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	"The Media's Media Shy About Newsies" Reporter’s Notebook by Maggie Jackson

"I had a bad feeling when the delivery manager’s walkie-talkie crackled to life, asking for me.

The manager was taking me around in a rattling delivery van, introducing me to the town and to one of the families whose kids deliver the paper. Afterwards, I was to head back to the newspaper offices in upstate New York for an interview with the circulation manager. It was a fine fall day, and I was thrilled that, after many unanswered calls and cancelled interviews, I’d finally be pulling together the final pieces of this difficult story. I could almost relax and enjoy the foliage.

Then, the walkie-talkie buzzed: “Have Maggie call me,” the circulation manager told the deliveryman. We pulled over, and he broke the news: No interview. When the circulation manager had mentioned that I was in town, the publisher angrily cancelled the interview, although I’d driven 100 miles to get it.

I’ve written about factories where workers soil themselves because they aren’t given access to bathrooms. I’ve investigated the black market in adopted babies, and the widespread price mark-ups of coffins. But in doing this story, I learned that the media can be as media-shy as any industry when asked about a sensitive subject.

The status of child carriers has been debated and dragged through courts for a century, but it remains a touchy issue for papers. In many ways, that makes sense: the issue involves dangerous work conditions for children, who are doing a job that’s considered as “American as baseball.” If nothing else, media executives know all too well the power of the press.

In the months I worked on the story, some newspaper executives didn’t return multiple phone calls, and others refused to talk on tape. One executive at a newspaper that voluntarily gives child carriers worker’s compensation insurance said he couldn’t comment because the paper was mired in a separate dispute with its drivers’ union. At a small family-run paper, the controller and the general manager both curtly hung up when I explained why I was calling.

A few academics have researched the issue, including Marc Linder, a law professor at the University of Iowa, and Vincent DeGirolamo, a lecturer at Princeton University who is currently writing a history of news carriers. Child advocates haven’t made carriers a priority, partly because their resources are stretched and partly because “newsies” are few compared with young farm or textile workers, and declining in number. Moreover, one advocate told me that the stories of child workers don’t often get told, since they don’t vote.

After canceling our interview, the circulation manager in upstate New York gave me a few minutes of his time. We stood shivering on the paper’s loading dock, since he said the publisher wouldn’t want to see me in the building. Chagrined, he seemed taken aback by the publisher’s reaction. But somehow, as disappointed as I was, I wasn’t surprised. "
--Maggie Jackson