It's Backlash Time Again: Re: Media slanting welfare reform as a success

[The Backlash Cometh]

The newspaper articles started a few weeks back, but now it's beginning to snowball. The mainstream press's word on the street is that everybody's worst fears did not materialize and that welfare reform worked. To support their position, they've included testimonials of a dozen or so people who have "made it."

I don't argue that finding work to support your family is the better option, but the shows are slanting the stories and someone needs to make sure that everyone gets a chance to tell their own story. I have seen this pattern before of accentuating the positive and downplaying or ignoring the negative. We all have. It comes from the CEO PR handbook that this administration has been using since it came into office. The PR strategy only worked for them in the short run when they got us into Iraq but now we're dealing with a host of problems that we didn't consider before. The same thing is going to happen if we allow the pundits to continue telling one side of the story regarding welfare reform. It's dishonest reporting.

To see the other side, go to this incredible thread that will tell you what they've missed and why we need to give this topic more attention:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1960202


We need a Spike Lee or Michael Moore to come in and make a movie, not just to tell the story of the side we're reading in the above thread, but to also make a movie about all these shows and newspapers that are slanting the right's position on welfare reform. This is extremely harmful because this one-sided reporting will accelerate the Republican's division of the classes. This is why the poor get poorer and the rich get richer during Republican Administrations. They continue to believe that they don't have to think about the poor people they are exploiting because the slanted reports on welfare reform proves the poor can fend for themselves during these hard times. Republicans don't deserve that kind of peace of mind.

[liberal N proud]

1. It all depends on who's definition of success you are using

For the neocons this may be the success they were looking for

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. When I went to school more than 25 years ago,

there was a book by Studs Terkel called, "Working;" another by the name, "How the other half Dies," Also: "The Hidden Injuries of Class," and "Who Runs Congress?"

All required reading. And I don't see that anything has changed in all that time. My daughter is now reading a current book on the same subject, I wish I could remember the title. It was written by a female New York Time's reporter, I believe, who actually took the low-paying jobs to get the material. I told my daughter that I was glad she was reading it because she'll see that the Democrats at least think about the poverty issue and she said that she doubted it because there was a lot of anti-Democratic comments in the book. I found that surprising. But now that I see that Bill Clinton triangulated this issue and skewed it to the right, I can see how that perception was fed.

[TheFarseer]

5. "Nickeled and Dimed"

I think there was a book like that by that title.

[The Backlash Cometh]

6. That's the one.

I just want to read it to see what my daughter meant when she said there were anti-Democratic comments. Didn't make sense. The author apparently slammed Wal-Mart, which isn't exactly a right-wing position.

[TheFarseer]

3. I think results are mixed

Welfare reform would work if the job market in general were better and if welfare to work folks could get some kind of job training and also daycare. The daycare situation in this country is just maddening. I agree with the spirit of the law though. How hopeless would you feel if you didn't have a job and you were stuck watching kids all day and waiting for a government check - forever?

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. I think you hit it on the nail.

Welfare reform would have succeeded IF THERE WERE ACTUALLY GOOD PAYING JOBS ON THE MARKET WHICH ALSO HAD UPWARD MOBILITY.

Duh-doh! I'm still floored that Bill Clinton couldn't put one and one together on that one.