Peter Wiley's blog

I was searching in the iTunes Music Store podcast section for other labor podcasts and found only one: from the Connecticut AFT that claims to be the first in the nation. I see no reason to doubt this.

I was looking for reporting on a recent Town Hall meeting in Pittsburgh on the Employee Free Choice act and found a piece by the Pittsburg Post-Gazette online.

At the bottom of the page appeared two small ads generated by the Google AdWords program.

The headlines on the ads were Bills Deny Secret Ballot and Unions Explained.

Anyone reading the story was just one click away from anti-union propaganda. This is the first time I have seen Google AdWords used in this way. This is a new communication tactic that union editors and communications directors need to know about as they calculate on-line media strategies.

I think it raises issues about appropriate balance for newspapers that participate in the Google AdWords program.

As some may know the new version of Apple's iTunes, version 4.9, came out last week, It's notable because it now has support for podcasting and because anyone can add a podcast to Apple's database of broadcasts.

This last week I added podcast information for the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO to the iTunes database and it is now available through the Music Store. If you have iTunes 4.9 installed, go to the front page of the Music Store, and click on "podcasts". From the podcast page search for "Pennsylvania AFL-CIO" and you'll find the podcast information.