IEA ignores the new media.
A while back I posted objections to the IEA website linking to a bogus news article that came from the anti-union right-wing Mackinaw Center for Public Policy. The article attacked our brothers and sisters in the Michigan Education Association. It was linked on an IEA website feature called In the News. And it was linked without comment, suggesting it was a legitimate news article.
The IEA Communications Director Charlie McBarron reacted with anger. In the News is among the website’s most popular features, he said. To me, that is all the more reason to be more inclusive of pro-teacher stories and more careful about the source of bogus anti-teacher stories. Charlie conceded that they may have made a mistake in linking to the particular article I objected to.
But I think it is more than just an isolated error.
In the News links to dozens of education related stories in the mainstream media. It ignores the dozens of education news sources in the new media.
Examples. Today In the News links to an editorial in the Rockford Star about regional superintendents working without pay, a news article about a school bus driver leaving kids on a bus for 5 hours, a Sun-Times editorial supporting the mayor and attacking the teachers union in the dispute over a longer school day, and a Northwest Herald editorial supporting the Cross/Madigan/Fahner pension proposal.
Of course, there are other links to other news stories also.
But no links to new media.
Now, I don’t expect ever to see a link to my blog on the IEA website.
But how about links to School Tech Connect, Glen Brown, Classroom Sooth or PURE?
These are all Illinois sources of school news, as reliable if not more reliable than the Tribune, Sun-Times or Northwest Herald.
Someone should ask Charlie about this. He’s not talking to me.
You make a good point. I wouldn’t expect a link out of IEA— if I got one, I would think I was losing my edge– but there are a lot excellent, in-the-trenches bloggers with rich, informed blogrolls. I find new ones all the time. Even if he wanted to pick from posts that don’t criticize IEA-help positions, he’s got a lot of options.
Ironically, yesterday I was remarking that Ezra Klein at the Washington Post occasionally chimes in on ed policy, but he relies solely on Matt Yglesias at Think Progress, whose ed policy writing is not terrible but is predicated on a reformy outlook— sort of an unquestioning attitude toward “accountability” and the widely promulgated myth of systemic public school failure. It’s as if Ezra Klein has not even met Valerie Strauss or Walt Gardner, two journalists at this own paper who contribute a great deal to the discussion. So, it’s sort of the opposite problem there.
Why shouldn’t we expect a link out of the IEA? Charlie claims In the News includes anti-union links so that the membership is informed about the current climate. It says something about the undemocratic leadership and top level staff of the IEA that internal critics, or teacher critics, are banned from the union website. I was asked by the media people at the NEA if they could link to my blog on their site, Ed Voices. Once I posted a critical article about Ken Swanson, I was scrubbed from the site.
I’m a dues paying member of both the IEA and the NEA. And I’m an outspoken, well-known defender of teacher unionism. But I’m banned from my own union’s media outlets.
I’ll make a deal. Charlie can have a regular column on my blog if he gives me a regular column on his. I say it’s his, because if anybody thinks the IEA website belongs to the rank-and-file members, they’re kidding themselves.