Labor Journalism

Over the past 200 years, the role of labor journalism has evolved with ebbs and flows of the labor movement, both in the United States and throughout the developed world. Coverage of labor issues in the media, which peaked in the early and mid-20th century, has been in decline in the past several decades. Although increased attention has been paid to union-related stories since the mid-2010s, labor coverage faces an uncertain future, according to media scholars.

The decline of private-sector unions and staffing cuts at news organizations since the 1980s have resulted in the near extinction of the labor beat in American journalism. In recent years, according to communications scholar Jon Bekken (2020), most mainstream media coverage of labor issues has focused on local teacher strikes ...