Misrepresenting the lives of those in poverty: how the media portrays the poor and what can be done to change it
July 13th, 2009 by Maeve Sherlock Posted in Attitudes
What do you mean there are no poor people on the telly? Didn’t you watch Shameless? And what about News at 10 – there’s always the crime reports? I’ve had both of these offered up to me as examples of poverty in the media and I’m not entirely sure they were joking.
The (in)visibility of poor people in the media and what can be done about it is the core issue examined in a new report, Poverty in the Media, launched by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) at a Poverty Alliance sponsored conference on Thursday in the (ironically, rather fabulous) surroundings of the Edinburgh City Chambers. As the lead author, Professor Fred Robinson, explained, the biggest challenge is getting poverty covered at all outside drama, as too often it’s seen as ‘worthy, not newsworthy’. As one editor who wanted to write more about poverty explained to us: ‘I might have an interest in writing a piece on fuel poverty – but it’s competing with Billie Piper or the Lapland theme park in the New Forest.’
In researching for this report, we talked to a number of journalists and editors about how they cover poverty and it was fascinating. It revealed the extent to which individual journalists are constrained in how they can cover stories. It is crucial for those with an interest in how poverty is reported to understand how this process works, a reflection which inspired film-maker Richard Else, another member of our team from St Chad’s College, Durham, to make three short films to accompany the report.
One video (see below) shows a broadcast journalist taking the viewer through the process of making a piece on poverty for radio and explaining as she goes the pressures and challenges she faces in reporting a poverty story. It is clear that the case study is highly valued by most journalists and producers as a means of bringing a story on poverty to life and presenting it in a way which the audience will respond to. But this leaves the media needing a steady supply of ‘real people’ with whom to illustrate and explain stories.
‘Real people’ is a strange term when you stop to think about it. I suppose it’s surprisingly honest, acknowledging that everything else in a media story is pretty much a construct, even when it purports to be just the plain, unvarnished truth. And it is a construct, of course: choices must be made about what to put in and what to leave out; how to contextualise the story, if at all; what images to use to illustrate it; what headline to use; how to cut the story/package.
But what does it feel like to be a ‘real person’ in a story like this? What power or control do you have over the way in which your story is told? We talked to people who have experience of poverty and also to the third sector organisations which often support them and provide a bridge between the media and the individuals whose stories are to be featured. That intermediary role can be complicated. It can be a valuable means of redressing the power imbalance between the media professional and the individual. But those who work for third sector organisations proved very aware of the potential for them to shape the story by the way they work with individuals. Views varied on whether individual ‘case studies’ should get advice or even media training.
Does training people distort the story? Some feel it does. But one press officer said that if a politician or business leader had to go on the TV, they wouldn’t dream of doing so without being trained; many people, if they suddenly became newsworthy, would get Max Clifford to represent the – why should it be different for poor people?
What price authenticity? Even the selection of people to introduce to journalists is a choice. As another press officer said: ‘With public attitudes hardening, we are putting up “deserving, respectable cases”. It would be nice to be able to be a bit braver.’ But maybe the landscape is changing. The development of new media offers some real opportunities, both for third sector organisations to get their message across and also for self-expression by people with experience of poverty. This blog is one of the examples mentioned in the report, along with other ideas for getting voices heard. But there is so much more that voluntary and community organisations could do, especially if they are willing and able to collaborate to do it. More and more people are getting picky about where they get their news – and worldviews – from. These days I’m as likely to learn about stories I find interesting from The Ship of Fools or AlterNet as from the BBC. I hope one day the third sector will collaborate successfully to provide me with my homepage of choice for the future.
Getting Seen Being Heard 2 – Media Stories from Joseph Rowntree Foundation on Vimeo.
The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Oxfam GB.
2 Responses to “Misrepresenting the lives of those in poverty: how the media portrays the poor and what can be done to change it”
By Emma Bryn-Jones on Jul 15, 2009
“With public attitudes hardening…”
When National Statistics data suggest that excluding home ownership 50% of the population owns 1% of wealth there can be no spin with this.
Fuelling the have and have not divide serves only to perpetuate the myth that the many who perceive themselves as middle income / moderate wealth are not at risk, creating public stigma and private fear. Poverty does not necessarily mean insecurity.
It is in this context that media content designed to provide realiable advice may be abused:
if you Google National Debtline, for instance, the commercial agency National Debt Helpline has a sponsored link directly above the charity’s listing;
if you search for advisory content re financial hardship, very often it is littered with commerical debt agency AdSense, connoting endorsements which may not exist;
if you search for ideas on living without credit or borrowing, you will find plenty of advice telling you it is uncomfortable, dangerous and unwise.
This is simply not true.
For public sympathy to be effected, both the stigma and fear of poverty need to be addressed. Examples of the irrational and exploitative scramble to hide unfavourable financial decisions need to be explicit.
Not only does the media need to humanise how easy the route to financial insecurity can be, but it also needs to veto content which exploits such vulnerability and promote content which models and opens discussions to a way out of it.
http://www.zero-credit.co.uk is my contribution. Rob M Dyson says its cosmetics need some work, so bear with me over the school summer holidays, as my day job pays the rent!
By Hannah Dalaya on Jul 19, 2009
I agree with the article & have some other comments! That thing about there’s no poor people on the TV is wrong, haven’t they ever seen the ‘Jeremy Kyle Show?’ I have worked as a suppoet worker for a large number of the groups of people on there as they have had low incomes. I have also worked with ex offenders who, often steal due to low incomes because the don’t have money for food, or they need money to support drug or alcohol addiction, if this is the case they can get help from drugs agencies but, hey don’t always know where to go or, they prefer to be out of it as their lives are too difficult to live with, (in their opinion!) Their opinion may me fuelled by many things but, depression is a big fuel for it, which is a big fuel for alcoholism and drug addiction, my friends alcoholism is fueled by bereavement- the loss of his parents and twin brother.
People need to be less self centred, and self obsessed, I am person centred and can respect, show empathy to others, and am genuine, in the info I share! People should be more considerate of others situations, you can steel if you are rich and poor, the banks that have closed recently may well have closed due to fraud in those banks??? Which ever clas a person is they deserve to be treated with decency! The country is not third world, we know have lost of immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers who originated in the 3rd World. I have worked with refugees and asylum seekers and they work far hard than UK citizens, because they vfeel responsible for paying back to their towns & families, because if a refugee they can work and they work long hours to pay back and survive. This is fact.