Dick Meister runs down some important labor stories that the mainstream press has ignored and in effect censored
By Dick Meister
(Dick Meister, formerly labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor, politics and other matters for a half-century.)
Did you know about the Bush administration’s rotten treatment of the air traffic controllers whose work is essential to air safety? That controllers were forced to work long, fatiguing shifts with little time to rest? That many quit because of that? Were you aware of the great potential for serious accidents that posed?
Did you know that President Obama’s appointees to the Federal Aviation Agency stepped in to rescind the onerous conditions imposed by Bush’s FAA appointees and end the controllers’ long struggle for decent treatment?
Well, you wouldn’t know about those vital developments if you relied solely on mainstream media. The Bay Guardian ran my column on the subject, but to most mainstream outlets, certainly including all Bay Area outlets, it was just another labor story to be ignored another labor story to be in effect censored.