In the Agora: Fishing for stories that don't exist

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June 29, 2007

Fishing for stories that don't exist

A common criticism of journalists is that they have certain biases in selecting stories. Their reporting of certain events or issues are not necessarily biased, but rather their choice of the story at all reveals their true bias.

And so my curiosity was piqued yesterday when I came across this solicitation on the website of my local newspaper:

The minimum will rise gradually up to $7.25 an hour in 2009, under the new laws recently passed by state lawmakers and by Congress. Indiana workers who are not covered by the federal minimum now will be included in the increase, too.

Are you trying to make ends meet with a minimum-wage job?

If so, the Courier & Press would like to hear from you today. We would like to interview you and include your comments in Thursday's newspaper. Be prepared to tell us your name and where you work.

Please call reporter Bryan Corbin at (317) 631-7405 or send an email to corbin.statehouse@earthlink.net.

Apparently Bryan was hoping to begin a compelling article through the eyes of some noble bread-winner "trying to make ends meet." Or perhaps Bryan intended to intersperse anecdotes throughout his story using real-life examples of how a government-mandated wage hike would help needy people.

Apparently, though, no one in the Evansville region is "trying to make ends meet with a minimum-wage job." At least, that's the conclusion one could draw after reading Bryan's story which finally ran in today's paper. In it Bryan makes no mention of any real life examples of those earning a minimum wage.

What can we make of the earlier solicitation but lack of any resulting examples? This is, in my mind, a clear case of a reporter seeking to portray a particular, incomplete picture. And when the lack of responses suggests something economists have been preaching for decades - that the minimum wage does a lousy job of helping bread winners - Bryan chooses to ignore this. Instead he offers a cliche article presenting "both sides" of a largely economic issue.

Minimum wage hikes fail at targeting poverty, because most of the people who get it aren't poor, and most of the people who are poor don't get it. It often simply transfers money from other poor people -- those who lose jobs due to the higher minimum wage, and those who shop at places that pay the minimum wage.

The equilibrium for wages is currently above the minimum wage, so raising it will likely have little effect right now. But that doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.

Previously on ITA:

The Minimum Wage by Z. Wendling

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at June 29, 2007 03:56 PM

Comments

The sole purpose of raising the minimum wage is to appease unions whose wages are keyed to the minimum wage. Democrats buying off their base, plain and simple.

Posted by: John M. at June 30, 2007 11:14 AM | permalink

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Posted by: Alex at June 30, 2007 01:46 PM | permalink

. The impact would be in terms of future restaurant jobs not being created, rather than existing workers being downsized, he said.

Aren't many restaurant jobs subject to Indiana's tip credit, meaning a minimum wage of about $2.50 an hour?

And shouldn't we concentrate on more important and pressing issues? Like killing all the economists?

Posted by: Gregory Travis at July 1, 2007 10:53 AM | permalink

I'm not sure it's so much "fishing for stories" as simply trying to reach out to a group of people in our noisy world who are completely silent.

Want the perspective of people against raising the minimum wage? The newspaper probably receives press releases on a regular basis from them. They're part of our national dialog -- unlike the poor who the raised minimum wage is at least in theory intended to benifit.

Want to find someone trying to make ends meet on minimum wage? They certainly won't be putting out a press release about it, or seeking publicity about it.

How do you figure out what the poor in America are going through? There's really no easy way to do it. In our world of mass-communications, the poor are one-way participants -- they receive, through TV, newspapers and other media, but unlike all other strata of our society, they never send. They're silent.

That's not to say that the newspaper's idea was the best way to contact the poor. But I understand why they might take out an ad. They recognize that unlike the rest of the country, the poor generally aren't talking -- they're just listening.

Posted by: Phil at July 2, 2007 10:25 AM | permalink

June 29, 2007

Fishing for stories that don't exist

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