>A friend of mine, who is not bland or bought off, used to edit a sort of
>newspaper for the UAW, which has since folded for what he tells me was
>business reasons. I must have seen it, but can't recall it. Did anyone? And
>why doesn't labor run a newspaper--is it because it couldn't keep its hands
>off it? Because it lacks business sense? Because it is afraid of losing its
>shirt? Any ideas? --jks
I think the losing their shirt issue is the big issue. The UAW monthly magazine is actually not too bad - I actually enjoy reading it each month when I get it. It mixes decent articles on basic political issues - whether global trade, social security, politics - with a few profiles of organizing campaigns, usually a nice human interest story, a bit of humor, and a bit of internal business. They even print the occasional dissident letter although not particularly big debates in article format.
But this is a monthly endeavor. Anything daily or even weekly would be incredibly expensive and unlikely to attract a lot of advertising dollars - capitalists may be short-sighted economically but I'm not sure they are that short-sighted as to fund the creation of a labor-run national newspaper. So given the costs of distribution and production, such a paper would not be priced anywhere in the range to seriously compete with local paper prices of a quarter or half a dollar.
That said, it would make sense for labor to more broadly subsidize at least more weekly media endeavors. Heck, if they donated money to the Nation, the Progressive, or Mother Jones, I bet they could increase those magazines coverage of labor issues. But that still doesn't get to how to reach beyond the progressive base. Mass media is expensive. Actually, at this point an organized Internet publication might be the best bet-- I think that assumption is one reason why the UAW and other unions have been aiming to subsidize computers and Internet access for their members to make that a reasonable approach to distributing their message.
-- Nathan Newman