In March 2018, Labor published a special issue that explored the history of labor journalism, revealing both variations and continuities from the Gilded Age to the twenty-first century. “Just as historians have always leaned upon journalism for the proverbial first draft of history,” guest editors Max Fraser and Christopher Phelps wrote, “so too labor itself has always drawn sustenance, and always will, from those working the labor beat.”1
In the four years since then, there has been a noticeable uptick in the scope and quality of labor reporting in the United States, amounting to something of a renaissance. Partly fueled by an impressive wave of unionization at digital newsrooms and legacy media institutions, what may be called the “new” labor journalism is led by a generation of reporters all too aware of their own working-class status.
Having only ever known a media terrain of internships, freelancing, layoffs, and overall...