The strike took an unusually nasty tone.
— The New York Times, April 4, 2011, writing about the strike of Detroit Symphony Orchestra musicians
By Joel Thurtell
Strikes are by their nature nasty things. Maybe the Times art critic who seemed shocked at nastiness in the DSO strike has not been through a strike. I have, and one of the things I learned from Detroit’s Great Newspaper Strike of 1995, besides that they are nasty, was that newspapers are inherently hostile to unions because they either have unions to bargain with or fear that they might get them.
That hostility, I believe, makes most American newspapers simply unable to treat unions — and striking workers — fairly.
I, too, am happy that this strike at last was settled. But it’s worth remembering that Detroit newspapers could not find a way to touch on the management bungling that put the DSO into the financial pickle that caused the board to squeeze the musicians. The Times and other outlets decry Detroit’s downward spiral, as if that were the explanation for the DSO’s financial mess.
No, folks, it was not the economy. It was a stupid move by DSO bosses that placed tens of millions of dollars raised for the Max Fisher addition into an investment fund while arranging to pay off construction costs with loans.
Not a bright move at any time, but when the stock market tanked the DSO management was in deep doo-doo.
Easiest thing to do — foist the deficit off on the musicians.
Make the workers pay for the bosses’ stupidity.
Good luck finding any mention of that in mainline newspapers.
Meanwhile, this blog scored record hits when I reported the simple facts of the DSO predicament.
Now, does anyone wonder why newspapers themselves are in trouble?
Or why people are increasingly turning to non-newspaper Internet sources for news?
