Sally Kohn: The media's coverage of the potential UPS strike has focused on how it affects you, the consumer. She says this is a form of pseudo service journalism that turns people into hyper-solipsistic individualists. Kohn: In 1997, when teamsters went on strike for more full-time jobs, they resonated with public because they were too poor to work in corporate America. This kind of reporting shifts towards pro-worker coverage before there was a temporary shift back toward workers' concerns and questions about inequality.
In this public News Brief, we break down media coverage of the potential UPS strike––and the trend more broadly in labor coverage––that paints a strike as something that harms "the consumer" or "the economy" rather than what it is: the only thing that gives workers any power.
Our guest is writer and media analyst Teddy Ostrow, host of The Upsurge podcast.