COMPARISON OF MEDIA PORTRAYALS OF POVERTY IN LOW-INCOME VERSUS AFFLUENT METROPOLITAN AREAS
______
A Thesis
presented to
the Faculty of the Graduate School
at the University of Missouri-Columbia
______
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Master of Arts
______
by
RALPH CHAPOCO
Dr. Monique Luisi, Thesis Supervisor
DECEMBER 2020
The undersigned, appointed by the dean of the Graduate School, have examined the thesis entitled
COMPARISON OF MEDIA PORTRAYALS OF POVERTY IN LOWER- INCOME VERSUS AFFLUENT METROPOLITAN AREAS
presented by Ralph Chapoco, a candidate for the degree of Master of Arts, and hereby certify that, in their opinion, it is worthy of acceptance.
______
Assistant Professor Monique Luisi
______
Associate Professor Ryan Thomas
______
Assistant Professor Michael Kearney
______
Associate Professor Irma Arteaga ii
Acknowledgements
This thesis is only possible because of support from a variety of people throughout the University of Missouri School of Journalism. First and foremost, I want to thank Dr. Monique Luisi, who believed in this project enough to keep me motivated and encouraged me through the frustrating times I experienced during this year-long venture.
Advising thesis students is difficult even in the best of situations, but she continued to be a resource during the most difficult of times, as a pandemic overwhelmed the university and only added to her responsibilities.
Not to be left out are the committee members who guided me and mentored me throughout this process. I am especially grateful to Professor Ryan Thomas, who lent his experience and expertise into making this thesis as polished and as complete as possible.
To Professor Irma Arteaga, who provided her insights into the subject of poverty, ensuring the thesis captured every aspect of a complicated and difficult subject. To
Professor Michael Kearney, who offered his perspectives on the quantitative aspects of the project, as well as his feedback regarding the sampling of the newspaper articles that should be included as part of the study.
Most of all, I want to thank those I have encountered in my life’s journey, too many to name, who brought me to journalism, who believed in me enough to foster my interest, and ensured that, regardless the obstacles, I would become the best reporter I can be. I cannot believe I have gotten to where I am, and it has to do with all of you. It is an honor and privilege to have met all of you.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... ii
ABSTRACT ...... vii
Chapter One: Introduction ...... 1
Rationale for Study ...... 3
Purpose of Study ...... 4
Chapter Two: Literature Review ...... 6
Agenda Setting Theory ...... 6
Background: The definition and distribution of poverty ...... 7
Background: Poverty...... 7
Poverty defined ...... 8
Poverty today ...... 9
The breakdown ...... 9
Poverty and history ...... 10
The southern problem ...... 11
Rural versus urban ...... 12
Factors related to poverty ...... 13
Poverty and consequences ...... 15
The Media ...... 15
Journalism blind spot ...... 15
Perception versus reality ...... 16
Race and perception ...... 24 iv
Perception and public policy ...... 28
Issue and perception ...... 28
Research Questions ...... 30
Conclusions ...... 32
Chapter Three: Method ...... 34
Rational for Method Selection ...... 34
Researcher’s Role ...... 37
Research Design ...... 38
Data Sampling ...... 38
Data Collection and Management...... 40
Coding Procedures ...... 42
Data Analysis Plan ...... 43
Intercoder Reliability ...... 45
Trustworthiness...... 45
Summary ...... 46
Chapter Four: Findings ...... 48
Summary of main themes...... 48
RQ1: Resources devoted to poverty by location ...... 50
RQ1a: Resources devoted to poverty in national publications ...... 50
RQ1b: Resources devoted to poverty by lower income publications ...... 50
RQ1c: Resources devoted to poverty by more affluent publications ...... 51
RQ2: Disparities in coverage ...... 51
RQ2a: Demographic disparities in national publications ...... 53 v
RQ2b: Demographic disparities for publications in less affluent areas ...... 55
RQ2c: Demographic disparities for publications in more affluent areas ...... 57
RQ3: Disparities in newspaper coverage of poverty ...... 60
Chapter Five: Discussion ...... 68
Summary of Major Findings ...... 69
Theoretical Implications ...... 78
Practical Implications ...... 82
Limitations and Directions for Future Research ...... 83
Conclusions ...... 88
References ...... 91
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COMPARISON OF MEDIA PORTRAYALS OF POVERTY IN LOW-INCOME
VERSUS AFFLUENT METROPOLITAN AREAS
Ralph Chapoco
Dr. Monique Luisi, Thesis Supervisor
ABSTRACT
Poverty has become a salient issue for many Americans. The economic recovery from the Great Recession has been uneven, with large portions of the country continuing to live in poverty. The public has a range of views on the subject, shaped by their perceptions of what they believe causes the problem. A significant component responsible for that perception depends on how media organizations represent people living in poverty and the attention they give to the subject. This thesis focused on the amount of coverage that newspapers, based in geographic locations with differing levels of socioeconomic status, devote to poverty, and the degree to which reporters and editors from those publications misrepresent the demographics of those suffering from it. The theoretical framework for this research is agenda setting. The frequency with which journalists devote report on a subject, and how they portray it can determine its importance to the public, and whether people’s perceptions are based in reality. The research supports prior work confirming that poverty is not well covered. Newspapers in this study devoted a fraction of their coverage to the topic, less than one percent overall.
The Philadelphia Inquirer and Star Tribune cover the subject the most, both nearing two- tenths of one percent. Journalists also misrepresent the demographics of people living in poverty, generally underrepresenting males while some overrepresent females. All vii publications in the study overrepresent the adults in their articles but include children at proportions less than their actual poverty rates. How they misrepresent racial and ethnic groups could not be well understood because many reporters failed to include that information in their articles. Results from this study can serve as a tool for improving poverty coverage among journalists. It can highlight the publications presenting a more objective view of the subject, allow others to learn from the work of the reporters and editors who managed to correct for their biases to some degree. 1
Chapter One: Introduction
The United States has been the largest economy in the world for much of the 20th century and all the 21st century (“World's largest economies,” 2019). It produces almost $20 trillion in goods and services, and that figure has been growing since the 1960s, which started at less than $5 trillion before increasing exponentially for more than five decades (“GDP (current US$)”, 2019). Yet, even based on a casual glance, the nation’s growing economy has not benefitted everyone equally. There are still areas, ranging from the smallest villages to the largest metropolitan areas, where people are experiencing economic hardships, places with chronic levels of poverty that have spanned decades.
Measuring poverty, both in terms of its scale and its distribution, began in the 1960s when the United States Census began measuring it, allowing policy makers, as well as the public, to track not only its prevalence in the population, but also its distribution (Blackburn, 1990). In 2018, about 41.6 million people lived in poverty, nearly 13 percent of the population. That figure underscores a theme about poverty, that it is both dynamic and static. Meaning that people will fall into poverty and out of it depending on the times and circumstances.
However, it is also resilient, both in terms of geographic distribution and its ethnic makeup. 2
Media, both journalists and photographers, have played a role in shaping and highlighting the plight of those living in poverty. Among them is Jacob Riis, who for 20 years worked as a police reporter for the New York Tribune (Jones,
1970). Another was Dorothea Lange, a photographer who documented the life of those living in poverty during the Great Depression (Gawthrop, 1993). Among her most famous works was the portrait series of a migrant family who picked peas in Nipomo, California. The photographs were so iconic that they came to be known as Migrant Mother. A third, Leonard Nadel, documented the abject poverty and substandard housing conditions of people as a photographer for the
Los Angeles Housing Authority from 1949 to 1952 (Stefano, 2012).
Despite that history and impact, poverty coverage is at such a low level that it is barely mentioned in the popular press (Medina, 2013). Even when reporters have dedicated time to the issue, there is research to suggest they are making mistakes when reporting on those living in poverty, by misrepresenting the prevalence of poverty within specific demographic groups and by focusing on specific causes of poverty, whether personal attributes versus societal causes, depending on the ethnic background of the sources they used to construct the narrative (Gilens, 1996).
This thesis involved a foundational content analysis to determine if the same discrepancies in media coverage of poverty that researchers discovered within nationally based publications also exist for newspapers located within 3
specific geographic areas. This research will also attempt to correlate this disparity with the level of poverty in each area.
If the results of this study imitate the findings of prior research, meaning that if reporters misrepresent the proportion of certain races and ethnicities as living in poverty when writing their articles, then the concerns that researchers highlight can serve as evidence for informing reporters about potential pitfalls that can occur when covering a sensitive topic. If it turns out some publications do not misrepresent the race and ethnicities of people living in poverty, those news outlets can serve as examples for highlighting poverty coverage in a meaningful and objective fashion.
Rationale for the Study
How media report on a topic or issue can influence the public’s response toward it. When journalists misrepresent information to the public, readers are forming faulty opinions because the information distorts the truth. This is especially important in the case of poverty because of deep-seated prejudice present within the United States (Iyengar, 1990). There is evidence to suggest that people will be swayed in how they view poverty based on who journalists profile when reporting on the topic; if a person is a minority, they tend to have a more negative view of social programs meant to address the issue (Iyengar, 1990).
Since opinions are formed based on the information in the media, and public 4
policy is designed around public perception, it creates a chain reaction that harms people of color.
The study can also serve to inform reporters about potential pitfalls of reporting on a subject as complex as poverty and wealth. If journalists realize that misrepresentations can occur, they can better address the issue in their reporting.
This will result in more comprehensive, and more truthful, coverage of a topic that the public should be more aware of. It can also extend to realizing potential difficulties in coverage of other subjects that are as equally difficult, which would enhance journalism overall.
Purpose of the Study
The study will investigate whether newspapers in different regions of the country, and with varying levels of poverty, misrepresent the subject in their respective areas by overrepresenting a specific ethnic or racial cohort as living in poverty. For example, if 20 percent of Hispanics are living in poverty in one region, but comprise half of the subjects that reporters and editors select in the articles they write about poverty, then readers will infer that more Hispanics are living in poverty than the actual number.
5
The purpose of the research is to determine if a disparity exists between the actual poverty rates of a specific racial group and the proportion those groups are included in newspaper articles. It will further determine if the level of poverty in each region has some association with that disparity. The following sections will highlight the literature review along with the techniques that will be used for the study. This will begin by providing a background of poverty in the United
States, which includes a working definition of poverty, along with its magnitude and distribution, both in terms of time and location. That will be followed by highlighting the previous research that has been done regarding poverty and how media have reported on the topic.
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Chapter Two: Literature Review
This literature review provides an overview of agenda setting theory, a background on the history of poverty in the United States, including the distribution of people living in poverty, the nature of poverty in today’s environment, along with the factors that contribute to the problem. The section provides some understanding of the amount of resources that media devote to understanding and covering the issue, as well as the misrepresentations that occur when reporters write about the topic for public consumption along with the potential consequences of the distortions that occur.
Agenda Setting Theory
Agenda setting argues that media outlets can influence how the public perceives an object, be that an issue, an individual or an event (McCombs &
Shaw, 1972). They can affect public perception in terms of how they view the importance of an issue. The more that publications highlight a specific subject, the greater the likelihood the public will recall that issue and the more important they will view the subject. Using Chapel Hill, North Carolina as the research location,
Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw demonstrated that the issues readers thought important during the 1968 presidential campaign, were the same subjects that local news media emphasized in their coverage. 7
Media not only had an impact in terms of the salience of an issue, they could also influence the attributes that the public attached to a specific topic, a concept known as second-level agenda setting (McCombs & Ghanem, 1991).
There are two different dimensions associated with this idea (Kim, Dietram,
Scheufele & Shanahan, 2002). The first is concerned with the concrete or tangible aspects of a topic or idea. If the subject is a person, then the substantive dimension refers to the personality of the individual, or the person’s ideology. If the issue is a topic, such as the economy, the substantive dimensions could be concepts such as inflation, a measure of the increase in consumer prices, or unemployment, the number of people who are looking for work as a percentage of the labor force.
How the issue is presented to the public because of reporting will have a profound impact for how the public will frame the issue. That will, in turn, have an influence on the potential solutions that will be proposed, along with the subsequent policy proposals developed to deal with the issue. The product, the policy proposal, results directly from perception, which is a result of how the issue is portrayed by media. If distortions are present in the beginning, then the public is offered a faulty narrative. It is that initial input, the portrayal, that is the focus of the study.
Background: The definition and distribution of poverty
Background: Poverty 8
MSNBC, back in January of 2016, published a report titled, Geography of poverty, in which their reporters and producers traveled the country to highlight the impoverished conditions of people living in those places (Lee, 2016). They circumnavigated the United States, creating one large traveling circle from the west coast to the northern plains, to the eastern seaboard and eventually the south.
They visited with people, chronicled their lives and their hardships of making enough to feed their families and put a roof over their heads — all while providing for the medical needs of their loved ones.
Poverty defined
Poverty can be defined in several ways, one avenue is one the government uses, which is the metric that is used to access social services. The threshold for determining poverty was developed in the 1960s using expenditures based on food (Blackburn, 1990). The income thresholds are determined by multiplying the inflation adjusted cost of minimum food diet, along with adjusting for family size and the composition and age of the household (How is poverty measured in the
United States?, n.d.).
Households that are 100 percent above the poverty threshold is above the poverty level. Those between 100 percent and 125 percent are near poverty while those with incomes at the threshold and below are living in poverty. Households 9
who are deeply impoverished live on half the income as that of the threshold
(How is poverty measured in the United States?, n.d.).
In 2015 for example, individuals earning less than $11,367, a family of two children with a single working adult who earns less than $19,078 and a family of two children and two working adults earning less than $24,036 are people living in poverty (Thiede & Kim, 2017). Since they meet that definition, that entitles them to certain benefits, including an allotment to pay for their basic needs that include housing and food. That is one definition, but researchers have argued that other structural factors contribute to the likelihood of living in poverty.
Poverty today
Based on the most recent U.S. Census figures, there were 324.7 million people living in the U.S. Of that, almost 34 million people, about 10.5 percent of the population, live in poverty (U.S. Census Bureau, 2020). That is a decrease of about 1.3 percent from the prior year. There are more females than males living in poverty than males and there are also more adults living in poverty compared to children (U.S. Census Bureau, 2020).
The breakdown
There is a racial and ethnic component to poverty. Caucasians comprise a plurality of that total, about 42 percent, followed by Hispanics at 28 percent and
African Americans are third at 24 percent (U.S. Census Bureau, 2020). 10
Poverty and history
Despite the millions of people living in poverty, the percentage of people who are struggling with poverty is low when compared to historical data. In the latter half of the 1950s, 22.4 percent, about 39.5 million people were impoverished
(Poverty in the U.S., n.d.). That figure continued to decline throughout the 1960s and by 1973, poverty was reduced to 11.1 percent of the population. It increased once again, and by 1983, that figure reached 15.2 percent or 35.3 million people
(Poverty in the U.S., n.d.). Since then, the percentage has varied, reaching 15.1 percent in 2010 before declining to the 13 percent level in 2018 (Poverty in the
U.S., n.d.).
Economists have referred to different reasons for the decline in poverty during the 1960s and 1970s. One is that overall income increased for the country, which led to a decrease in the poverty rate (Poverty in the U.S., n.d.). Average gross hourly earnings increased by 8.5 percent from 1967 to 1977 but decreased by 5.2 percent between 1977 and 1983. Poverty rates also increased in the country because the proportion of the population that typically experience poverty began to change, such as family size and composition, age, marital status of head of household and unemployment (Poverty in the U.S., n.d.).
It is also understood that poverty is a recurring trend, and that it correlates with cycles in the economy. If the United States experiences a period of economic contraction, increases in the poverty rate typically follows (Chaudry et al., 2016). 11
For example, during the recessions of 1980, 1981 and 1990, the poverty rate increased to more than 15 percent. That statistic decreased significantly when the economy began to expand following 1990 as part of the information technology revolution. However, it increased once again to 11 percent in 2000, when productivity had run its course (Chaudry et al., 2016).
The southern problem
MSNBC reporters collected anecdotes from people such as Bruneta Sims, a resident of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who said that her neighbors are disappearing
(Lee, 2016). They have either moved away, have been diagnosed with cancer or other illnesses or have passed away, much of which can be traced to the chemicals that have polluted the local environment coming from the manufacturing plants that have become the cornerstone of the area’s economy (Lee, 2016).
Sims is not alone in her plight. She lives in a region, in a state, with some of the highest levels of poverty in the country. Americans living in the south are more likely to be living in poverty than anywhere else. There are about 123.5 million people who can be classified as living in poverty in those states
(“Demographics and the Economy”, n.d.). Among them, Mississippi and
Louisiana are the two with highest poverty rates at 20 percent and 19 percent respectively (“Demographics and the Economy”, n.d.). In the Appalachian area,
West Virginia earns the dubious distinction as the state with the highest level of poverty at 18 percent (“Demographics and the Economy”, n.d.). One reason is 12
economic inequality. Southern states have some of the widest gaps between wealthy and living in poverty populations. Minimum wage also plays a role, and southern states typically have the federal minimum wage as the price floor for labor (Peralta, 2014).
Others claim that poverty in the south is tied to generational factors, such as the inability of parents to pass their accumulated wealth onto their children.
Researchers from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta stated that an underlying cause of poverty in the south is because of heirs property, which results from a landowner passing away without a properly recorded, or probated, will
(Davidson, 2017). In such cases, the property is split among different relatives, many of whom are scattered in different parts of the state or country, resulting in a court-ordered sale. That makes it difficult to transfer wealth to subsequent generations, which results in persistent and acute poverty in specific parts of the country, especially in the south (Davidson, 2017).
Rural versus urban
Researchers have tracked the incidence of poverty over time in different parts of the United States, whether it is more prevalent in rural versus urban areas. They have analyzed trends in poverty rates in both rural and urban areas and demonstrated that rates declined between 1970 and 2000 (Nolan, Waldfogel &
Wimer, 2017). However, poverty in urban areas has increased since then, and has 13
tracked to a higher level than in rural areas — which represents a reversal (Nolan,
Waldfogel & Wimer, 2017).
Factors related to poverty
There are many elements, across several distinct areas, that researchers attribute to causing poverty. Surveying the major research papers, David Brady distills them to essentially three broad themes: behavioral, structural, and political
(Brady, 2019). Those who attribute behavior as a cause of poverty believe that individuals are largely responsible for their well-being, and poverty is caused by their decisions. Those who ascribe poverty to structural causes believe that economic and demographic factors are largely responsible for poverty. Lastly, researchers who claim it is mostly political tie the cause of poverty to power and the decisions about how resources are distributed to society at large (Brady,
2019).
Among the papers cited focusing on behavior is a research report by the
American Enterprise Institute and Brookings (AEI, Brookings 2015). The report focused on the three aspects the researchers believed contributed to poverty: family composition, education, and earnings. As an example, researchers cited statistics regarding the declining percentage of two parent households, along with the increasing frequency of single-parent families. They also stated that most single-parent families are low income (AEI-Brookings, 2015). The poverty rates for households where the female is the head and single are higher. Between 1967 14
and 2003, the number of households with that specific family dynamic were higher, which could explain the increase in the poverty rate overall (Chaudry et al,
2016).
Another aspect of poverty includes the structural aspects that define a labor market. Labor market factors have a direct impact on the poverty rate. Using regression analysis, researchers at the National Bureau of Economic Research have found correlations between the two. Those include the unemployment rate, real median ages, along with income inequality. The higher the unemployment rate and the higher the income inequality, the higher the poverty rate in an area, while the real median wage has an opposite correlation (Chaudry et al, 2016).
This is pertinent because there are fewer opportunities to obtain employment and, those unable to secure opportunities because of their standing or station, will suffer the consequences. This perspective directly challenges the view that poverty can be ascribed to individuals who make suboptimal decisions concerning their lives. If an economy presents only a set amount of jobs or employment to the labor force, then some will be crowded out of the labor market, regardless the decisions they make, This will happen simply because there are not enough opportunities available (Calnitsky, n.d.).
Finally, there are the political factors tied to poverty. A study of the governing philosophies of those different countries, in relation to their poverty levels, yields 15
results indicating that poverty is reduced when the governing party is more liberal and more women have a greater share in governing (Brady, 2019).
Poverty and consequences
Aside from the impact that poverty has for low income families, it also presents consequences for the larger community. In places such as Birmingham,
Alabama, residents are abandoning their homes (Lee, 2016). In the city with a population of more than 212,000, about 30 percent are living below the poverty line and some 16,000 properties within it are delinquent on their taxes (Lee,
2016). With people abandoning their homes, city officials are forced to make up for the difference in terms of upkeep. According to the MSNBC article, they are spending about $6.6 million per year cutting overgrown grass because people are no longer taking care of the landscaping (Lee, 2016).
There are multiple reasons to explain why poverty exists, each layered with its own set of circumstances, and all defy an easy explanation. In some parts of the south, the story is about an influx of immigrants working low-income jobs such as agriculture, because those are the opportunities that exist. In places such as Appalachia, poverty can be explained through the loss of the coal industry, which was the driving force of the local economy (Lee, 2016).
The Media
Journalism’s blind spot 16
All this news is sobering because the fact is that few journalism organizations cover poverty. Of the 52 mainstream media outlets that were analyzed, coverage of poverty amounted to less than one percent of available news space between 2007 and 2012 (Medina, 2013). The article pertaining to this concluded that many media organizations choose not to highlight poverty in their coverage because of the impact that it would have on advertisers, firms who want to reach wealthy consumers, who do not want their products or services placed next to articles focusing on the hardships that people in the community face
(Medina, 2013). It is also expensive. It involves allowing reporters to dedicate time to the subject. Editors are reluctant to devote resources to it given the constraints on their budgets (Medina, 2013).
Other publications have been filling the niche left by the main media outlets. This includes nonprofit journalism organizations and independent journalists. There are stories to tell about poverty and there are best practices that have been established to ensure stories are told well (Medina, 2013).
Perception versus reality
Even when media outlets focus their attention on poverty, the research suggests there are misrepresentations in their coverage. This is especially significant because media tend to disproportionately depict minorities as living in poverty in greater proportions than they do people who are Caucasian (Bullock et al., 2001). In their paper, Heather E. Bullock, Karen Fraser Wyche and Wendy R. 17
Williams (2001) reviewed how newspaper reporters tried to incorporate race into the perspectives of the articles they wrote. The research was isolated to narratives of those who were receiving welfare after the passage of The Personal
Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. Authors in the paper investigated the messages that newspaper articles tried to convey between
April and July of 1999 from the nine highest circulating newspapers (Bullock et al., 2001). During their initial keyword search, they obtained about 2,000 articles but only about 412 dealt with domestic poverty or welfare reform (Bullock et al.,
2001).
They analyzed the content of the articles by coding the words in the content, finding that about 24 percent of them contained some overt discussion of racial and ethnic minorities. Of those, 27 articles focused on general trends among minorities (Bullock et al., 2001). A bias may exist because the largest category within this group, discussed race and the potential disadvantages they face, such as underperforming schools, poor health outcomes and mortality along with other trends (Bullock et al., 2001). There was a smaller subset that discussed programs designed to assist impoverished minorities. There were 70 articles that explicitly quoted individuals with ethnic-minority names (Bullock et al., 2001). The majority of which, 32, made some reference to Hispanics, Latinos, or immigrants.
There were another 29 articles that mentioned their subject was African 18
American. That is significantly higher than the next highest subset in which four articles referred to their subjects as Native Americans (Bullock et al., 2001).
Authors of the study noted there was not any overt or negative attitudes toward those who are lower income, but many did not provide any context or reasons why people are living in poverty (Bullock et al., 2001).
In follow up studies, academic researchers have found differences in how media assign responsibility for poverty based on the political ideology of the publication. Conservative newspapers tend to assign personal responsibility, and potential solutions, for the issue while liberal outlets tend to focus responsibility on government. Media can frame the issue of poverty in a specific manner, including the causes they attribute to the issue and what they describe as the potential solutions for solving the problem — not all of which accurately depicts the true nature of the topic.
Sei-Hill Kim, John Carvalho and Andrew Davis (2010) published a paper in which they analyzed the content of newspaper articles and news segments in four of the highest and four of the lowest earning states to assess how media are framing the issue of poverty (Kim, Carvalho & Davis, 2010). The researchers used poverty as a keyword to find articles that dealt with the subject and afterward coded the articles to categorize them into groups that attributed responsibility on a personal or societal level (Kim, Carvalho & Davis, 2010). The results indicated that media cited a broken family as the most frequent causal attribution for 19
poverty, followed by teen pregnancy and promiscuity. The article went on to state that many times, media have portrayed those living in poverty as not only lazy, but also sexually irresponsible (Kim, Carvalho & Davis, 2010).
These news articles are not necessarily correct. The fertility rate for women living in welfare is less than that of the fertility rate overall for people in the United States. Second, there are religious overtones, with covert claims that people living in poverty are somehow deserving of their plight (Kim, Carvalho &
Davis, 2010). Researchers also found it interesting that most news coverage of the issue focused on societal responsibilities rather than assigning responsibility for the individual (Kim, Carvalho & Davis, 2010). There were a couple of explanations for this. First, it could be that most media reporters are liberal, which could skew the perspective (Kim, Carvalho & Davis, 2010). The second is that coverage of poverty happens when the government or society has introduced a new program tailored to address the issue (Kim, Carvalho & Davis, 2010).
The media can also frame poverty in a particular manner based on the published images accompanying the articles. Martin Gilens (1996) was interested in learning whether articles overrepresented the number of minorities they depicted in the images that were used when writing about poverty. To demonstrate his point, he compiled stories from three American news magazines,
Time, Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report, that discussed poverty as the central issue (Gilens, 1996). 20
According to the author’s analysis, of the 560 people in the images of the magazines who are low income, about 62 percent of them were African American
(Gilens, 1996). That figure distorts the actual proportion of African Americans who are impoverished. They are misrepresenting them by a significant margin as well because the actual percentage of African Americans living in poverty is 29 percent (Gilens, 1996). The author’s point is that this discrepancy provides an impression among the public that most of those living in poverty is comprised of
African Americans, and that reinforces negative stereotypes of people who are living in poverty (Gilens, 1996). There are also issues with depicting poverty among different age brackets. People tend to be sympathetic toward the elderly and to children to a lesser extent with respect to poverty (Gilens, 1996).
However, the elderly who are living in poverty are substantially underrepresented in the images of people in magazines that discuss the impoverished (Gilens, 1996). Overall, those who are low income and more than
65 years old comprise about 11 percent of the population. However, they are only represented in about 2 percent of the images. Moreover, when their images are placed in magazines, they are skewed toward the nonblack population (Gilens,
1996). Less than one percent of those living in poverty who are elderly are represented in images of magazines, meaning they will garner less sympathy among the public. Does this impact the public? The author generally claims it 21
does. In studies he has conducted, people consistently overestimate the number of low-income individuals who are African American (Gilens, 1996).
In a follow up study, Rosalee Clawson and Rakuya Trice (2000) designed a similar study that produced essentially the same results as Gilens. They collected news stories published between January of 1993 and December of 1998 that dealt with poverty from several business publications, including
Businessweek, Newsweek, New York Times Magazine and several others (Clawson
& Trice, 2000). They found 74 stories with a total of 149 images of 357 people who are living in poverty. In this study, the authors concluded that media distort representations of those living in poverty in the country (Clawson & Trice, 2000).
About 27 percent of African Americans are living in poverty but are in 49 percent of the images in magazines. Hispanics are in 19 percent of images of people who are living in poverty but 24 percent of them are living in poverty. Caucasians are also underrepresented. About 45 percent are living in poverty but are in only 33 percent of the images. Asians are not represented at all but about 4 percent of them are living in poverty (Clawson & Trice, 2000).
Bas W van Doorn (2015) published a study that investigated how different ethnic groups are portrayed with respect to poverty in media by examining how many people of different ethnic groups were shown to be living in poverty in a compilation of magazine articles (Van Doorn, 2015). The author answered similar 22
questions as the prior authors, but incorporated periods of economic expansion and contraction to the study. (Van Doorn, 2015).
There were 987 people pictured within stories related to poverty. There were 832 people who could be analyzed. The author discovered the same trends as that of the prior authors, that African Americans are disproportionately overrepresented as living in poverty in media images (Van Doorn, 2015).
Hispanics, on the other hand, are underrepresented (Van Doorn, 2015). According to the author’s findings, 52 percent of the African Americans are depicted as living in poverty within magazine articles.
That is more than double the percentage of African Americans living in poverty. Hispanics are represented in almost 13 percent of the images of people who are living in poverty. Their actual percentage is 23 percent. Those who are nonblack and non-Hispanic are shown to be living in poverty about 34 percent of the time (Van Doorn, 2015). Their actual percentage is more than 50 percent.
African Americans continue to be overrepresented in terms of receiving welfare in both the pre and post welfare reform eras (Van Doorn, 2015).
During periods of economic expansion, African Americans are dramatically overrepresented in terms of those living in poverty (Van Doorn,
2015). While in tough economic times, it is whites who are overrepresented as living in poverty by the media. During the period between 1998 and 2000, almost
60 percent of African Americans were pictured as living in poverty compared to 23
about 35 percent of whites. Those figures were reversed during the Great
Recession (Van Doorn, 2015).
Gilens claims that part of the reason is that news bureaus and African
Americans tend to locate in urban areas (Gilens, 1996). If a larger portion of those living in poverty in urban areas consists of minorities, they will be more represented in the images. Another reason could be that photographers will go to neighborhoods where there is a high concentration of people living in poverty
(Gilens, 1996). There will not be a mix of races in those locations, but mostly
African Americans. The final and most plausible reason the author cites is bias.
Editors and journalists assume that African Americans are living in poverty, so they seek images to represent that (Gilens, 1996).
Framing poverty does not occur only in publications directed toward adults; it is cultivated in media focusing on children as well. Jessi Streib, Miryea
Ayala & Colleen Wixted (2017) analyzed how movie characters in the highest grossing G-rated movies are portrayed. Since many of these movies are directed toward children, the authors believed those specific movies could influence how children developed an understanding of poverty (Streib et al., 2017). The researchers compiled a list of G-rated movies that generated gross revenues of at least $100 million as of January 2014. They then viewed the shows, reviewing their content and generating codes regarding the characters’ physical and personality traits, experiences, mobility, relationships, along with quotes from the 24
characters commenting about class. Researchers made several observations. The first is that lower-class individuals are under-represented within the films (Streib et al., 2017).
Hardships associated with poverty are minimized. There is a false equivalency displayed in the movie Aladdin (Streib et al., 2017). Aladdin is homeless and hungry and views his life as difficult. The princess, Jasmine, also believes her life is difficult, but is a princess. However, the movie portrays both as equivalent. Working-class hardships are minimized (Streib et al., 2017). Those in the middle class worry about upward mobility and not the difficulties of securing food, shelter, or health care. The difficulties of working-class jobs are minimized
(Streib et al., 2017). The servants in Beauty and the Beast are portrayed as characters with endless freedom who can do as they please. They believe they can persuade their boss to be the person they want him to be, and sing, and dance about serving the wealthy.
Race and perception
How people are portrayed in stories related to poverty is significant because race plays a subtle but consequential role in shaping public opinion.
Among the seminal papers in the academic literature that tried to study the effect that media have regarding people’s perceptions of poverty was published by
Shanto Iyengar. In his study, Iyengar demonstrated that news can have a profound 25
influence in how viewers not only understand poverty, but how they assign responsibility for it (Iyengar, 1990).
He created a news reel that highlighted specific issues, from poverty and terrorism to crime and racial inequality (Iyengar, 1990). Within those categories, the subject’s race was altered and shown to the viewers. Some watched children who were African American while others viewed the same video, only the subject was children who were Caucasian. He then showed them to a group of viewers, gauging their reactions with a questionnaire. In general, Iyengar discovered that people assign responsibility for an issue depending on the focus of the news cast
(Iyengar, 1990). Viewers consigned accountability for an issue to individuals more if they viewed one that is more episodic, meaning more anecdotal toward a specific individual. The more thematic the news reel, the more viewers assigned responsibility to the public or government (Iyengar, 1990).
His second finding has more profound implications for those living in poverty (Iyengar, 1990). Iyengar’s results demonstrated that race mattered. When viewers watched videos of African Americans living in poverty, they were more likely to attribute personal responsibility for their situations instead of society than when viewers watched Caucasians living in poverty (Iyengar, 1990). He demonstrated that portraying African Americans in a role in which they were impoverished, or criminal perpetrators, essentially reinforced racial bias and prejudice that had already existed (Iyengar, 1990). 26
James M. Avery, Jason Glass and Mark Peffley (2003) demonstrated how powerful of an impact that race can have on public opinion. The authors designed an experiment in which they controlled for two factors, the subject’s race along with the tone of the story. They showed subjects a news story in which the person in the story was Caucasian while another was African American. They also showed the audience two stories in which one presented welfare in a positive light and another in a negative way. Afterward, they asked participants who is responsible for their predicament and another set of questions related to their thoughts regarding welfare in general.
What they found in their results is that race plays an important and significant role in public perception (Avery et al., 2003). When welfare reform is described as a success, race does not play a significant role. However, when the problems of welfare reform are described, the African-American woman is more likely to be blamed if she lost her job while blame is more likely to be directed at welfare reform when the mother is depicted as white.
In terms of welfare reform, there is no difference between the answers of people when they read stories that welfare is a success (Avery et al., 2003). When they read stories of welfare and its associated problems, they are more likely to think the lifetime limits on receiving welfare are too long when the mother is black. When the mother is white, the respondents believed the five-year limit to receiving welfare is too short. The researchers found that respondents were 27
harsher in assigning blame to an individual for their problems when the subject in the story is African American (Avery et al., 2003).
There are implications for how society will help others depending on how they perceive someone deserves their help. Lauren D. Appelbaum (2001) recruited people, told them to pretend they were a member of congress and asked the likelihood of recommending various social welfare policies directed toward several groups identified as living in poverty. Of the six groups, three were considered deserving by the researchers: widows with children, physically handicapped, and physically ill. Another three groups were deemed undeserving: teen mothers, single mothers, and able-bodied men.
Based on the results, there was a range in the likelihood that respondents would recommend policies meant to address their concerns (Appelbaum, 2001).
The group with the highest score, most likely to be recommended to receive assistance, was people who are physically handicapped with a mean score of 3.45.
That was followed by physically ill people, widows with children, teen mothers and single mothers. The group receiving the least sympathy was able-bodied men with a score of 2.03.
She then conducted a follow up study by presenting respondents with a case file with three scenarios: the people were responsible for poverty; society was responsible for their poverty or a sociocultural explanation was offered. Case 28
files were also varied by whether the subject of the case followed mainstream norms and by race (Appelbaum, 2001).
The results indicated that people would be more likely to recommend liberal policies for those they believed were deserving of assistance (Appelbaum,
2001). They were more likely to recommend a liberal policy for those in which the target for the individual’s poverty was attributed to society and not to the person. That is, participants were more likely to recommend no benefits when the target was perceived to be a member of an undeserving group living in poverty as opposed to others. In addition, the no-benefits policy was more likely to be recommended when responsibility for the target’s poverty was attributed to the individual than when it was attributed to society (Appelbaum, 2001).
Perception and public policy
Issue and Perception
There are real-world implications of public perceptions for public policy matters. Wendy M. Limbert and Heather E. Bullock (2009) discovered differences in framing issues when they compared the articles describing the reauthorization of welfare benefits against tax cuts. First, there were differences in the coverage that each issue received. The tax cuts received more coverage than the welfare reauthorization proposal. There were five times as many articles on the tax cuts as there were on the welfare reauthorization program. 29
The way the problem was defined was also different. In terms of welfare, it was less about helping people and more about making people accountable
(Limbert & Bullock, 2009). People wanted to ensure welfare recipients were doing all they can to get off welfare and back to work. The tax cuts were viewed as a fairness issue. The government took too much money and officials needed to give it back to the public (Limbert & Bullock, 2009).
Max Rose and Frank R. Baumgartner (2013) examined how media framed the issue beginning in the 1960s until almost 2010. The authors theorized that media have an impact on public policy by how it depicts the issue. Their theory, based on research they read from others, is that media have more negatively framed the issue of poverty since the beginning of the 1960s (Rose &
Baumgartner, 2013). To support their point, they analyzed articles written in the
New York Times that dealt with poverty from 1960 to 2008 by using keywords in those stories that included welfare, low income and the impoverished. They then separated the articles into distinct frames, from misery and neglect to laziness and dysfunction based on the words they found in the articles. Some of those frames were positive while others were negative. They then tallied the articles within each of the frames (Rose & Baumgartner, 2013).
The authors claim there has been a movement in terms of the discussion of those living in poverty (Rose & Baumgartner, 2013). Earlier articles focused on structural causes of poverty, individual barriers to moving out of poverty and the 30
collective dangers of having too many people in poverty. Since that time, the conversation shifted to those living in poverty exploiting the welfare system for their own financial benefit to the ineffectiveness of the programs meant to address poverty (Rose & Baumgartner, 2013).
The authors then tried to draw a correlation between media coverage and how that has impacted public policy meant to address poverty (Rose &
Baumgartner, 2013). Based on regression results, they concluded that media framing those living in poverty negatively had an impact in reducing government generosity toward those living in poverty (Rose & Baumgartner, 2013).
Research Questions
Based on the literature review, much of the conclusions regarding poverty have been drawn from sources that are national in scope. The researchers reviewed articles in magazines with a national reach, or in newspapers with readerships throughout the country. This study will add to the body of research by investigating potential nuances in poverty coverage from journalists based on the affluence of the community where the publication is based. The question driving this thesis is: When compared to national media journalists, do journalists working for publications in more affluent areas overrepresent the proportion of minorities living in poverty versus those working in less affluent areas of the country? Therefore, this thesis will address the following research questions 31
RQ 1: How does the amount of newspaper coverage of poverty vary by newspaper location?
a. How many articles do national newspapers publish concerning
poverty in the news section from Jan. 1, 2015 and Dec. 31, 2019
relative to the total number of articles published within the same
timeframe?
b. How many articles do regional newspapers based in two more
affluent metropolitan areas in the news section from Jan. 1, 2015
and Dec. 31, 2019 relative to the total number of articles published
within the same timeframe?
c. How many articles do regional newspapers based in two less
affluent metropolitan areas in the news section from Jan. 1, 2015
and Dec. 31, 2019 relative to the total number of articles published
within the same timeframe?
RQ 2: How does the representation of people in newspaper articles in the news section concerning poverty vary by newspaper location?
a. Of the articles that nationally circulated newspapers publish
concerning poverty within the past five years, what is the
breakdown in terms of ages, genders and race and ethnicities of
those portrayed as living in poverty versus their actual poverty
rates? 32
b. Of the articles related to poverty published by newspapers in the
two more affluent metropolitan areas within the past five years,
what is the breakdown in terms of ages, genders and race and
ethnicities of those portrayed as living in poverty versus their
actual poverty rates?
c. Of the articles related to poverty published by newspapers in the
two less affluent metropolitan areas within the past five years,
what is the breakdown in terms of ages, genders and race and
ethnicities of those portrayed as living in poverty versus their
actual poverty rates?
RQ 3: Is there a difference in the degree to which the newspapers portray poverty among different ethnic groups depending on whether they are a nationally circulating newspaper, one that is based in a more affluent metropolitan area, or one that is based in a less affluent metropolitan area?
a. Is there a difference in the degree that national newspapers,
newspapers based in more affluent areas, and those based in less
affluent areas, represent poverty?
Conclusion
The literature review demonstrates that poverty is prevalent in this country, that significant segments of the population have been affected by the problem at some point during their lifetimes, and that the risk factors associated 33
with the issue are known and understood. Despite that, poverty remains a persistent problem for people living in the U.S., and it is especially prevalent for minorities and whites living in rural parts of the country. The question then turns to its persistent nature. Why does it continue in a nation that is supposedly the wealthiest on earth? Part of the answer lies in how poverty is perceived. Some believe it to be an issue of individual merit while others view it as a structural issue. Their impressions are formed in a variety of ways, but some of it is based on how the topic is represented by media organizations. There is evidence to suggest the media barely covers poverty, and when it does, puts forward an incompatible image of the issue to the public. This study attempts to determine whether the lack of coverage, and the corresponding distortions, is a universal issue affecting every working journalist, or if there are publications who better represent the topic versus others. Moreover, which are those publications and where are they based? Does geographic location matter? If not, does the socioeconomic status of the area of the publication matter? 34
Chapter Three: Method
Thus far, researchers who have discovered discrepancies in media outlets’ coverage of poverty have focused their attention on national publications, those of the largest circulating newspapers, or magazines with readerships throughout the country. The first discovery is that few articles are written about the subject. The second is that journalists misrepresent the racial and ethnic makeup of those living in poverty in their portrayal of the topic.
This study determines whether there is a difference in the degree that reporters misrepresent poverty to their readers depending on the socioeconomic status of the location. To accomplish this, a summative content analysis will be conducted to determine the frequency with which reporters write about poverty.
The text will then be further analyzed to determine the demographic makeup of the subjects they profile in their articles. Additionally, a latent content analysis will be performed to provide context of the words used when describing the racial and ethnic makeup of people who are living in poverty.
Rationale for method selection
Content analysis is an analytical tool to determine how information is portrayed to an audience. It surmises the persons or people providing the information, when it is provided, the location it is provided, as well as the context 35
in which it is provided and the effect that it has for consumers. The advantage of content analysis is that it provides both internal and external validity, is unobtrusive, and does not cost a great deal. In exchange, it will sacrifice precision and interpretability (Fabra-Crespo & Rojas-Briales, 2015)
There are three types of content analysis: conventional content analysis, directed content analysis and foundational content analysis (Hsieh & Shannon,
2015). Determining which is the proper analytical tool will depend on the goal of the study and the type of analysis that is required.
Conventional content analysis is used to describe a specific phenomenon, such as a response to a specific situation. The tool is generally used when there is little to no prior knowledge on the subject. This type of content analysis involves primary research that potentially includes interviewing clients and then coding the responses to get a sense of their perspective on a subject. Directed content analysis is appropriate when there is some prior knowledge about a subject. In this case, the analytical approach is used to further the prior research, yielding information that can be used to provide predictions concerning specific variables or relationships between them (Hsieh & Shannon, 2015).
Neither of these techniques align well with the study. It also does not include predicting future outcomes of variables or relationships between them.
This study will determine or glean the context of a specific subject: the portrayal of poverty by newspapers in disparate locations throughout the country. For this 36
research, the third approach called foundational content analysis is most relevant.
This type of content analysis involves identifying and quantifying the key words present within a given text and gleaning context from the words (Hsieh &
Shannon, 2015).
In this case, I am quantifying specific words for contextual clues, determining whether the article is about poverty or not. Afterward, I am looking for another set of words to determine the demographic makeup of the subjects portrayed in the text.
The goal is to determine if there is a difference in the frequency that publications will report on poverty depending on the socioeconomic status of their specific geographic areas. They will also be compared against the frequency that national publications report on the subject. The second goal is to evaluate if regional publications also misrepresent poverty by specific demographic groups as impoverished when they write about the subject compared to national publications.
Much of the analysis will involve a quantitative measure of the regularity with which media outlets publish articles about poverty, along with deciphering the words that reporters use to determine the race and ethnicity of the subjects in the articles. In addition to simply providing a quantitative measure, a latent content analysis will also be performed to offer context and meaning from the words that journalists use when writing their articles concerning poverty. A latent 37
content analysis refers to the interpretation of the content. Researchers have used this technique to analyze manuscript types from a specific journal or determine the precise content within textbooks. For this project, latent content analysis will be used to offer direct evidence to support findings made within the research.
To conduct that examination, a news aggregator will be used that classifies articles within its database based on subject area. The aggregator has already categorized the article using an algorithm that reviewed the text. The article will then be reviewed to identify words that describe the racial or ethnic makeup of the subject, the age, and the gender of the subject portrayed in the article. Words that identify the individual as African American, Hispanic, Asian or Caucasian will be noted and reviewed to determine the subject’s background. The age of the subject, the occupation of the individual will classify the person as an adult or child. The gender words will cast light on the subject’s gender.
Researcher’s Role
The researcher will be the primary individual responsible for the collection of data and the analysis of the information compiled from reviewing the articles in the study. Content analysis will depend on the researcher’s interpretations of the context within the published text. How I interpret, categorize, and analyze the articles will be based on a couple of factors.
First, I will rely on experience I have gained as a reporter for the better part of 4.5 years. I began my career as an education reporter in the greater New 38
Mexico area, as well as western Nebraska. People living in those areas are some of the most impoverished in the country. This is especially true in Espanola, New
Mexico, where the high school graduation rate is roughly 50 percent. During my time as a reporter, I have interviewed extensive numbers of people, including superintendents and school board members, as well as the parents and children affected by the policies implemented by school district leaders.
For the second half of my journalism career, I worked as a politics and government reporter for the greater Milwaukee area. In that time, I wrote about policies, rules and regulations implemented by mayors, city council officials, county supervisors and boards of trustees. Those policies had a profound impact on the lives of residents in the area, especially people living in poverty who required government assistance.
Prior to my journalism career, I was a graduate student, earning masters’ degrees in business administration and public policy. During that time, I honed my analysis and critical thinking skills by reviewing the economic and social impact of policies implemented by civic leaders.
Research Design
A foundational content analysis will be used to determine the frequency with which publications publish articles regarding poverty and the racial and ethnic makeup of those portrayed in the articles.
Data sampling 39
The news aggregator Factiva will be used for the study, which retrieves articles based on a set of filters available within the search. A total of six publications will be incorporated into the study: The New York Times, The Wall
Street Journal, Tampa Bay Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Star Tribune in
Minneapolis, and The Boston Globe.
These newspapers were chosen because of their availability within the aggregator. It is important the articles be searchable within one program so that the same algorithm is used to include and exclude articles for the study. That serves to normalize the samples of the articles selected that will be reviewed and analyzed, and from which conclusions can be drawn.
They were also selected because they aligned with the set of criteria necessary for the study. The project required a set of newspapers considered national in scope. The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal will represent the national newspapers in the study, partly because of their higher circulation figures, but also because of the distribution of their readership, present within every state of the country and its territories.
The Tampa Bay Times and The Philadelphia Inquirer were selected because they are the highest circulating newspapers in metropolitan areas with higher levels of poverty relative to their peers (Benson & Bishaw, 2019). This was based on a graphic by the U.S. Census listing the percentage of people living in poverty in the most populated metropolitan areas. Tampa Bay and Philadelphia 40
rank as two cities that have higher percentages of people living in poverty. Boston and Minneapolis are two ranked within the graphic as cities with lower rates of poverty compared to the rest of the locations listed in the graphic (Benson &
Bishaw, 2019).
There is also a geographic and chronological limitation placed within the study. Only those articles published within five years from the end of 2019 will be part of the project. That timeframe was chosen to accommodate as many articles as possible without incorporating significant cultural or demographic shifts the have occurred within the population. Likewise, only articles pertaining to the
United States will be included in the study. That is meant to normalize how the subject of poverty is portrayed, limiting it to the reporters and editors writing about the topic in the U.S.
Other filters will limit the sample to include only articles written in the news section of the publications. Articles deemed as opinion and commentaries, reviews, editorials, and books would be excluded from the study.
Data collection and management
Research Question One:
A following search criteria will be conducted for the six publications within the study.
First, a filter will be applied to instruct the database to find articles in which the subject is directly related to poverty. The number of articles retrieved 41
for each publication will be reviewed and noted. Afterwards, the poverty filter will be removed as a subject and the number of articles for each publication will be determined and noted as well. Once those numbers are obtained, a percentage of the poverty articles published by each newspaper will be calculated.
Data collection and management will begin with articles published
January of 2015. This meets the criteria that articles will be no more than five years old from the most recent year that ended. The final endpoint for data collection will be December of 2019, which is the most recent year completed.
Articles published by newspapers with the highest circulations based in six metropolitan areas; two which have higher levels of poverty and two with lower incidents of poverty, will be selected. The United States Census published a news release of the 25 largest metropolitan areas within the country and ranked them according to poverty rates from the 2018 Census. The metropolitan areas with the higher levels of poverty are Tampa and Philadelphia. The cities with the lower rates of poverty are Minneapolis and Boston (Benson & Bishaw, 2019).
Research Question Two:
The articles that were screened to analyze the first research question will undergo additional analysis to determine the demographic makeup of the persons portrayed in the articles related to poverty. Each article will be reviewed to determine demographic information of a person identified as living in poverty within the article. Information will include the person’s gender, age, and race. 42
That information will then be compiled and reviewed to get a sense of the people that reporters selected when writing about the issue of poverty. That will then be compared against the demographic profiles of people living in poverty for that specific area.
Coding procedures
Research Question One:
The first coding procedure will involve the Factiva database by applying a subject search for the word “poverty.” The algorithm will search and compile articles related to poverty.
Research Question Two:
The coding procedures will follow what Clawson and Trice did when analyzing images of subjects from magazine publications they reviewed. In their study, they used a classification system that identified whether the subject is
Caucasian, Hispanic, Asian American, or undeterminable. They coded the person’s gender as either male or female, the person’s age as either young, less than 18 years old, middle-aged, between 18 years old and 64 years old, and old, people who are 65 years old or older. Using that as a foundation, the text will be analyzed to determine whether the people within the article can be categorized as
Hispanic, Caucasian, African American, or Asian American. To accomplish this, the newspaper article must explicitly state the subject’s racial or ethnic 43
background. A variety of clues can be used to determine this, such as the descriptor of the person’s ethnicity in the text or an explanation of the person’s country of origin.
Gender will be coded by reviewing the text for words such as “male” or
“female”, “him” or “her”, “guy” or “girl”, or “boy” or “girl”, or any other descriptor indicating gender the coder believes is appropriate. The same will be done for age. Words such as “young” or “old”, “boy” or “girl”, “middle aged” or
“old”, may be reviewed. Without these words in the article to act as a guide, the identifying information present in the article will be used and a judgement will be made. Context clues, such as educational attainment, work experience, job titles, work responsibilities will be evaluated, and a determination will be made regarding whether the subject is an adult or child. A subjective judgement will also be made about placing individuals in a specific category. A male who is 19- years old, that person may continue to be classified as a child if the person continues to live at home and requires the support of parents.
Data Analysis Plan
There are two different aspects to the research questions that will be investigated. The first is the frequency with which journalists in several metropolitan areas have reported on poverty. The second is the racial and ethnic makeup of the subjects they portrayed in the articles they wrote.
Research Question One: 44
To answer the first research question, the same mathematical computation will be performed from the articles compiled from national newspapers, as well as periodicals based in more affluent and less affluent metropolitan areas. A percentage calculation will be made to determine the proportion of articles concerning poverty relative to the total number of articles published by the newspaper.
Comparisons will also be made between the percentage of articles related to poverty published by the newspaper against the socioeconomic status of people where the newspaper is based. Do metropolitan areas with higher levels of poverty report on poverty more than publications based in places with lower levels of poverty?
Research Question Two:
The second part of the research involves determining the racial and ethnic background of the subjects within the articles that highlight poverty. To accomplish this, the articles for each publication will be analyzed for determine the racial or ethnic background of the people portrayed in the articles and then placed into categories: Caucasian, African American, Asian American or
Hispanic American. The total will then be calculated and the proportion of representation for each of the groups will be determined based on a percentage calculation. Those figures will then be compared to the actual poverty rates for that group where the publication is based. 45
Research Question Three:
The second part of the research will determine if the degree to which reporters misrepresent poverty within their respective geographic areas. To determine that, percentages related to age, gender and race that subjects who are living in poverty are represented in the publications will subtracted from the actual percentages that each of those groups are living in poverty.
Intercoder Reliability
To ensure fidelity of the research, another researcher performs the same analysis for the publication with the fewest number of articles which are directly related to poverty. That person will also evaluate the articles to determine whether the main subject of the article is poverty. The researcher will also determine the demographics of subjects living in poverty in the articles. Intercoder reliability will be measured using Holsti’s Reliability, and that calculation must be at least
80%.
Trustworthiness
Content analysis can be subjective because words can have a different connotation depending on the interpretation of the reader. There are additional complications that may result when determining demographic background of the individual. The article may not explicitly state that someone is Hispanic, but 46
instead implies it by indicating that someone originates from a specific area of the world.
To confirm my results, I will isolate and quantify the words in the articles that I review and document the reasoning for including or excluding the article for further analysis. I will also document the words used to describe the subject of the article. I will compare my results against the analysis from a second individual using the same procedure. Summary
The United States has had the luxury of laying claim to be the largest, most robust, and most influential economy in the world to date. Despite that, there are sections of the population and portions of the country that have yet to reap the benefits of such a reputation. Many are still struggling to afford to live, and this hardship is not equally borne by all. Media outlets have a history of reporting on issues that are important for the public to know. Prior journalists have documented the plight of those living in poverty and produced iconic images to represent the hardships the impoverished have endured. Despite that, how reporters cover the issue engenders some concerns. For one, there is a dearth of coverage related to poverty. For an issue that affects the entire nation, but especially the 41 million people who are living through this struggle, researchers could only find about several hundred articles related to the topic during the past several years. It underscores that point that many journalists are reluctant to face 47
the issue. Even when they do, they misrepresent it to readers by overrepresenting minorities who face this problem, presenting it as a black and brown issue. The question is the degree to which regional papers are misrepresenting poverty in the same manner, and whether the poverty rates within a specific location influences how journalists based in those locations report on poverty. Do journalists who work in areas with high levels of poverty misrepresent the issue more than national media outlets or less? How about reporters who cover poverty in the more affluent places in the country. How do they portray those who are impoverished when compared to national media outlets?
48
Chapter Four: Findings
The goal of this study was to determine if journalists exhibited the same distortions when reporting about issues related to poverty as those who wrote for national newspapers. This section highlights the findings from the analysis of hundreds of articles that were published in some of the highest circulating newspapers in the United States, along with regional publications located in more affluent and less affluent metropolitan areas of the country.
Summary of main themes
Each of the research questions was designed to determine whether there is a discrepancy between how reporters and editors portray poverty versus the reality of the situation in their given areas. Each research question, except for the third, is separated into three components, the findings at national publications, those based in more affluent areas, and others whose readership is in less affluent metropolitan locations. Each component was divided further into publications in two different cities that met the criteria for each component.
The first goal of the research study was to determine if there is a disparity in the resources devoted to narrating poverty among the three different categorical cohorts. The metric used to study that trend is the number of articles concerning poverty that each newspaper published within five years of 2019. The assumption 49
is that the number of articles the newspaper devotes to a subject correlates with the resources, including time and manpower, that a publication will allocate to better understand the subject. The more that happens, the more a priority that topic is to a publication.
The second goal of the research project was to determine the degree to which a publication distorts the magnitude that a demographic group experiences poverty, and whether that correlates to the socioeconomic status of residents living within the newspaper’s readership area. This research question is comprised of several components. The first is a numeric count of the subjects that a publication in each of the three categories depicts as someone living in poverty.
The second aspect of the study will identify the person’s racial or ethnic background, the gender of the individual, and whether the subject is a male or female. Those statistics will then be compared against the poverty statistics in the cities which the publications are based. The larger the difference in the proportion that subjects of a demographic group are misrepresented, the greater the disparity.
The third research question attempts to understand which category of publications best minimizes the disparity between the perception that a specific demographic group is portrayed as living in poverty and the percentage that group lives in poverty.
The project included a sample of six publications based in different areas of the United States, with two designated as national publications. The remaining 50
four are considered the preeminent newspapers within their respective regions. In total, the study included a sample of 672 articles that included 2,542 subjects.
RQ1: Resources devoted to poverty by location
The first research question examined if there is a difference in the frequency that newspapers within each category publish articles about poverty.
Based on the findings, there are differences, but distinctions are minimal.
RQ1a: Resources devoted to poverty in national publications
The national publications consisted of The New York Times and the Wall
Street Journal. The New York Times published a total of 141,601 articles in the five-year range included in the study, and 137 of those news articles are related to poverty, or about 0.1 percent. The Wall Street Journal published 83,749 articles in the same timeframe, and 53 articles dealt with poverty in some fashion, equaling about 0.06 percent.
RQ1b: Resources devoted to poverty by lower income publications
The two publications based in what is labelled as less affluent areas are the
Tampa Bay Times and The Philadelphia Inquirer. The Tampa Bay Times published a total of 54,663 articles during the five-year timeframe, and 70 of those news articles, about 0.13 percent, were related to poverty. The second publication in that category, The Philadelphia Inquirer, published 56,351 articles during the same timeframe, and 105, or 0.19 percent, relate to poverty. 51
RQ1c: Resources devoted to poverty by more affluent publications
The final category, publications based in more affluent areas, includes the
Star Tribune in Minneapolis and The Boston Globe. The Star Tribune published
54,884 articles from 2015-2019, and 105, or 0.19 percent, relate to poverty. The
Boston Globe published 183,884 articles during the same time, and 202, or 0.11 percent relate to poverty.
RQ2: Disparities in coverage
This research question determines the magnitude of the disparity that each publication depicts poverty among different racial and ethnic groups and their real poverty rates within a geographic region.
Aside from devoting only a fraction of their coverage to poverty. The six publications included in the study included fewer subjects living in poverty than those who are not when writing about the subject. Of the 2,542 subjects written about in articles related to poverty, only 294, or 11 percent, were described as living in poverty. 52
Using latent content analysis, many of the subjects were identified as impoverished or not depending on the words used to describe their backgrounds.
This could be based on their job descriptions or titles, as well as the words used to describe their living situations. In one New York Times article for example, one person was identified as the New York City “Transportation Commissioner” Polly
Trottenberg, another was identified “spokeswoman for the mayor Freddi
Goldstein, while a third was “spokeswoman for the transit authority” Beth
DeFalco.
This aligns with the national estimate of 12 percent of people living in poverty. Subjects not considered as living in poverty are elected officials, municipal administrators, academics and professors, and researchers, as well as staff of nonprofits and organizations meant to help the less fortunate. Examples include Bill DeBlasio, identified as the “mayor” of New York City while Andrew
Cuomo was listed as the “governor” of New York. Neither of those individuals was categorized as a living in poverty based on an understanding of those positions. However, Jonathan Kumar, was classified as living in poverty using the descriptors in the article. The reporter identified him as, “he had little income and qualified for a discount card to ride the bus.”
Additionally, many of the publications incorporated into the study did not identify the subjects’ race or ethnicities when identifying them as people living in poverty. Of the 294 poverty subjects who were profiled across the six different 53
publications, reporters failed to account for their race or ethnicities for 245 of them, roughly 83 percent of the total population sampled. Leslie Wells is one such individual, as “a substitute teacher who lives in Harlem, often worries about finding enough change to pay the cost of a ride. After paying for housing and food, there is little left over. She said she certainly could not afford to spend
$116.50, the current price of a monthly pass.”
Her gender could be gleaned based on words used to describe her on second reference. The article identified her as a “she”, but short of that, there was no reference to her race. Contrast that with the genders of those portrayed as living in poverty, in which the gender of only 21 of the 294 subjects is unknown.
The ages of the individuals depicted as living in poverty was even more robust, only about 4 percent of the total subjects identified as impoverished was the age unknown.
As such, the analysis and conclusions drawn from age and gender of the subjects will be largely accurate, but results based on race and ethnicity will have some degree of error.
RQ2a: Demographic disparities in national publications
National publications such as the New York Times and Wall Street
Journal profile people who are not living in poverty more than those who are. Of the 550 subjects in the Times articles, 87 percent are people not living in poverty while 13 percent are. Its counterpart in this category, the Wall Street Journal, 54
included 164 people in their articles, and about 89 percent of them are not living below the poverty line. Those figures are in line with the national poverty rate of about 11 percent.
Data compiled from analyzing articles from national publications suggest some disconnect in how people are portrayed as impoverished against their actual poverty rates in terms of gender. For the New York Times, of the total people living in poverty, the number is broken down roughly equally by gender, with 46 percent females and about 45 percent are males. The remaining portion is unknown. The proportions in the Wall Street Journal are more skewed. Based on the results, about two-thirds of people living in poverty are female while only one-third are male. Contrast that with the national poverty numbers broken down by gender. The United States Census estimates that of the more than 39 million people living in poverty, roughly 44 percent are male while 56 percent are female
(U.S. Census Bureau, 2015).
There are some distortions with respect to age. In the New York Times articles, of the people identified as living in poverty, about 90 percent are adults, another 6 percent are children, and 4 percent are unknown. For the Wall Street
Journal, of those living in poverty, about 83 percent are adults, while another 17 percent are children. Contrast that with national poverty statistics categorized by gender, in which 69 percent of those living in poverty are adults and the remaining amount is children (U.S. Census Bureau, 2015). 55
There were 58 of the 71 subjects living in poverty in the New York Times articles in which the race or ethnic background is unknown. There were seven listed as African American and another six as Hispanic. No one was listed as white or Asian American. Of the 18 subjects listed as living in poverty for the
Wall Street Journal, 44 percent are identified as Hispanic, 17 percent are Native
American, and another 39 percent are unknown. There were no Asian Americans,
African Americans or whites identified as living in poverty within the articles.
Contrast that with the national poverty statistics, which estimates that of those living in poverty nationally, 42 percent are white, 24 percent are African
American, 4 percent are Asian, and 28 percent are Hispanic, any race (U.S.
Census Bureau, 2015).
RQ2b: Demographic disparities for publications in less affluent areas
Publications based in less affluent areas that were included in this study are the Tampa Bay Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Of the 251 people the
Tampa Bay Times profiled, 95 percent are not living in poverty while 5 percent are. Its counterpart, the Philadelphia Inquirer profiled 524 people, 85 percent of which are not living in poverty while 15 percent are. Compare that with the actual poverty rate, which is almost 20 percent in Tampa (“Tampa, FL”, n.d.). It is almost 25 percent in Philadelphia (“Philadelphia, PA”, n.d.). In both cases, the 56
newspapers in this category underrepresent the people living below the poverty line in their respective areas.
There are discrepancies in the manner that people living in poverty are profiled relative to their actual demographic statistics. The Philadelphia Inquirer profiled 79 people living in poverty. Of those, 54 percent are female, 34 percent are male, and 11 percent are unknown. Of the nearly 25 percent of people living in poverty within that metropolis, slightly more than 55 percent are female and 45 percent are male (“Philadelphia, PA”, n.d.). The other publication based in a less affluent area was the Tampa Bay Times. Reporters in the newspaper profiled 13 individuals living in poverty. Of those, about 70 percent are female while the other 30 percent are male. Of the nearly 20 percent who are living in poverty within the Tampa area, 55 percent are female while 45 percent are male (“Tampa,
FL”, n.d.).
There are also discrepancies based on age in how those living in poverty are profiled in the newspaper versus reality. Of those that the Philadelphia
Inquirer reported on, about 84 percent were adults while another 15 percent were children. However, of those living in poverty in the city, about 69 percent are adults while 31 percent are children (“Philadelphia, PA”, n.d.). Its counterpart, the
Tampa Bay Times, reported 84 percent of those living in poverty as adults, another 8 percent as children, and the remaining proportion was unknown. The 57
real poverty rate for that metropolis, broken down by age include 69 percent adults and 31 percent who are children (“Tampa, FL”, n.d.).
Demographic data is the most difficult statistic to evaluate because the subjects’ race and ethnic background are not included in the description for many of the subjects. Of those living in poverty reported on by the Philadelphia
Inquirer, reporters did not account for the subject’s race or ethnicity for 86 percent of them. About 8 percent of those profiled as living in poverty were Hispanic, about 1 percent are African American and 5 percent are identified as white. No individuals living in poverty were identified as Asian or Native American.
However, the racial and ethnic breakdown of those living in poverty within
Philadelphia are 42 percent African American, 23 percent white, 18 percent
Hispanic, 5 percent are classified as Asian while another 0.4 percent are Native
American (“Philadelphia, PA”, n.d.). Of the 13 individuals that reporters from the
Tampa Bay Times profiled, one was identified as African American while the race and ethnic background of the remaining individuals were not identified. The demographic categorization of those living in poverty was more robust. Roughly
37 percent of the impoverished living in the south Florida city are classified as white, 31 percent are African American, about 2 percent are Asian, while 0.18 percent are Native American (“Tampa, FL”, n.d.).
RQ2c: Demographic disparities for publications in more affluent areas 58
The Boston Globe and the Star Tribune from Minneapolis are the two publications based in the more affluent areas. Globe reporters profiled 646 people in the articles published. Of those, 90 percent are people not living in poverty and the remaining number are. The other publication in this category, the Star
Tribune, included 407 total subjects in their articles, 88 percent of which are not living in poverty while 12 percent are below the poverty line. Compare that with the poverty rates in those locations, 20 percent in Boston (“Boston, MA”, n.d.) and Minneapolis (“Minneapolis, MN”, n.d.). In both cases, the publications underrepresent the proportion of the people living in poverty relative to the total number of subjects included in the articles.
The disparities in how journalists report on poverty continue for publications located in more affluent areas of the country. When covering poverty, reporters profiled 50 individuals living in poverty. Of those, 64 percent are female, 28 percent are male, while another 8 percent are unknown. The actual poverty figures for Minneapolis breakdown as 52 percent female and 48 percent male (“Minneapolis, MN”, n.d.). The newspaper’s counterpart for this category is the Boston Globe. Of the 63 people living in poverty the newspaper profiled, 69 percent are identified as female, 27 percent as male, while another 3 percent are unknown. The gender breakdown for those living in poverty in this New England city include 56 percent who are female and 44 percent who are male (“Boston,
MA”, n.d.). 59
In terms of age, of those that journalists identified as living in poverty, 80 percent are adults, 8 percent are children and one percent whose age was not identified. The real poverty figures, classified by age in the northern plain city, are
75 percent adults and 25 percent are children (“Minneapolis, MN”, n.d.).
Journalists from the Boston Globe reported that 81 percent of those living in poverty are adults, 16 percent are children and 3 percent whose ages were not identified. The real poverty rate breakdown for the city by age include 75 percent who are adults and 25 percent who are children (“Boston, MA”, n.d.).
Even for publications based in the affluent areas, gleaning race and ethnicity data from reporting is difficult because that information continues to be overlooked. Of the people that reporters identified as living in poverty in the Star
Tribune, 4 percent are African American, another 8 percent are Hispanic, while
88 percent of individuals who were profiled were unidentified. The poverty statistics for Minneapolis include 36 percent of those living in poverty are African
American, another 35 percent are white, 11 percent are Hispanic, 6 percent are
Asian, and 2 percent are Native American (“Minneapolis, MN”, n.d.). Boston
Globe reporters identified 11 percent of those living in poverty as Hispanic, while
89 percent of the individuals living in poverty were not identified. Of those living in poverty in Boston, 27 percent are white, 24 percent are Hispanic, 24 percent are
African American, 11 percent are Asian, and 0.34 percent are Native American
(“Minneapolis, MN”, n.d.). 60
Table 1: Gender New York Times Wall Street Journal Philadelphia Inquirer Tampa Bay Times Star Tribune Boston Globe Male 45% 33% 34% 31% 28% 27% Female 46% 67% 54% 69% 64% 70% Unknown 8% 0% 11% 0% 8% 3% Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% Total slightly off because of rounding error
Table 2: Age New York Times Wall Street Journal Philadelphia Inquirer Tampa Bay Times Star Tribune Boston Globe Adult 90% 83% 85% 85% 80% 81% Child 6% 17% 15% 8% 8% 16% Unknown 4% 0% 0% 8% 12% 3% Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
Table 3: Ethnicity New York Times Wall Street Journal Philadelphia Inquirer Tampa Bay Times Star Tribune Boston Globe White 0% 0% 5% 0% 0% 0% Hispanic 8% 44% 8% 0% 8% 11% Black 10% 0% 1% 8% 4% 0% Asian 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% Other 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% Two Or More 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% Native American 0% 17% 0% 0% 0% 0% Pacific Islander 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% Unknown 82% 39% 86% 92% 88% 89% Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% RQ3: Disparities in newspaper coverage of poverty
This section highlights the disparities found in the publications sampled in the study. The data compiled about the genders and ages of people living in poverty are robust, but isolating disparities in coverage related to ethnicities and race was difficult because of the lack of available information.
Comparing the profiles of subjects living in poverty from each publication’s location against the poverty statistics of the area, the publications generally matched the trends related to poverty within their readership areas.
Among those living in poverty, there are more women than there are men. Also, adults comprise a larger percentage of the impoverished when compared to 61
children. The newspapers’ subjects reflected those findings. Journalists from each of the publications profiled more women than men when describing the situations of poverty. They also included the perspectives of more poor adults than poor children when illustrating the hardships that people living in poverty face.
Despite that, there are significant disparities in the genders and ages that journalists portrayed those living in poverty relative to their actual percentages.
To determine the degree of the disparity, the percentage of each demographic statistic for people living in poverty was subtracted from the percentage that each newspaper represented that same statistic. For example, if it was calculated that one newspaper portrayed that 40 percent of those living in poverty were women, but the poverty statistics revealed that, of those living in poverty, women were 20 percent. My calculations would determine the newspaper overrepresented the percentage of women living in poverty by 20 percent. If one result is negative, it suggests that publication underrepresented that statistic.
In terms of males, nearly all newspapers, regardless of circulation or whether they are based in a less affluent or more affluent geographic area, underrepresent the percentage of males when describing people living in poverty.
This disparity is largest among newspapers based in more affluent areas, with the
Star Tribune underrepresenting males by a difference of about 20 percent. The
Boston Globe underrepresents males by about 16 percent. The next most significant disparity is among newspapers based in less affluent areas. The Tampa 62
Bay Times discounts males by a difference of nearly 15 percent. For the
Philadelphia Inquirer, that figure is 10 percent. Of the three different categories, the national publications are the closest to accurately representing gender, mostly because the New York Times was nearly perfect, overrepresenting males by a single percentage point. While the Wall Street Journal underrepresented the males living in poverty by a difference of 11 percent.
The results are mixed in terms of the representation disparity for females.
The newspapers based in the more affluent areas consistently overrepresent the females living in poverty between 12 percent and 13 percent. The Philadelphia
Inquirer, one based in a less affluent area, best approximates the percentage of females among those living in poverty. They underrepresent females by a difference of about one percent. The nationally circulating newspapers presented dichotomous results in terms of disparity for representing females living in poverty. Taken together, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal come to close to mimicking the proportion of females living in poverty. However, that has to do with the diametrically opposed manner the two incorporate female subjects when describing people who are impoverished. The Wall Street Journal overrepresents females living in poverty by about 11 percent while the New York
Times underrepresents them by a difference of about 10 percent.
All publications part of the project overrepresented the adult population of those living in poverty. The New York Times represents the most significant 63
disparity with more than a 20 percent difference. Newspapers based in more affluent locations most accurately represent the percentage of adults living in poverty. The Star Tribune overestimates this proportion by a difference of about 7 percent while the Boston Globe overrepresents the females living in poverty by about 6 percent.
All publications part of the study underrepresents children living in poverty. The newspapers that do so most significantly are the New York Times and the Tampa Bay Times, the New York Times at about 25 percent and the
Tampa Bay Times by a difference of about 24 percent.
Given that many reporters did not identify the race or ethnicities of many of the subjects they profiled who are living in poverty, only general trends can be gleaned when analyzing the results of the data. All publications distort the proportion of each ethnic group living in poverty, but nearly all underrepresent whites the most. One reason is that the reporters fail to profile even a moderate number of whites in the articles. Some fail to include even one, with the caveat the race and ethnicity information is missing. Couple that with the fact that a significant portion of people living below the poverty line are white, these two forces are potentially creating that result.
Another consistent result is that all publications most accurately represent
Asians among the different race and ethnic groups within their respective publications. One aspect to this is that few reporters from any of the publications 64
profile Asians. However, it is also a fact that among the different ethnic and racial groups, Asians comprise the fewest among them who are living in poverty, causing an alignment between the reported figures with publications.
Table 4: Disparity by gender New York Times Wall Street Journal Philadelphia Inquirer Tampa Bay Times Star Tribune Boston Globe Male 1 -11 -10 -14 -20 -16 Female -10 11 -1 14 12 13
Table 5: Disparity by age New York Times Wall Street Journal Philadelphia Inquirer Tampa Bay Times Star Tribune Boston Globe Adult 21 14 17 16 7 6 Child -25 -14 -17 -24 -19 -9
Table 6: Disparity by ethnicity New York Times Wall Street Journal Philadelphia Inquirer Tampa Bay Times Star Tribune Boston Globe White -54 -54 -18 -36 -34 -27 Hispanic -14 21 -11 -25 -3 -13 Black -10 -19 -41 -23 -33 -23 Asian -4 -4 -5 -2 -6 -10
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Chapter Five: Discussion
The goal of the study was to determine if there are disparities in the manner that newspapers based in different parts of the country present those living in poverty when compared to the statistics within their geographic region.
The idea for the research project stems from another study done by Clawson and her colleagues, reviewing images within national publications, and then attempting to glean demographic information from the profiles of the subjects described in the articles (Clawson & Trice, 2000). After reviewing the articles, the researchers found that reporters and editors at the national publications devoted few resources to highlighting the issue. They further discovered that even when reporters covered the topic, there were distortions in how the topic was reported on (Clawson & Trice, 2000). One key finding was that race and ethnicities of the subjects, those they identified as living in poverty, were out of proportion to their actual numbers when they reviewed the final poverty data. Minorities were more likely to be overrepresented as living in poverty compared to whites (Clawson &
Trice, 2000).
This project seeks to extend that research by attempting to discern if their conclusions can be applied to the journalism industry generally. Thus far, little research has been done comparing how newsrooms in different areas of the 69
country cover the topic of poverty. The project will also examine if there is a relationship between poverty coverage and the socioeconomic status of people living in the area. It will evaluate the correlation between the amount of time and resources that reporters and editors devote to covering poverty and the poverty level of the location where the newsroom is based. Do journalists working at a newspaper in a more affluent area make similar judgements when writing about poverty as those who work at national publications, or do they differ?
Summary of major findings
The first research question examined if there is a difference in the frequency that publications within each category publish articles concerning poverty. Based on the findings, there are differences in the frequency that each category devotes to poverty coverage, but distinctions are minimal.
Research Question One:
Research conducted by Clawson and her colleagues, along with others, revealed that national publications devote little time to covering poverty (Clawson
& Trice, 2000). They supported their finding by reviewing the number of articles that publications from their study published concerning the subject. This project supports that general finding. The newspapers included in the study allocate a fraction of their resources to highlighting the subject because few articles are written about poverty relative to the total number of articles that were published. 70
The six publications devoted fractions of a percent on the subject. The Star
Tribune published the most articles related to poverty on a percent basis, almost two-tenths of a percent. The Wall Street Journal, a national publication, devoted the least, devoting about half of 0.1 percent of its coverage to the subject.
The research does not suggest a relationship between the amount of coverage that poverty receives from a publication and the poverty level where the newspaper is based. The difference in the percentage of poverty coverage between less affluent cities and the more affluent ones is small, about 0.03 percent. There are also differences in poverty coverage between publications based within the same socioeconomic category. Both the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Tampa Bay
Times are based in less affluent metropolitan areas, but the Inquirer published more articles about the subject than the Tampa Bay Times by a difference of about 0.07 percent. The same is true for the publications based in more affluent areas. The Star Tribune published a higher percentage of articles about poverty than the Boston Globe. That conclusion can be extended to the national publications in the study, with reporters from the New York Times writing more poverty articles than those of the Wall Street Journal.
One finding, based on the results, is that newspapers with a national circulation allocates fewer resources to poverty, Of the newspapers included in the project, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal were the two 71
newspapers with the lowest percentage of poverty coverage, while regional newspapers devote more resources to the subject. The other possibility is that poverty coverage correlates to the political leanings of the editorial board of a publication. Of the six newspapers, the Wall Street Journal is the only publication with a conservative media bias (“Media Bias/Fact Check”, n.d.). It is also the one that devotes the least amount of coverage to poverty.
A second possibility is that poverty coverage correlates less with political ideology and more with the subject matter interest of the readers. The five newspapers included in the study are general interest newspapers with less focus.
Newsroom leadership at the Wall Street Journal focuses heavily on business and financial news.
A third possibility is that the trend follows the political and social reality of the readership for each of the sampled newspapers. The number of people not living in poverty included in the articles outnumbered those who were. Many of the subjects who are not impoverished included elected officials such as mayors, congresspeople, along with candidates vying for those same offices. There were also several research studies focusing on the level of income inequality in some of the cities included in the sample. That study was referenced by politicians for advancing their candidacies. If reporters are simply responding to the reactions of officials within their readership area, that could explain why some publications 72
highlight poverty more than others. Reclassifying the publications into the three categories of national, lower income and affluent, it was the publications based in the lower income category that published the most articles about the subject on a percentage basis, 0.16 percent. This is followed by newspapers in more affluent areas with about 0.13 percent of the articles related to poverty. Reporters working in the national newspapers published articles about poverty 0.08 percent of the time.
A disparity exists within each category in terms of poverty related coverage. In each instance, one publication devoted significantly more resources to the subject than its partner. In two instances, the national and affluent groups, one newspaper nearly doubled the publication frequency of the other in terms of poverty coverage. In the lower income category, The Philadelphia Inquirer published nearly 50 percent more articles concerning poverty than its counterpart.
Research Question Two:
The second research question focuses on the demographic characteristics of subjects living in poverty, including the subjects’ ages, gender, and race and ethnicities. Clawson and her colleagues concluded that media distort the perception readers have of those living in poverty by misrepresenting the proportion of those who are impoverished when covering the subject (Clawson &
Trice, 2000). They do so by mostly profiling people of color while excluding people who are white when writing about the topic (Clawson & Trice, 2000). This 73
project extends that research by reviewing articles from newspapers based in cities with varied levels of socioeconomic status.
The first finding is that reporters profile subjects not living in poverty multiple times more than those who are impoverished when writing about the subject. Overall, the percentage of subjects living in poverty relative to the total population aligns with the national poverty rate. However, there are differences among the ratio of the number of subjects living in poverty versus those who are.
The ratio is most equal for the Philadelphia Inquirer, whose reporters include five times as many people who are not living in poverty as those who are. The ratio is the most skewed towards those who are not living in poverty at the Tampa Bay
Times, in which that ratio is more than 18:1 for people who are not living in poverty.
In some sense this could be explained by the economic reality that many publications are facing. Enterprise coverage can be expensive, especially when reporters are tasked with finding sources who are generally unavailable or reluctant to be interviewed. It may be easier to interview sources embedded within an organization with a structure in place to deal with media requests. That could be the reason that many reporters include the perspectives of those not living in poverty more times than those who are impoverished. 74
In terms of gender, most of the newspapers sampled include twice as many subjects who are female as male when profiling people who are living in poverty. There are several possible reasons for this. One is that there are more females living in poverty than males, so there are additional chances for reporters to capture one gender as opposed to the other. The other possibility is that more females than males are willing to discuss the subject with reporters. No generalities can be drawn from this observation. This disparity is greatest in both the Boston Globe and the Tampa Bay Times, one is based in a more affluent area while the other is not.
The results indicated that reporters are more likely to profile adults who are living in poverty as opposed to children. This disparity is greatest at the New
York Times, but the focus of all newspapers in the study is predominantly adults.
Of subjects living in poverty who were profiled, the adult population was at least
80 percent for all the newspapers included in the sample. One reason is that more adults than children live in poverty, so reporters are simply finding more adults to speak with. A second reason is that it is difficult for reporters to speak with children, preferring to speak with adults instead. The final possibility is that there are more obstacles in the reporters’ way when they want to interview children. In many cases, reporters require permission from adults, be they parents or other authority figures. In any case, their perspectives are not generally incorporated into articles that reporters write about poverty. 75
Analyzing race and ethnicities proved the most difficult task of the research project because racial and ethnic information was often excluded. The race or ethnicities of 83 percent of the subjects living in poverty could not be identified. Clawson and her colleagues had fewer issues identifying race and ethnicity in their study looking at images (Clawson & Trice, 2000). They generated a coding scheme that classified the images of the individuals. Without an image, this study relied on the descriptions that reporters provided of the subjects in their articles. Of all the characteristics of interest, there were few references describing an individual’s ethnic background. This was not an issue when compiling information data about subjects’ genders or ages.
A possible reason for this incongruity relates to the guidelines that reporters follow for generating print articles, as well as the idiosyncrasies of the
English language. Gender was determined because information related that feature was used after the initial reference. In English, reporters will use words such as “him” or “her”, and “he” or “she”. Based on that, gender can be determined. Reporters will also refer to a subject’s status as an adult or child by indicating an age, citing the person’s profession or years of experience on the job, or the educational attainment of the individual. The person’s status was established by using the background information found in the article. 76
However, the race or ethnicity of the subjects was not readily identified in the articles, nor were their places of origin, or their ancestries. As such, many of the most interesting findings, those that could be analyzed to evaluate potential distortions in how reporters represented those living in poverty, was not possible.
Many of the publications incorporated into the study did not identify the subjects’ race or ethnicities when identifying them as people living in poverty.
Contrast that with the genders of those portrayed as living in poverty, in which the genders of only 21 of the 294 subjects is unknown. The ages of the individuals depicted as living in poverty was even more robust, only about 4 percent of the total subjects identified as impoverished could not be could not be classified as either adult or children. As such, the analysis and conclusions drawn from age and gender of the subjects will be more accurate than that of race and ethnicity.
After reviewing the results, all publications profile significantly more women than man. The single exception is the New York Times, who included males and females living in poverty in roughly equal proportion. The remaining newspapers, regardless of circulation size or socioeconomic status of the area, include the perspectives of women at nearly double that of men.
For the newspapers in this study, reporters profiled adults living in poverty multiple times more often than they profiled children. In some cases, by more than a 10-fold difference. This is happening regardless if the publication is one 77
with a national reputation or one that is regional and based in a specific part of the country.
Research Question Three:
Despite that, the third research question attempted to answer that based on the limited information available. In general, many newspapers in the sample rarely incorporated the perspectives of whites living in poverty. Of the six, only the reporters from the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote about subjects living in poverty who were white. The subjects are spread across three articles written by reporters from the Inquirer. One article describes people in poverty disconnected from the federal safety net, many white. Within that article, one subject, Valorie Ladner, was identified as someone living in poverty, “a white mother in Waveland Miss., said she’s had to brush aside the judgment of extended family members and seek government help to feed her four children.” In another article, the reporter categorized, Devon Whitley, as a person who is white and living in poverty.
“Whitley is part of a growing trend among unwed, low-income white women, whose birthrate has been growing faster than that of any other racial group, according to national figures.”
The racial or ethnic group that was most represented as living in poverty was Hispanics. Most of the articles describing this ethnic group involved narratives concerning immigration and the obstacles they face acclimating to this 78
country. They also detailed potential policies meant to address illegal immigration and undocumented workers, and the economic consequences of enacting such policies. There were also features describing immigrants’ lives in their former countries, and journeys they undertook when traveling to the United States. There were also some profiles of those who were African American. One article involved immigrants from Somalia while another described child labor and the cocoa trade with countries in Africa.
These trends help to explain the continued underrepresentation of whites as living in poverty in the media. In this study, whites were the most underrepresented ethnic group when compared to others. In most cases, the difference is more than 50 percent. The study, albeit with many unknowns, supports the findings of Clawson and her colleagues from 20 years ago.
Theoretical Implications
There were three research studies that formed the foundation of this project. All examined the extent that media organizations cover poverty and the potential distortions that occur. Among them is a study published in 1996 that reviewed the images found in nationally published magazines (Gilens, 1996). The author concluded that journalists distort poverty by overrepresenting African
Americans when publishing articles about the subject. That the proportion they 79
are depicted is higher than the actual percentages they are living in poverty
(Gilens, 1996).
A subsequent article essentially reexamined the issue by reviewing images in magazines published between 1993 and 1998 (Clawson & Trice, 2000). This study expanded the number of ethnic groups. Not only were African Americans included in the sample, but the researchers also identified Hispanics and Asians.
Researchers found evidence that supported the prior research, concluding that
African Americans continue to be overrepresented in the proportions they are portrayed in the publications sampled in the study (Clawson & Trice, 2000).
Additionally, the researchers concluded that African Americans continue to be overrepresented in images accompanying articles while whites are underrepresented. The researchers incorporated a third ethnic group, Hispanics, and found they were underrepresented (Clawson & Trice, 2000).
The most recent study not only supported the findings of the other two, but also added to it. By also analyzing images from magazine articles, the researcher reinforced the conclusions that journalists distort perceptions of people in poverty (Van Doorn, 2015). Whites continue to be underrepresented in images that portray people living in poverty, while African Americans remain overrepresented in media compared to their real poverty rates (Van Doorn, 2015).
Researchers from the study also incorporated an economic element to the body of 80
research, finding that African Americans are overrepresented during times of an economic expansion, while whites are overrepresented in media during recessions, essentially contributing a bias in the perception of the causes of poverty between whites and blacks (Van Doorn, 2015).
This study extends the body of research into a second medium of journalism: text. This study investigates if the distortions discovered by previous researchers is found in the text of reporters’ articles when documenting the lives of people in poverty. Using images can offer a general idea of a person’s demographic makeup, but it becomes explicit and exact when the fact is stated by a reporter using words. The second manner this study expands the existing research is by examining if the bias persists in a different platform. In the past, the researchers used images in nationally circulating magazines to draw their conclusions. This project scrutinizes newspapers, a completely different dissemination tool designed to reach a different type of audience. In general, the volume is higher for newspapers, so a trend can be more readily discerned than by examining magazines.
The study also expands the body of research by determining if this distortion is correlated with the socioeconomic status of residents living in a geographic area. Prior research reviewed magazines with a national circulation.
The danger is that researchers will extend their conclusion to include the 81
journalism profession, assuming the reporters in different parts of the country, with different cultures, will make the same characterizations as journalists working for nationally renowned magazines. This study evaluates whether more nuance is needed in the claims the researchers made. People living in the more affluent areas of the U.S., such as the northeast, may view poverty in a different light than those living in the south, especially if the demographic profiles among the different areas is vastly different. It is safe to assume that reporters will adopt a different perspective based on the needs of readers living in those areas.
There is some evidence of this subtlety in the findings. Although some generalizations can be made, there are nuances suggesting this pattern presents itself more some newspapers than in others. As an example, despite the large number of unknown race and ethnic identities, it appears that journalists from
Philadelphia Inquirer are more accurate than the other publications at depicting the lives of people living in poverty. For one, a higher percentage of the articles they publish concern poverty. Of the six that were reviewed, the Inquirer was one of the publications that focused on poverty the most, rivaling that of the Star
Tribune, and doubling the percentage of the New York Times, a national publication known for its coverage of social issues having an impact on the country. The Philadelphia Inquirer also incorporates the perspective of more people than other publications, roughly equal that of the New York Times, with only the Boston Globe including more subjects within articles. 82
Reporters from the Inquirer also interviewed whites who are living in poverty, whereas none of the other publications did. They also included the perspectives of more people living in poverty relative to the total subjects they included in their articles, about 15 percent.
Practical Implications
In terms of practical implications, this study has highlighted the need for reporters and editors to report on poverty in a more comprehensive fashion. It was unknown prior to this study if the small resources dedicated to poverty coverage was limited to reporters who write for magazines. There is now increasing evidence to suggest this disparity extends beyond journalists working for magazines, but to the journalism overall. This study establishes there is a need for increasing poverty coverage. The publications published only a fraction of their total output about poverty – all were at less than one percent. Even the paper that many consider the paper of record for the U.S. the New York Times, allocated one-tenth of one percent to the subject. It is a salient issue that affects the lives of
33 million people, about 11 percent of the population. There is also evidence to suggest the recovery from the Great Recession that started in 2007 has been uneven. Economists have documented growing inequality in the United States.
Some in the country have increased their wealth, but some are struggling to afford their basic needs. This study suggests there is room for journalists to increase the amount of time and resources they could devote to the subject. 83
This study also found that journalists can also enhance understanding of the subject by diversifying the perspectives they include in their articles. Many of the subjects profiled do not live in poverty. They are an amalgam of researchers and academics, but also elected officials and candidates looking to enhance their publicity with the community by announcing initiatives and programs. Many of the articles reviewed were comprised of reporters reacting to legislation, or new rules and regulations, meant to address poverty. Few of the articles were enterprise or investigative in nature meant to probe the hardships of low-income families or individuals.
The findings of this study hinged on the ability to discern the demographic information of the subjects in the articles, especially for people who are living in poverty. However, the race and ethnicities of many of the subjects were not incorporated in the reporting. Journalists appear reluctant to include that information. However, there is a racial and ethnic component to poverty.
Significant portions of people, especially African Americans and Hispanics, but also whites, continue to live with persistent poverty. Disparities also exist in the earnings of minorities, but without the racial or ethnic information to describe the subjects forgo that aspect of the narrative.
Limitations and directions of future research 84
In terms of practical matters, the limitations of this research will be in the data sampling. It has already been stated that poverty is not a subject that has been extensively covered by news outlets, so the number of articles analyzed is limited.
That poses risks when attempting to draw conclusions based on a limited sample.
There is also an inherent bias in the articles that were generated from the database. The algorithm may favor specific articles from a specific outlet and exclude others. That may bias my conclusions upon analyzing the text.
A second limitation is that I cannot account for cultural differences between the regions. Perhaps one area views poverty in a specific light because of societal factors endemic to that area, from educational attainment to religious convictions. I will not be able to capture that difference in the analysis because I am assuming homogeneity among the writers in the different regions. One avenue for addressing that would be to compare the same coverage of the same issues in the same areas based on affluence, perhaps how one newspaper based in a specific area of a city with another newspaper based in a different area of the same city.
That would account for the cultural differences while compiling the relevant information.
A third limitation of the research relates to the articles the news aggregator would include in the results. The program reviews the words listed within the articles to determine whether the article meets the criteria identified by the researcher. In this specific situation, the aggregator will use its algorithm to 85
identify articles whose subject concerns poverty. However, there are a subset of articles that relate to the subject which the aggregator will not include because algorithm will not associate the words within the article as related to poverty. The net result is that the sample will be less than the true amount. This has the potential to skew the results.
To address some of these issues, a researcher could incorporate additional geographic locations into the research, including areas that feature multiple newspapers competing newspapers and analyze the subjects that reporters include in their articles. An ideal situation would be a metropolitan area that comprised of several publications of comparable circulation figures whose reporters cover similar issues. An example would be Arizona where two newspapers compete for readers living within two hours of one another, the Arizona Repo. In this situation, the reporters for the Arizona Republic, based in Phoenix, and the
Arizona Daily Star located in Tucson.
In this case, the cultural differences are minimized relative to the current project because the readers are in similar geographic areas, with similar climates and lifestyles. However, the additional publications offer an expanded pool of articles that can be analyzed while also comparing the perspectives of reporters on a more subtle level when writing about poverty because they are based in areas that are a short distance from one another. 86
There is the additional importance of adding diversity of perspectives from locations in the rural parts of the country. This project begins the process of disentangling media portrayals of poverty in metropolitan areas from the national perspective. However, it would also be useful to compare how publications highlight the issue in rural areas. The project should be repeated, but for publications whose readership lives in less populated areas of the United States.
The general purpose of the research project was to discover potential aspects for improving poverty coverage in the U.S. among print journalists. The goal focused on two aspects of this objective: to determine if there was enough coverage of the issue through the number of articles published about the subject.
Results from the study support the findings from prior researchers: that poverty is not an issue that is highly covered in the country. This despite that it is an important topic and one that affects many Americans. The next step is to understand the reasons that poverty receives less attention than others.
The working assumption is that poverty is a difficult subject to illuminate, one that involves lengthy time and additional reporters. That may not be possible for some newsrooms whose resources are already overextended given shrinking revenues and increasing expenses. The goal of the following study would be to understand how editors, reporters and newsroom differ in how they prioritize poverty relative to other subjects. To accomplish this, additional primary research will be required. The goal of this project would be to aggregate the articles 87
published about poverty, separated by the newspaper responsible for the article.
That will identify the newspapers that allocate a larger share of their resources to the topic. The process would also reveal the publications that devote fewer resources to the subject. Interviews would then be scheduled to ask editors and newsroom leaders from publications on opposing sides of that spectrum. The interview questions would involve the priorities of the publication, the important issues of the community, and the demographic and socioeconomic makeup of the area they serve. There would be an additional battery of questions related to poverty, including how important it is relative to the other issues they must highlight in the community, some of the reasons they do or do not cover the issue, and the events or incidents that start them on the path toward determining coverage.
The second aspect involved evaluating whether reporters incorporated diverse perspectives. This project was supposed to illuminate that question, but with so many whose race and ethnicities were unidentified, that issue could not be addressed. Given its importance, the objective of the future study would be to locate the subjects living in poverty who were included in the articles, and then solicit information about their racial and ethnic background. The reporters who wrote the articles would be interviewed, answering a series of questions about how they selected their subjects, how they sought them for the interviews, and 88
how much of a role race played when selecting their subjects to interview.
Conclusions
In some respects, journalism is a monolithic institution in the sense there is some uniformity among reporters, regardless of practice location, size of the circulation, the publication, or even the platform. There are specific habits that have permeated throughout the industry, especially when it comes to covering poverty. This study suggests that newsrooms, regardless they be magazines or newspapers, devote few precious resources to covering the subject. The newspapers that were part of this study published less than one percent of their total output covering poverty. These newspapers ranged from regional publications to national newspapers, such as the New York Times, who journalists have garnered a reputation for covering important social issues.
The second uniformity is that there are distortions that nearly all reporters are susceptible to when covering poverty. The first is that they will underreport on the perspectives of people living in poverty, and instead focusing on elected officials or researchers who study the topic. This study found that reporters incorporate the views of people not living in poverty multiple times more than people who do. There are also disparities in the proportion of the males and females living in poverty that they include in their articles. Almost always, males will be underrepresented as a class within articles, while many times women will 89
be overrepresented relative to the percentages they are in poverty. Additionally, they will overrepresent adults relative to children.
The key finding however that has yet to be answered is if newspapers misrepresent the proportions that different ethnic and racial groups are living in poverty. There is some evidence that whites are underrepresented because nearly all the papers failed to include any person living in poverty who is white.
However, no definitive conclusion could be made because many reporters failed to identify the race or ethnic identity of subjects living in poverty.
The question can be asked if reporting the race or ethnicity of a subject even matters, but the fact that poverty has racial components makes identifying a subject’s race and ethnicity important. First, it is a teaching tool. There are biases and prejudices that present themselves when the public views the issue of poverty.
Revealing the race of an individual, while also highlighting their perspectives, will begin to address the preconceived ideas that have. It will highlight the humanity of individuals.
A second reason for including race in articles related to poverty is credibility. Much of the impoverished population are whites, whose situations need attention. Yet, many of their perspectives are not incorporated into articles concerning poverty. There is a thought that one of the primary reasons that media is distrusted by the public is that journalists have separated themselves from their readers, that they have lives that don’t align with their viewers. Journalists who 90
demonstrate they attempt to include as many perspectives as possible, such as whites, when highlighting poverty will help with the credibility issue.
91
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