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Why doesn't the media show real people at work?
When discussing employment, layoffs and the job situation, the media usually shows an interior shot of factory workers surrounded by machines or an exterior shot of factory workers outside a factory building. Such work is a small fraction of the employment picture these days. In February, goods producing payrolls were 19,877,000, service payrolls were 113,891,000, and government payrolls were 22,572,000.
The media should show people in more typical jobs, such as a:
- teacher preparing a lesson plan,
- nurse updating patient charts,
- salesman planning a sales call,
- waitress running credit card transactions,
- system administrator patching Windows,
- social worker updating case files,
- call center worker taking an order,
- college professor writing a grant proposal,
- bank teller processing a deposit.
This would give a much more realistic portrayal of the jobs that people do.
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Most network correspondents (or producers) wouldn't know a "real person" if they tripped over one - they rarely if ever encounter them.
March 8, 2009 1:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Or waiters bringing them their expense account lunches?
March 8, 2009 5:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
There's something just a little awry dividing the labor force this way. I take a look at the "real workers" and I note with the possible exception of the waitress, the bank teller, and the salesman, and the call center operator in the boiler room, the jobs "real people" do are white collar jobs requiring at least two years of college (depending on what we mean by "nurse"). It very well be that the waitress, bank teller, salesman, and call center person are also college educated. It may be that the call center worker is in India, for that matter.
If we look at education statistics, this list doesn't really represent the range "real" workers any more than visions outside or inside factories do.
The team that picks up my trash once a week are government workers as much as the recorder of deeds is a government worker.
The custodians at my university are as much service workers as I am, as are the electricians and plumbers who keep the infrastructure working.
The dishwasher in the kitchen is a "real worker" too--as much a "real worker" as the waitress.
And there are "real workers" emptying the trash at BankAmerica, cleaning its restrooms, checking the I.D.s of persons trying to reach the upper floors, etc, etc.
The person who handles hazardous medical waste or empties bedpans is as much a "real worker" as the Nurse--ditto for the person who cleans the sheets in the hospital laundry.
I totally agree that "real workers" have disappeared from the public consciousness. I'd like to suggest, however, we need a broader vision of what real workers are and what real work is less we get an inaccurate vision of what the service sector and the government sector is like.
March 9, 2009 10:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
How much of this is due to the fact that most Americans still think manufacturing is the largest sector of the economy? I'd suspect that these sorts of media choices are a lagging cultural indicator (for lack of a better term). Guys like Wolf Blitzer--the master of the softball follow-up question--aren't going to be out there really trying to challenge people's perceptions.
February 1, 2010 6:19 PM | Reply | Permalink