An interesting point made in a
letter to Romenesko by writer David Macaray: Why do journalists so often preface “teachers union” with the word “powerful”? Whether or not they are powerful, we don’t use that formulation with other institutions that clearly are.
Bashing and blaming teachers' unions (and by extension teachers) is currently popular, including in the mainstream press. Joe Klein in Time a couple of weeks ago demonstrated that in a high-profile forum.
ReplyDeleteAn explanation here of the Overton Window by the right-wing Mackinac Center "think tank" (these organizations are not really think tanks and shouldn't be described as such without quotation marks) gives an idea of the impact of influencing the press to mindlessly plop in a damaging adjective over and over:
http://www.mackinac.org/7504
The solution, of course, is: Don't be mindless.