Through quantitative and qualitative analyses this project argues that newspaper reportage and writing about the labor movement is an ideological act. The evidence in this only study of its kind suggests that a lack of "instructive imagery" is flat, lifeless journalism that leads to perceptions of a flat, lifeless social movement. The research features: (a) the correlation of public opinion with union membership and union election rates tracked over a 30-year period; (b) the linkage of selected metaphor in newswriting to an ideology about a controversial political and social realm; (c) the extension/expansion of implicit communication theory to print news, and, more specifically, to labor reporting; (d) the extension/expansion of language intensity propositions; and (e) an alternative view that "dead" metaphor is not the research topic of choice.