By Al Cross
Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues
"Why aren't our leaders speaking out about poverty?" Sandra Rosenblith, director of Stand Up for Rural America, asked the panel at a session of the National Rural Assembly in North Bethesda, Md., today.
"It's the role of the media," replied panelist Erik Stegman, who runs the liberal Center for American Progress's "Half in Ten" campaign, which aims to halve the percentage of Americans in poverty by 2022.
Stegman said poverty received little coverage during the presidential race, even though it had risen considerably during the Great Recession. And, we should add, it has remained more persistent after the recession's end than after previous recessions.
The national poverty rate in 2011, the year before Stegman's campaign began, was 15 percent, reflecting 46.2 million people below the federal poverty line. Outside metropolitan areas, the rate was 17 percent. (Chart from Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2011; Census Bureau, 2012)
"We need to talk about poverty in a different way and how we cover it," Stegman said. In most news accounts of the country's economic problems, he added, "We're leaving out an entire group of people."
Stegman said his campaign's goal is not audacious, because the nation has cut its poverty rate in half before. That was in 1959-1973, when the rate fell from more than 22 percent of the population to just over 11 percent. Most of that decline came before the War on Poverty hit full scale in 1966.
Rosenblith said afterward that there was much public support for the War on Poverty because most Americans at the time had lived through the Great Depression, and had experienced poverty or were familiar with it. That number is much less today.
And in addition to less public sympathy, there seems to be an inherent lack of interest among rural news media in covering topics that reflect poorly on their communities. They cover the problems and controversies that are publicly placed on the public agenda, but are less willing to do the sort of enterprise reporting that takes a look at the issues that many if not most people in their coverage areas would just as soon not read or hear about.
Covering rural poverty shouldn't be a great challenge. We have plenty of data, such as that in the huge Kids Count report issued today, and plenty of advocates and agencies who can serve as sources and gateways to the primary sources, our neighbors who live in poverty. Their stories deserve to be told. For a tool kit from CoveringPoverty.org, click here. For more on the Rural Assembly, from the Daily Yonder, click here.
Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues
"Why aren't our leaders speaking out about poverty?" Sandra Rosenblith, director of Stand Up for Rural America, asked the panel at a session of the National Rural Assembly in North Bethesda, Md., today.
"It's the role of the media," replied panelist Erik Stegman, who runs the liberal Center for American Progress's "Half in Ten" campaign, which aims to halve the percentage of Americans in poverty by 2022.
Stegman said poverty received little coverage during the presidential race, even though it had risen considerably during the Great Recession. And, we should add, it has remained more persistent after the recession's end than after previous recessions.
The national poverty rate in 2011, the year before Stegman's campaign began, was 15 percent, reflecting 46.2 million people below the federal poverty line. Outside metropolitan areas, the rate was 17 percent. (Chart from Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2011; Census Bureau, 2012)
Stegman said his campaign's goal is not audacious, because the nation has cut its poverty rate in half before. That was in 1959-1973, when the rate fell from more than 22 percent of the population to just over 11 percent. Most of that decline came before the War on Poverty hit full scale in 1966.
Rosenblith said afterward that there was much public support for the War on Poverty because most Americans at the time had lived through the Great Depression, and had experienced poverty or were familiar with it. That number is much less today.
And in addition to less public sympathy, there seems to be an inherent lack of interest among rural news media in covering topics that reflect poorly on their communities. They cover the problems and controversies that are publicly placed on the public agenda, but are less willing to do the sort of enterprise reporting that takes a look at the issues that many if not most people in their coverage areas would just as soon not read or hear about.
Covering rural poverty shouldn't be a great challenge. We have plenty of data, such as that in the huge Kids Count report issued today, and plenty of advocates and agencies who can serve as sources and gateways to the primary sources, our neighbors who live in poverty. Their stories deserve to be told. For a tool kit from CoveringPoverty.org, click here. For more on the Rural Assembly, from the Daily Yonder, click here.
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