by SALVATORE COLLELUORI • Media Matters for America
An editorial published in the Charleston Gazette-Mail purporting to fact-check AFL-CIO radio ads targeting so-called “right-to-work” laws being pushed by West Virginia legislators identified no errors in the advertisements, but still attacked the labor union by promoting flawed and biased studies funded by anti-union donors.
The December 14 editorial was authored by the editorial board of the Charleston Daily Mail (in July theCharleston Daily Mail and Charleston Gazette merged to form the Charleston Gazette-Mail. The paper retains two independent editorial boards).*
The editorial discussed a West Virginia radio network’s decision to pull three AFL-CIO ads from its airwaves, which reportedly cited them as “inflammatory.” The editorial board claims the ads “mislead by quoting studies that don’t necessarily address correlation and causation.” The editorial continues by juxtaposing the claims in the AFL-CIO ad with “conservative” studies in an attempt to prove the AFL-CIO’s claims are flawed…
