The Recession and the ‘Deserving Poor’

[marmar]

from FAIR:



Extra! March 2009

The Recession and the ‘Deserving Poor’
Poverty finally on media radar—but only when it hits the middle class

By Neil deMause


As the economy crumbles, issues of poverty and economic need have begun to make more frequent appearances in the news media. From October through December 2008, for example, the three nightly TV news shows ran 20 stories—about one every four or five days—addressing poverty or related issues such as homelessness or food stamps. A previous FAIR study of nightly news coverage (Extra!, 9–10/07), by comparison, found an average of one poverty story on the evening news every three weeks.

More coverage, though, does not necessarily mean better coverage. And while swelling food-stamp rolls and unemployment lines may become media staples as the economic downturn worsens, the way poverty issues are portrayed remains constrained by political biases and stereotypes.

If there’s one commonality to the recent surge in coverage of economic need, it’s that the focus is on the newly poor—-with particular attention to those who can claim a middle-class background. In one typical segment, ABC World News (11/27/08) visited a food bank in Maryland where the director recalled a former donor of food who had fallen on hard times: “Now, she was getting food from us. And she was embarrassed.” Continued correspondent John Donvan:

He was a kitchen installer who now can’t find customers. She was a professional dog groomer who now works at Target. . . . This year, they took a serious tumble from the middle class after losing their home in a foreclosure. At least, food stamps would let them shop for groceries just as before, or so they thought.”

Journalists, of course, are conditioned to look for unexpected contrasts—so-called “man bites dog” stories. Yet the incessant focus on recent arrivals to poverty ends up marginalizing the 37 million Americans who were officially poor before the economic crash. The Newark Star-Ledger (10/8/08), for example, cited a New Jersey county human services director who “said the requests for help have expanded in recent months beyond a core of lower-income residents in the Morristown and Dover areas. ‘These are truck drivers coming in who can’t find work. Senior citizens who have never before requested help but can’t get by. That’s not good.’” (The already existing low-income “core,” presumably, was of less concern.) .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3726