[lbo-talk] NYT on French unions

[Gar Lipow]

On 3/31/06, Nathan Newman <nathanne at nathannewman.org> wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Dennis Claxton" <ddclaxton at earthlink.net>
> -You've said here that people criticizing unions don't
> -offer any ideas.  Here's one.  Take that union war chest and buy some
> -media outlets.   Maybe even Pacifica.  Make them an offer they can't
> -refuse.   Clearly the decisive thing last week was a few days of
> -saturation media coverage.  That turned a 20,000 person Cesar Chavez
> -day into a half million that nobody can deny.
>
> No, media control was not the key issue, or else Pacifica could be calling
> out mass rallies in New York, LA, New York, DC and San Francisco every
> weekend.   In this particular event, there is little doubt that media was a
> key source of information, but it was only because people were primed
> because of anti-immigrant attacks that they listened and turned out.
>
> Maybe owning more media would be a useful thing for unions, but as the
> Pacifica example emphasizes, owning an outlet doesn't get you much unless
> the message is right.  And when the message is right, you usually don't need
> to own the media to get it out-- you usually can find others to carry it, as
> happened with the organizers of the LA march.
>
> --- Nathan Newman
>

Nathan you are half right, and half not. Owning media not the solution
unless the message is right - evident. Finding someone else to carry
it for you - very unusual.

You were able to find someone else because that some else had
interests that ran (for the moment) with the immigrants. The corporate
spanish language media depends on friends of undocumented workers,
relatives of the  undoucmented and the undoucmented themselves. Not
taking a stand on this would have lost them audience and opened them
up to  competeition. Plus I  suspect that many of the workers and
owners in those stations were personally opposed to the new bigger
anti-immigrant iron  heel. So you were able to get this message
through. At the beginning of the Iraq war no amount of "getting the
mesage right" would have put anti-war messages through the corporate. 
So left or  union ownership and control (because ownership and control
are not always the same thing) of a major media outlet would be very
productive indeed if you could  get the message right.  Whether it is
worth the cost  is another debate; but no amount of "getting the
messsage right" without media ownership and control could anything
like the information out that getting the message  right could  with
media ownership and control.