Interesting. I know it’s a busy news day and all (Hurricane Gustav, Day 1 of the RNC, Sarah Palin’s baby having babies, etc.), but it is still Labor Day. So I went looking for Labor Day stories. Easy enough, just open the front page of an online newspaper and search for “labor.”
Now, not every Labor Day story necessarily mentions “labor” in the headline. It’s pretty hard not to, but not impossible so maybe I missed a story buried deeper within the site. Still, here are the major dailies and other news organizations without Labor Day stories on their online front page:
These news organizations, btw, are consistently among the worst offenders for automatic page refreshes that push up page view counts without actually attracting any additional readers. And a special fuck you to CBS for having a link to a sex addiction story, but no Labor Day news.
NOTE: Please remember that all of these links are kaput as of midnight tonight. If you want to fact check me, you have to do it today, Sept. 1.
And of the newspapers and news orgs that did have links?
Star Tribune: Auto association projects drop in Labor Day travel
National Public Corporate Radio:
Monkey See: TV Marathons for Labor Day
Des Moines Register: Windsor Heights offices closed Labor Day; trach pick-up delayed
Cleveland Plain Dealer: Airlines offer bargain fares after Labor Day (touting a business while ignoring labor: a double insult)
Kansas City Star:
Should pregnant inmates be shackled during labor?
Faith Matters: Labor (Day) and faith
Atlanta Constitution-Journal:
Chick-fil-A offers free food for fans on Labor Day
Labor Day food: Grilling, BBQ recipes, takeout
L.A. Times: L.A.’s best pool parties: Labor Day means staying cool by the pool
Boston Herald: A Monday pitching change for Orioles: Hope this doesn’t ruin your Labor Day, but….
Detroit Free Press (2 mentions buried in the extended leads of Obama stories)
And kudos to these newspapers:
Boston Globe:
Convention start on Labor Day miffs some workers
Lawrence honors laborer slain in 1912 textile strike
Labor Day: What’s open and closed today
New York Post:
Chicago Sun-Times:
New job after layoff often tougher to find, pays less
Detroit News:
Obama gives unions a Labor Day boost
$5 million in ads promote unionizing legislation
2008 Hamtramck Labor Day Festival
Report Card: Workers worse off on pay, employment
Laboring longer a growing trend for Americans
Dayton Daily News:
Chicago Tribune: Labor Day scorecard: Bad news on pay, unemployment
USA Today:
Americans labor longer to make ends meet
AAA: Holiday travel expected to dip
Christian Science Monitor: A proudly American company ships jobs to China
Denver Post: As numbers slip, labor organized big election push
Baltimore Sun:
Bay Bridge lane to be open for Labor Day travelers
Florida Times-Union: Labor Day: Help the workers
MSNBC:
Surviving the post-vacation blues: Labor Day marks the end of the vacation season…. [kind of misses the whole point of Labor Day, n'est-ce pas?]
What retirement? Many find they have to work
Report: Workers worse off on pay, employment
Newsweek: Waking up to downsides of free trade
Economy on the minds of Minnesotans
Houston Chronicle: This Labor Day, your wages aren’t going as far
CNN: Labor Day finds workers worse off
Hartford Courant:
Many getting less pleasure from work
Cincinnati Enquirer: Old wage goal not keeping up
Honolulu Star-Bulletin: Industry chipping away at gains made by labor
The Indianapolis Star: Search for work can be full-time job: this Labor Day some Hoosiers aren’t so happy to have the day off [cleverly counterbalanced by one of the most outrageous anti-labor stories imaginable: Munchausen at work in which a WSJ writer attributes the skullfuckery of narcissistic lower management suck-ups as a problems-with-workers issue]
Obviously, if you dig deep enough, all of these publications and news orgs had Labor Day stories available. I’m just checking to see who had their stories on page one online (and the online page one is MUCH bigger than the print one). And, undoubtedly, there are countless columns that mention Labor Day, just not in the headlines.
Still, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the newspaper publishing industry just delivered a big FUCK YOU to labor on our sole annual day of recognition. Not surprising: they’re all in decline, and all are trying to make their workers pay for management’s slowness to pick up on this intertubes thing of ours.
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Sorry, we don’t like labor unless it’s an underaged kid from which we withheld sex education.
Something else to consider–I would hope that most online newspapers are savvy enough to “formulate” a front page based on the previous stories that you’ve looked at (via cookies, etc).
My home page wouldn’t have been the same one you looked at anyway, unless it was both our first visits to that site (or we’re continually wiping our slates clean).