AP, NYT Downplaying and Ignoring Mass. Move to Limit Union Health
Bargaining
Filed under: Economy,MSM Biz/Other Bias,MSM Biz/Other Ignorance,Taxes &
Government — TBlumer @ 7:52 pm
Gosh, after Republican Governors Scott Walker and John Kasich succeeded
in championing legislation curtailing many collective bargaining rights
of unionized state and municipal employees in Wisconsin and Ohio,
respectively, the establishment press had the meme all set. The GOP,
conservatives, and Tea Partiers are enemies of labor and the middle
class, while Democrats, liberals, and progressives are their champions.
Then along comes bluer-than-blue Massachusetts. As the Boston Globe
reports, the Bay State’s House “voted overwhelmingly last night
(Tuesday) to strip police officers, teachers, and other municipal
employees of most of their rights to bargain over health care, saying
the change would save millions of dollars for financially strapped
cities and towns.” It’s not a law yet, but it seems to be heading pretty
quickly in that direction.
The Associated Press’s beat reporters and editors must be beside
themselves. Despite having nationalized Wisconsin-based
collective-bargaining stories since February, three searches
(“Massachusetts health,” Massachusetts union,” and “Massachusetts
unions,” all not in quotes) indicate that the wire service was still
carrying nothing relating to the Bay State’s situation at its main
national site as of 7:30 this evening.
The AP’s Massachusetts local wire carried two stories, one at 11:13 p.m.
Tuesday night, plus a six-paragraph unbylined story at 5:05 p.m. today,
which read in part:
Mass. Gov.: “Dial down rhetoric” on union fight
Gov. Deval Patrick is urging both sides to “dial down the rhetoric” over
a plan to sharply limit the collective bargaining power of public
employees over their health insurance.
Patrick said Wednesday it’s important to pass a bill to ease the health
care burden on communities while guaranteeing labor a seat at the table.
Union officials are furious at House Speaker Robert DeLeo after
lawmakers backed the plan late Tuesday.
Does anyone remember AP reporters Scott Bauer or Todd Richmond in
Wisconsin relaying advisories to dial down the rhetoric from Scott
Walker? I didn’t think so. But Obama bud Deval Patrick “somehow” gets a
bit of deference from AP. No matter; he’s on board with doing much of
what Scott Walker just did, and to public safety workers as well, whom
Walker exempted from certain of the Wisconsin law’s provisions.
Meanwhile, at the New York Times, the same three searches done at 7:45
this evening (“Massachusetts health,” “Massachusetts union,”
“Massachusetts unions,”) returned nothing relevant.
The establishment press is probably too busy picking their collective
jaws up off the floor, utterly astonished that the past two months of
bashing sensible conservatives as heartless enemies may be on the verge
of being rendered useless. Trying to bottle the news up is their only
recourse.
This is 2011, guys and gals. Thanks to Drudge and others, that’s mostly
not going to happen.
Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.
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