Berry Craig, recording secretary for the Paducah-based Western Kentucky AFL-CIO Area Council and a professor of history at West Kentucky Community and Technical College, is a former daily newspaper and Associated Press columnist and currently a member of AFT Local 1360. Craig sends us this.

How can you help your union get better coverage in small-town media? 

First, try getting to know the newspaper, TV and radio reporters. Introduce yourself by calling them up or sending them an email with your photo. It’s a good idea to put a face with an email. Better yet, drop by for a visit. 

 “Why is the media so anti-union?”

This old reporter-turned-history-teacher could retire if he had a dime for every time he’s heard a union brother or sister ask that question. They mostly mean Fox News and local newspapers and radio and TV stations.On the other hand, the anti-union slant of small-town media news reporting is subtler. Unions are all but ignored, except during strikes – more on that in a minute. Of course, unions are commonly demonized on the editorial pages of small town papers. They routinely get trashed by Rush Limbaugh wannabes on boondocks radio stations. Tiny market TV station owners sometimes go after unions, too. 

Chris Garlock, communications director of the Metropolitan Washington [D.C.] Council, AFL-CIO, and managing editor of Union City, sends us this.

If The Wall Street Journal is complaining about it, "The Newsroom" must be doing something right for working people.

“For the second week in a row, Charles and David Koch were strafed by HBO’s show ‘The Newsroom,’ the one-hour drama about a fictional cable TV news show and its volatile anchorman,” huffed The Wall Street Journal yesterday in “HBO’s ‘Newsroom’ Takes Aim at Koch Brothers.”

The media is more likely to define a presidential administration as a “job killer” if it’s Democratic, according to an independent study released this week, and in 91.6 percent of the stories alleging that a government policy was a “job killer,” the news media failed to cite any evidence for this claim.