurs outside of a legalistic dispute-resolution machinery. Union action that involves organizing, politically mobilizing, or striking is, on the other hand, likely to produce negative consequences.

While in Tribune labor relations articles, union action is always identified and mostly portrayed as producing negative conditions, the identity of any second acting party (external agency) is not so ubiquitous. In only 57.4 percent of the cases is an external agent (most often an employer) identified as contributing to a labor-related situation. A contributing party is to be distinguished from one that is simply a passive target or observer of union action, free of any responsibility for what is unfolding.

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Table 11a Type of Sources in Chicago Tribune Labor Coverage, 1991–2001

Sources Number Percentage

Nonunion sources 652 51.2 Union sources 621 48.8 Total 1,273 100.0

Table 11b Stories and Sources in Chicago Tribune Labor Coverage, 1991–2001

Stories Number Percentage

With union sources 261 57.0 Without union sources 291 43.0

Percentage of Stories with Number Union and Nonunion

Union > nonunion 75 28.7 Nonunion > union 93 35.6 Union = Nonunion 93 35.6 With union and nonunion sources 261

Thus, the Tribune’s failure in slightly more than four out of ten cases to name a con- tributing party for the situation reported is hard to justify (see Table 12).

Whether the story content was about labor organizing, bargaining, voting, strik- ing, or even corruption, the union’s behavior was always conducted in relation to an employer or governmental action.16 But as this study reveals, too often the Tribune failed to make clear that labor was responding to conditions brought about by the employer’s actions. Instead of providing an historical context for the activity, union behavior is portrayed as willful, premeditated, and lacking any cause-effect rela- tionship. In brief, labor appears to be acting without provocation.

Conclusion

Applying a multivariable, quantitative content analysis of labor reporting in the Chicago Tribune confirmed organized labor’s anecdotal complaints about the paper. The study demonstrated that the paper largely establishes a negative tone in cover- ing the labor movement. It is important to recall that most media analysis of labor reporting has taken one or two journalistic elements and conflated them into an over- arching measure of story tone. Our analysis, however, identified six variables per case and independently measured each item to arrive at an overall single story tone score. While this study put forward a unique model for objectively assessing how unions are covered in mass circulation newspapers, there are a number of ways in which this study’s methodology could be improved in order to make a larger contri- bution to the field of media analysis.

First, further work should be done to determine how each variable is measured. In the above study, on most items, a dichotomous score (e.g., 0 or 1 to determine if more labor sources than nonlabor sources were identified) was used, but a ratio scale (e.g., granting a value beginning with 1 and going up for each additional labor source cited)

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Table 12 Identification of Union and Nonunion Agency in Tribune Stories

Internal External

Number Percentage Number Percentage

Positive 203 43.7 Negative 276 57.3 Total 479 100.0 Yes 280 57.4 No 217 43.6 Total 497 100.0

Note: Based on the cases wherein agency was discernable.

might be used on some variables to better reflect their impact on the story. Follow-up studies could also refine the way labor signifiers are identified by limiting the variable to the actual words used immediately preceding and following an appropriate noun (i.e., “organized labor,” “union,” “union leader”). The study could further expand by addressing additional variables, like the substance of a story’s final sentences.

A fourth notion that may enlarge the number of cases available to measure and also make possible the addition of a story placement item would be to utilize a microfiche or hard-copy database instead of an electronic archive. If the above were done, then another idea would be to examine only section 1 and business section front pages. This would be done on the assumption that the most important items are reported on page 1 and are the stories most often read. An additional consideration is to weight the edi- torials and op-ed pieces more heavily, given their obvious partisan nature. A sixth methodological change would be to key the assessment around the reporting of “big” events instead of any labor-related item. For example, the passage of a trade bill would generate a data set of stories before, during, and after the vote. It is also worth noting that the broader community, including the business class, shares labor’s justified claim about the press’ fascination with internal and external conflict. It may very well be that the Tribune’s coverage of labor is qualitatively similar to its coverage of other new sub- jects. Thus, a seventh suggestion would ground any future study of labor’s coverage in a comparison with business, public schools, or race-based organizations reporting. An eighth idea is to apply the model to additional newspapers and to fix a reference point that would expand the comparative potential of the study and lend greater reliability to the model. Finally, statistical tests of regression in some cases may shed light on the relative importance of each variable on the story’s final tone.

While the focus of this analysis is on the Tribune’s coverage of organized labor, it is an open question whether unions are doing an adequate job in communicating their message to the press. An anecdotal and informal survey of communication efforts in the Chicago area suggests that very few unions maintain a constant informational relationship with the commercial media. Organized labor is also only marginally vis- ible or audible as an alternative to commercial media streams. Unlike what occurred in the 1930 to early postwar period, the labor movement is not challenging what Elizabeth Fones-Wolf has referred to as the commercial and “class nature of mass communications” (2000, 285). As a natural and necessary extension of this study, any discussion of how media reporting of organized labor can be improved will require examining the present state of union communications.

The study findings also point to a serious story “mix” problem. Consider, for example, that there are 300 affiliates of the Chicago Federation of Labor. Each of them negotiates contracts on average every three years. During the study time period, that means approximately 900 contracts were negotiated in the Chicago area—the over- whelming number peacefully concluded—providing material benefits for over 500,000 Chicago-area workers. But a reader of the Tribune would have a much different perception—to the detriment of the unions—of union activity and labor-management

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relations outcomes. If, therefore, the Tribune were interested in truthful reporting of industrial relations activity, it would be reasonable to expect three outcomes from the nature of its reporting: (1) many more industrial relations stories, (2) many more posi- tive collective bargaining stories, and (3) a dramatic shift from “dispute” stories as the dominant type of content to productive unionism producing real results for real workers.

Notes

1. As an example of how invisible media analysis of labor coverage is, consider that the prominent Center for Media and Public Affairs has published since 1982 forty-four books, monographs, and reports without a single union or industrial relations focus (see Center for Media and Public Affairs’ online archive). Additionally, since 1987, the Center for Media and Public Affairs’ Media Monitor publication has produced 111 issues without casting a lens on organized labor reporting.

2. Much of organized labor’s assessment of the Tribune’s anti-union bias was hardened in 1985 when the paper’s three production unions walked off the job after failing to bargain new contracts. The dispute escalated into a yearlong and bitter struggle, which resulted in a majority of the 1,000 strikers’ being permanently replaced. City labor leaders alleged that the paper was trying to break the production unions (Warren 1986).

3. According to the Chicago Federation of Labor, there are approximately 500,000 affiliated members in Chicago and Cook County. The Chicago Federation of Labor is the second-largest central body in the nation, representing over 300 local unions.

4. According to the Chicago Federation of Labor, the city’s seven union locals bearing the number “one” is higher than in any other large city.

5. For a complete breakdown of Tribune Company holdings, see the Columbia Journalism Review online at www.cjr.org.

6. Positive stories were also higher in 1991, but that was an abbreviated year with only twelve cases, covering the months from August to December.

7. In October of 1995, Service Employees International President John Sweeney successfully put together a “New Voice” reform slate to defeat the incumbent head Tom Donohue for the AFL-CIO’s leadership. It was the first contested election at the AFL-CIO in over fifty years.

8. For the only comprehensive and intimate accounting of labor relations struggles, see Chicago Tribune labor reporter Steve Franklin’s book Three Strikes: Labor’s Heartland Losses and What They Mean for Working Americans.

9. The first and only time a story about the central Illinois labor relations conflict was referred to as unfolding in a “war zone” was the headline “Labor Musters Backers for Rally in War Zone,” dated June 21, 1993.

10. Estimates are from the applications filed with the North American Free Trade Agreement Trade Assistance Authority Database. Reports are accessible at the Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch Web site: www.citizen.org/tradewatch.

11. The dates of these were July 14, 1993; November 11, 1993; and November 18, 1993. 12. That story was titled “Vision Unfulfilled: NAFTA at 5” (October 29, 1998). 13. “At Caterpillar A Classic Conflict: Big Labor vs. Big Businesses, and Only the Strong Survive”

(September 6, 1992). 14. “Strikes Bitter End: UAW Gives in to Caterpillar” (December 10, 1995). 15. For example, see “Judge Rules Drug Firm Violated Labor Laws” (March 20, 1992), “Unfair Labor

Charge Filed by State Union” (May 13, 1992), “Kroger Strikers Charge Unfair Labor Practices” (May 19, 1992), and “Sheriff’s Officers Union Files Unfair Labor Charge” (June 2, 1993).

16. Even union-mob ties, as revealed by the McClellan Senate Committee hearings, did not happen—in fact could not happen—without employer cooperation (see Robert Kennedy’s The Enemy Within).

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Robert Bruno is an associate professor of labor and industrial relations at the University of Illinois. He is the author of three labor studies books and has published numerous scholarly articles on a diverse range of industrial relations subjects.

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