Abstract:
The mass media and its workers have come to occupy strategic position in the society. This is
due to the fact that they are custodians of information, hence they have considerable access to
information and they are expected to disseminate such for public consumption. Whatever they
decide to do with these, will go a long way in determining the direction in which a society
moves, since people often act on the basis of information available to them. This study sought to
explain media coverage of industrial relations particularly from the premise of the challenges
posed by the dual identity of media workers as professionals as well as union members. The
Marxist school of thought and the liberal democratic tradition approaches were adopted to help
us understand if industrial relations matters are only reported during crisis while many
achievements of workers are left unknown. The findings revealed amongst others that print
media coverage is dependent of people‟s opinion and outlook in a given industrial relations
situation. The study concluded that, media workers, irrespective of their location within the job
hierarchy are as vulnerable within the employment relationship as workers in other industries.
Amongst the recommendations was that there is need for media workers not to allow themselves
to be used against their own professional interests while discharging their duties. This study
encompasses both primary and secondary data.
