Class, Not Race - Washington Post journalists ignore working class issues

Washington Monthly, Nov, 1995 by Amy Waldman

On the whole, of course, the Post isn't unique in looking at mergers through a Wall Street prism. "There's an unfortunate tendency in the media to do upbeat stories about which huge corporation is swallowing another huge corporation and, by the way, 10,000 people will lose their jobs," Kurtz says. "There's a tendency to go to experts and analysts who applaud layoffs because stocks go up."

Such coverage doesn't result from callousness. Jay Mathews, who wrote the Citicorp story, says it's important to him to cover the human and social costs of such mergers. But journalists like Mathews are inured to the impact of the financial moves they cover on average Americans. Job insecurity isn't an issue for Mathews; his friends are more likely to be other journalists than bank tellers; there is probably no shortage of bank branches where he lives. That, combined with the pressure to conform to the conventional financial reporting Kurtz describes, makes such effects seem abstract.

Mathews is another Harvard alumnus, and like quite a few of his Post colleagues, a one-time liberal. "It was a radical era," he says of his Cambridge days. "We thought we were going to be running the country one day ... We were all Government majors, interested in how government could change things. The New Deal, the GI Bill, the post-war success, all were very influential. Now we see how that weakened the social fabric."

But Mathews also concedes that financial upward mobility has influenced his own--and his colleagues'--views: "I don't think you can rule out personal interest; we're a lot more comfortable financially than we were then ... I'm in a two-career marriage, much better off than my parents were. It's true for most members of my generation who've had the educational advantages we've had." Does Mathews's conservatism influence his news judgment? "Absolutely," he says. So does his class. He has, for example, written articles, and is writing a book, expressing concern about how the movement to equalize education funds among richer and poorer school districts is impacting well-off districts. He describes parents in wealthy districts, parents much like himself, as "cornered" and "under the gun financially." Through his journalism, the personal becomes the public, and the personal is heavily slanted toward the upper class.

Exit, Left

There's another reason that the paper's reporters and editors might not approach big business with skepticism: They work for a big business. The Post Company's revenues totaled nearly $1.2 billion in 1994; it owns Newsweek magazine, six television stations, and more than 50 cable systems, including Post-Newsweek Cable. The Post provides a snapshot of the tensions between corporate ownership of a newspaper and coverage of business and the economy--coverage that can have a direct impact on that corporation's shares, its advertisers, and public policy that will affect its holdings.

This tension flared up during debate over the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) recently approved by Congress. While the paper was editorializing in favor of GATT, it was revealed that a Post Co. subsidiary stood to save millions if the treaty became law. It was an illuminating moment, as was Don Graham's concession that he had lobbied Congress and the administration for the provision. "We had no choice but to lobby and assert our interests," Graham says.