News Coverage of Ontario’s Minimum Wage Increase Was Slanted Heavily Towards Business Interests
75% of recent minimum wage coverage cited business sources while only 32% cited labour sources, new analysis shows.
If you felt like media coverage of Ontario’s recent minimum wage increase skewed towards business interests at the expense of workers, the data suggests it was not your imagination at all.
An analysis by PressProgress of dozens of news articles covering the province’s recent minimum wage increase reveals Canadian newspapers overwhelmingly privileged the perspective of businesses over the perspective of Ontario’s low-wage workers.
Three-quarters of all news coverage (75%) between December 31, 2017 and January 4th, 2018 greeting the new minimum wage – including news reports, opinion columns and editorials – directly quoted or cited figures from business owners, bankers and corporate lobby groups.
