12-13-07, 9:46 am
Editor's Note: Terrie Albano is the editor of the People's Weekly World.
PA: What is People’s Weekly World’s editorial viewpoint and how do you view the role of journalism?
Terrie Albano: That is a brilliant question, and I want to thank you for asking it. First of all, the People’s Weekly World (which continues the Daily Worker, founded in 1924) has a very long history of what we call working-class journalism. Others call it revolutionary, left-wing, or Communist journalism – you can put a lot of different tags on it – but I think, in essence, the PWW is telling the story of the lives of working-class people of all races and nationalities and reporting the issues they confront in their own lives. By telling their stories, we are helping to bring about a wave of change, empowering working people. It’s our job to point out that there is a big class factor operating in the United States.
PA: How does the PWW compare to the corporate-owned media?
TA: First of all, we’re a lot smaller. The corporate-owned media is pretty much 95-98% of everything you hear, read, or listen to. But the media giants have all been going through some huge changes and shifts in production recently, including really severe cuts in the newsroom. This has even forced editors and well-known journalists, like Russell Baker of the New York Times, to question journalism’s compatibility with what they call free-market capitalism. This is because corporate ownership of newspapers, whether online or in print, has forced huge cuts in the newsroom, so that some journalists, who have been trained with a certain idea about public interest journalism, see the current state of the press for profit is undermining all of that.
PA: Readers who don't find their lives reflected in the mainstream media and who realize that the corporate media are not doing things in the public interest can turn to PWW and find something that is closer to what they need?
TA: I really think so. I think a lot of our readers find that, but our readership is not big enough. We want to grow our readership even more. We see our work online as a great venue to do that. For example, when people are interested in finding out about civil rights, if they have had their own civil rights violated, say by the police or some other institution, and they are at a point where they want to something about it, they might go to Google and put in some key words, and then up comes an article we have run that deals with people who have gone through similar things. So we can provide a kind of life preserver to folks who want to do something – either about something that has happened in their own lives, or if they want to get active and change the status quo.
PA: As we wind down 2007 and prepare to begin the New Year, what are the big stories that the corporate media will miss but that PWW will cover?
TA: The corporate media is not going to miss the biggest story, which is the 2008 elections. But what they will miss is the overwhelming shift that has a possibility of taking place in this country – a political shift that could change the balance of forces in favor of working class people and particularly in the interests of the labor movement. The interests of the labor movement are not narrow interests. These interests are the same interests that affect all working people, employed and unemployed, Black, white, and Latino, immigrant and nonimmigrant. Theirs are the interests that could bring about substantial changes in people’s lives. But the role that these forces are going to play in the 2008 election, and the issues they will push – health care for all, immigrant rights, good jobs for all – the corporate media is going to downplay all that. The People’s Weekly World will show what is going on at the grassroots. It will focus on the issues that are driving this movement forward. The corporate media looks at personality, and certainly personality plays a big role in any kind of movement for change, but it doesn’t stop there. So whoever the candidate is on the Democratic side, he or she will also have behind them a huge movement that is ready to reject the Bush administration and the ultra-right policies that have dominated the political landscape for the last 25 years or more. This will be a really big change in our country, and the corporate media is going to miss it.
PA: Finally, PWW has always had a special focus on the labor movement. What do you think the big labor stories will be in the year ahead?
TA: I think one of the biggest labor stories is going to generate out of Southern California. There are 30-some local unions representing about 350,000 workers in Southern California whose contracts are up in 2008, and they are joining together to fight not only for fair contracts but, as they themselves put it, good jobs for all. In the spring of 2008 they have decided to have a mass march – 28 miles long – starting from Hollywood, where you already have the striking writers – but where there are other Hollywood unions whose contracts are expiring. They will start in Hollywood and march 28 miles to the docks at the Port of Long Beach, which is, I think, the largest port in the country and has the most cargo coming through. The Longshore Workers’ contract is up too, so all these unions will be joining together to fight for good jobs for all, instead of the present situation where there is a lack of decent jobs and many people are having to work 2 or 3 jobs because the wages are so minimal. Plus, the unions are combining their fight with the political process. California is a big state, and there will be a lot of important local elections, not to mention the presidential race. And the People's Weekly World will bring you the story.
