Shame on St. Louis Public Radio Report : Uses stats from ‘Dr Evil’
St. Louis Activist hub notes how sometimes even NPR stations fall for the slick agitprop of hard right operatives. This time it’s the guy known as “Dr. Evil”, whose own son has somewhat disowned him. He’s best known for working to keep minimum wage restaurant workers under the heel of the fast food industry with a whole spindizzy of false front groups designed to manufacture contrarian stats and reports that favor industry. (When it’s Oil and Gas and AGW it’s Heartland they call, & when it’s a workable wage or health care for food industry and hospitality workers, the GOP sends Richard Berman & EPI into the ring.)
Several times throughout the day, St. Louis Public Radio aired a report about high unemployment among the young. The report claimed that it was harder for teenagers to find jobs because of, among other things, “rising employment costs” caused by a “higher minimum wage.” The segment focused entirely on an interview with Michael Saltsman, a research fellow at the Employment Policies Institute (EPI). Unfortunately, St. Louis public radio failed to note that EPI is actually a front group for a guy who lobbies on behalf of restaurant and hotel industries which, you know, just might have a vested interest in criticizing the minimum wage.