Working People: Ignored by the Mainstream Media

Quote of the Day, July 30, 2012

“It’s always been something of a problem for two reasons. The first reason I discovered in my years as a freelance writer in the 1980s and 90s. That is: magazines and newspapers want to please their advertisers. Their advertisers want to think they are reaching wealthy people, people who will buy the products. They don’t want really depressing articles about misery and hardship near their ads.

“The other reason is that typically the gatekeepers in these media outlets, the top editors and producers, have been from a social class quite far removed from what we are talking about. They have no clue. I found that this could be very, very dispiriting.

“I remember pitching a story to an editor in the 1980s. It had something to do with working-class men. The editor said, ‘Well, can they talk?’

“It’s almost otherworldly. The editors would use the word ‘articulate,’ as in, ‘Could you find someone articulate?’ Like the rest of the people are just going around grunting. Those are two long-standing structural forces against good coverage in the media.”

– Economic Hardship Reporting Project’s Barbara Ehrenreich, as excerpted in an article by Amy Dean at Truthout.  Read the article, “Why Are Working People Invisible in the Mainstream Media?,” here.