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Poverty, Coverage of

As poverty became a clearly recognized problem during the 20th century, journalists sought to describe and cover the problem, shedding light on its causes as well as those groups working to alleviate its impact. Coverage of poverty involves politics and economics but also sociology and crime, among other topics.

Definition

A challenge in covering poverty issues is the lack of consensus about defining what poverty is at any given time or place. Typically, poverty is related to economics and low-income levels. Many countries have a government-set “poverty line,” a baseline amount of total family income, and any family or household making less than this income is considered to be living “below the poverty line.”

However, there is agreement that poverty is also defined by cultural perceptions and, as Nobel Prize–winning economist Amartya Sen suggests, includes deprivation of political, economic, and social rights resulting in and exaggerated by public shame. Added to this conundrum is that the poor are often socially ostracized. The United Nations Development Program’s (UNDP) Human Development Index adds life expectancy and education level to its dimensions of poverty.

Regardless of exact definition, the poverty line is a standard that shifts over time and place. The ways in which this line shifts and the criteria for the shifts are continuously at issue. More specifically, there is considerable argument about whether or not the criteria and shifts should automatically respond to the shifts in community living standards. In the United States, the federal poverty line as of late 2007 had not shifted (except for inflation) in four decades and has been considerably criticized.

Criticism of Coverage

There are many criticisms of media coverage of poverty, in both the United States and elsewhere. Rarely is poverty covered without strong subthemes of race or gender. Although the majority of people living in poverty in America are white (45% in 2007), most Americans believe that the poor are dominated by Blacks (although they only accounted for 24% in 2007) or Hispanics (in reality representing only 24% in 2007), in part as news coverage of the poor often highlights these groups. A 2007 Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) study of poverty reporting found that in a study of three major U.S. networks (CBS, NBC, and ABC), the racial representation of the 76 poor sources quoted (out of a total of 191 quoted sources) in the 58 aired stories were non-Latino whites, 39%; African Americans, 38%; and Latinos, 12%. While these percentages alone may not lead to misguided perceptions of the poor in the United States, the percentage of nonpoor sources may have helped to exaggerate the stereotypes (whites, 79%; African Americans, 18%; Latinos, 0%).

The most frequent stories about poverty in many countries are focused on that suffered elsewhere with little coverage of their own, unless prompted by an event, political campaign, or crime statistics. A recurring criticism of mainstream news media coverage of poverty is that their reports create distance between those living in poverty and those not, by portraying those who are poor as intrinsically different. An example of this type of coverage includes stories highlighting drug use, alcoholism, or criminal activity of the poor. It is argued that this portrayed difference from the middle class perpetuates a feeling of either indifference about poverty or acceptance that poverty is undefeatable, that, as stated in Matthew 26:11 of the Bible (For you always have the poor with you) and as Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) titled its 2007 poverty report, it “will always be with us.”

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