Richard Drake on Labor's Voice

We know well that Hollywood movies and commercial television entertainment dismiss working class Americans. Only independent bloggers seem to care whether workers are included in the media conversation. Local journalist and community leader Richard Drake, who was recently awarded the AFSCME Local 965 Community Service Award for Electronic Media, has an interesting item on his Street Jazz blog today. He has some suggestions for improving corporate news coverage of workers' views and voices, and here's an example of his wisdom and what he has to say:

Working class? You've got nothing to say!

News organizations don’t have much use for working class voters - or their views - unless they can safely put them into a sort of giant sack for a story.

Here in Detroit, the auto workers are feeling the pain from foreign car makers . . .

Or maybe they’ll talk about Latino unions....

It would be kind of nice, I think, for working class folks to be represented a little more often - all right, a lot more often - in the media than they are. Lets include some working class (and union) folk on television panels about the economy, for god’s sake.

It might be nice to have some people who can address issues in a down to earth manner, rather than having to listen to folks so busy kissing their own butts they forget there are real issues confronting Americans.

But hey, it would be nice if local news stations would bother to include working class voices, as well.