Quote of the day – August 29, 2012
It’s a persistent critique of the press: why isn’t there more reporting on the poor? Every year seems to bring another study about the problem. There’s the study, for instance, that showed that the three main evening news shows devoted more time to Michael Jackson’s trials than to poverty. Or you can do a Google News search for “poverty.” 121,000 results appear. Do a search of “Kardashian” and 189,000 results turn up.
That’s not a new phenomenon. In an interview, “Nickel and Dimed” author Barbara Ehrenreich talked about her experience trying to cover working class issues in the 80s and 90s. “I discovered … magazines and newspapers want to please their advertisers,” she said. “Their advertisers want to think they are reaching wealthy people, people who will buy the products. They don’t want really depressing articles about misery and hardship near their ads.”
- An excerpt from Jack Mirkinson‘s piece for the Huffington Post: Media’s Poverty Coverage Draws Persistent Criticism
