Following up on our earlier posting on USA Today misleading on mainstream church support for a minimum wage hike — apparently USA Today has a history of obscuring minimum wage activists. And the paper is not alone in its lack of transparency.

Three years ago, a full-page story and photo essay told how hard it was to live on a paycheck close to Florida’s minimum wage of $6.40 an hour. Ken Sheppard of the Business & Media Institute revealed one problem: it omitted that the star of the piece – depicted simply as a “low wage” worker who makes $6.55 an hour – was an activist for a group that advocates a wage increase.

The article and five accompanying photos focused on “Alice Laguerre, 53, of Orlando,” a high school drop-out. “When I’m by myself, I cry. People never know when I’m down and out. Times are very hard,” she complained to Armour about life working low wages at an auto auction company.

 Nothing more than a sad story of one person left behind in a strong economy, right?

Not exactly. The paper didn’t bother to mention that the star of its piece is actually a community organizer for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). 

ACORN’s Web site showed that Laguerre is the chairwoman of the Orange Blossom Trail (OBT) chapter of the group’s Orlando office. A May 31, 2005, news release from the ACORN Web site revealed that Laguerre was a speaker at a May 27, 2005 rally held in Orlando to rally for “comprehensive immigration reform” as laid out in the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act sponsored by Sen. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and McCain (R-Ariz.).

Justin DeLeon, who identified himself as the “tax site coordinator” for Orlando ACORN, confirmed to the Business & Media Institute that the Alice Laguerre featured in the September 5 [2006] USA Today article is the OBT chapter chairwoman.

And USA Today is not alone in its omission.

A search in Nexis for the past two years generated seven items featuring Laguerre, one of which was a signed letter to the editor of the Orlando Sentinel from Laguerre. Of the other six, two Associated Press (AP) items left out Laguerre’s ties to the liberal group.

AP reporter Bill Kaczor filed a March 1 story from Tallahassee that mentioned ACORN’s campaign to raise Florida’s minimum wage, and separately mentioned Laguerre but did not associate the two. The second item was an abbreviated wire report based on Kaczor’s March 1 article.