Sacred Cows, Media Bias and the Trial of John Dougherty (aka 'Johnny Doc')
How a story of union corruption with national implications is being ignored by national labor union news "journalists."
Editor’s note: LaborUnionNews.com is, primarily, a news aggregator site. As such, we post news and opinion from all outlets—whether they are “pro-union,” or “anti-union,” and everything in between. Since launching in January 2022, there has been more than 28,000 news articles posted.
In October, when Gallup released its annual Media Confidence poll, it stated that “29% of U.S. adults have ‘not very much’ trust, while a record-high 39% register ‘none at all.’”
“In addition,” the polling firm stated, “Gallup in June found confidence readings in both TV news and newspapers that were near their historical lows and last December found a record-low-tying rating of the honesty and ethics of journalists.”
While the reasons for this widespread lack of trust in the media is often political, as well as generational, a lack of attention by so-called “journalists” who cover labor union news in the national media to a major story in Pennsylvania is but the latest example of media bias.
At a time when unions are in the news daily, there is a major news story going on right now involving the trial of the most powerful labor leader in Philadelphia—arguably in all of Pennsylvania (a swing state)—and national “labor reporters” from major news outlets like Bloomberg, the Washington Post, and the New York Times and their editors are seemingly choosing not to report on it.
Over the last year, there have been hundreds of articles (perhaps more) written on union organizing, union strikes, union activities at Amazon, Apple, Starbucks, UPS and others.
Meanwhile, John Dougherty (aka ‘Johnny Doc’), the former business manager of the Philadelphia-area IBEW Local 98 and the Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council, is currently on trial for embezzlement charges, and Bloomberg, the Washington Post, and the New York Times have chosen to ignore the story.
As Pennsylvania has been, and remains a “swing state,” in national politics—having gone to Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020—Johnny Doc’s trial would seemingly garner more attention from the national labor press.
Johnny Doc has been a powerful figure in Pennsylvania politics for decades—even helping his brother, a Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice, with political contributions and “free” union labor on his home improvements.
He and his union have major donors to political campaigns—Local 98, for example, spent over $90k on Joes Biden’s campaign in 2020 and over $100k on Hillary Clinton, according to OpenSecrets.org—and Dougherty has been known to wield significant influence over elected officials
“In 2015, Johnny Doc helped elect his brother to the state supreme court with more than $1.5 million in direct and in-kind contributions,” reports the Philadelphia Citizen. “In fact, IBEW was Justice Dougherty’s largest contributor, far outpacing the trial lawyers’ Committee for a Better Tomorrow, which gave $850,000.”
This is Dougherty’s second time appearing before a federal jury in Philadelphia during the past two years. Dougherty and former City Councilmember Bobby Henon were convicted on bribery charges in 2021.
As Johnny Doc’s current trial is wrapping up, multiple revelations have occurred almost daily through the course of the trial, however, with the exception of an occasional Associated Press article, the only major media outlet that appears to be covering the story is the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Here are but a few of the articles the Inquirer has published recently.
The evidence the jury didn’t hear | Inside Johnny Doc’s Trial
Johnny Doc trial: Prosecutors comb through Local 98′s finances as they near the end of their case
Despite the seeming importance of this trial in, not just Philadelphia, but Pennsylvania, as well as the nation, Bloomberg, the Washington Post, and the New York Times have no known articles covering the story.
Bloomberg—which has “journalists” covering labor stories, like former union organizer-turned-reporter Josh Eidelson and Ian Kullgren—is seemingly not covering the story at all.
Similarly, despite its coverage of labor union issues, the New York Times has seemingly failed to report anything on the Johnny Doc trial.
Additionally, the Washington Post—which has several “reporters” covering union-related issues on its payroll—has seemingly failed to report on the Johnny Doc trial.
Although Pennsylvania’s other major state newspaper—the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, whose writers have been on strike for more than a year—has published a few articles, the most recent found was published in 2019.
With as much media attention being given to unions today, the failure of “journalists” covering labor union news to cover the Johnny Doc trial lends credence to the public’s distrust of media.
Granted, to union acolytes posing as reporters, union corruption may be a sacred cow that should not be touched. However, rooting out corruption in unions should be in everyone’s interests—especially members’ interests—and, sometimes shedding the light on corruption is the only way to do it.