Scott Whitlock complains in a Sept. 10 Media Research Center item:
All three morning shows on Monday covered the massive teachers strike in Rahm Emanuel’s Chicago that left 350,000 students in the lurch. However, only CBS This Morning explained that the teachers, through their public sector unions, are already well compensated, making an average salary of $71,000 a year (plus benefits).
Whitlock might have a point if salary issues were a primary reason for the strike.But they’re not.
As the Washington Post reports, teachers and city officials are near an agreement on salaries. More prominent reasons for the strike are personnel issues such as an evaluation system teachers call punitive, smaller class sizes, and air conditioning for classrooms that don’t currently have it.
Given that salaries aren’t a major bone of contention, there is no reason to report what current average salaries are — unless media outlets want to emulate the MRC’s right-wing agenda of punishing teachers for joining a union.