On Wednesday, Morning Edition ran a story about advocates in Kentucky adopting a county-by-county strategy to pass right-to-work legislation, after statewide efforts to pass such legislation failed for several years running. The story was by Lisa Autry, an award-winning reporter at member station WKU Public Radio, in Bowling Green, Ky., who occasionally contributes to NPR's newsmagazines. Many listeners said they appreciated the story, which documented an interesting development in the battle over right-to-work legislation.
But the piece, which ran a brief 3 minutes and 15 seconds, was marred by a highly problematic exchange. This is how it was rendered in the online version of the story (the radio version varies only slightly):
"General Motors employs about 800 people and the economic impact is seen throughout the community," says Eldon Renaud, president of the local United Autoworkers Union. "If you can't support the organization that's supporting you, it's gonna fall apart."
He's a huge right-to-work critic and argues these kind of laws are a "race to the bottom." "Look at those states that are right-to-work," he says. "Look at Mississippi; look at Alabama. I mean, some of the worst education, highest poverty. What happens is that as they reduce the union labor, less and less people are making a decent wage."
Actually, since World War II, income and job growth have increased faster in right-to-work states. Economists also point out that Mississippi and Alabama are not heavily taxed, so there's less money to spend on education and social services.
That last paragraph was Autry speaking (verbatim, in the on-air version.) John Ledbetter of Lenoir City, Tenn., was one of more than a dozen listeners who complained, with more registering displeasure in the comments on NPR.org. He wrote: "I found the reporter's comments facile. In response to the union rep's referral to the race to the bottom among right to work states, she said that such states have a higher economic growth rate. Well, yes, because they start from much lower bases. Instead, she should look at absolute wealth."
Listener Chris Fanjul of Mattituck, N.Y., saw it from an opposing perspective. Fanjul noted that "a union organizer was permitted to state in air his opinion the right to work laws lead to economic downturns in the states where they exist. His point was then disproven by facts presented by the NPR reporter. Why was he allowed to state incorrect statistics as fact at all? When you give a voice air time you give it weight, and listeners may not catch the correction or give it as much credence as someone that was selected to be interviewed as an expert in the field."
As many other writers pointed out, Autry did not cite a source for the higher income and growth trends in right-to-work states so listeners could not make their own judgments about the validity of that point. Autry also did not explain the context for the trends.
How did that unattributed statement make it into the story, when clearly it shouldn't have?
"The only source I could find for this was the 'Mackinac Center for Public Policy,' a very conservative think tank," wrote Stan Buskus, a listener in Madison, Wis. "I do not have a problem using conservative organizations as a source, in fact, I believe it would be impossible to report a story without liberal or conservative view points, but I do have a problem not including the source in the story."
How did that unattributed statement make it into the story, when clearly it shouldn't have? Originally the piece included only the quote from the UAW official, which was "his opinion," Autry said. But Russell Lewis, NPR's southern bureau chief, who edited the story, knew that taxes were a factor in some states' poverty rates, so he asked Autry to find some data. She said she called Dr. Brian Strow, associate professor of economics at Western Kentucky University, where the member station is based.
He provided four sources for the data, including one citing a study done by the National Institute for Labor Relations Research, which calls itself a "non-profit research facility analyzing and exposing the inequities of compulsory unionism." So, hardly an unbiased source.
The other studies Strow provided, Autry said, including the one that listener Buskus discovered, can be found here, here and here.
Lewis said he looked at the data that Autry provided but not in depth, noting that he was more focused on the premise of the story, which was the county-by-county legislative effort.
Closer scrutiny of the data at every level of the reporting and editing process would have quickly turned up the problem.
In hindsight, Autry told me, the piece should have both attributed the information to Strow and "we probably should have talked to more than one economist." Kevin Willis, WKU Public Radio's news director, added that one of the lessons learned is that the station's reporters need to take a closer look at any academic research they cite in the future, to scrutinize funding sources and biases. "This is a learning experience," he said.
In my view, attribution alone would not have solved the problems here, nor would competing statistics. A 2012 Wall Street Journal article examined the thorny economics of the right-to-work issue, reporting: "By adopting a "right-to-work" law this week, Michigan is joining a group of states where wages tend to be lower, but job growth stronger, than states that don't have the law. But gauging how much of this divergence in paychecks and employment is a result of the laws is difficult to do."
In other words, it's just not an issue that can be summed up in a sentence or two. Closer scrutiny of the data at every level of the reporting and editing process would have quickly turned up the problem.
Vickie Walton-James, NPR's senior national desk editor, said she is discussing with Morning Edition possible ways to follow up on the story in coming days, perhaps with a conversation devoted to examining the statistics in question. No story has yet been assigned, however.
While the original story should not have included the passage, I do think a follow up is much needed.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
