Is poverty really that funny?
I've been struck by the tone of the coverage of the several events yesterday where people were injured in the pre-Christmas surge.There seems to be a superiority to the coverage, something along the lines of "look at the crazy people."
But notice that the people involved in these events all seem to be lower middle or poor. Sure Keith Olberman and Matt Drudge can look down their noses(just two examples I've specifically seen of a greater phenomena), but how would they respond if they were trying to shop for Christmas with a family of four and an annual income of $20,000?
Leaving aside, for a moment, the ugly underpinnings of our consumer society, that success and affection are often displayed through goods, can you blame people for wanting to see their kids smile on Christmas morning?
All coverage of these events seems to separate them from the underlying realities of the economy. For instance, if you net $20,000 a year, that $422 off a laptop at Wal Mart, which by the way will help your children's education, represents more than a week's work. ($20K represents $9.60 /hr., 40 hr. work week.) And that is well above both the minimum wage and the poverty line.
The people storming through the Walmart doors aren't crazy, although they have succumbed to some degree of consumerist frenzy, they are trying to provide for their families the best that they can.
How has the existence of the poor gone from being finally acknowledged four months ago during Katrina to being mocked the day after the collective gluttony of Thanksgiving?
Perhaps Misters Drudge and Olberman, and the rest of the media that covered this in a mocking way, can throw some silver dollars out their carriage windows as they pass by. Apparently, it's funny to watch the poor scramble to take care of their families.
posted by mikevotes at
12:31 PM
6 Comments:
i never understood camping out for mass produced products. i didn't see the coverage you are talking about but it seems awful.
oh and mike, re the bbc.if i am correct about it i take no pleasure in it. try this
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=6742
if the link doesn't come up (they sometimes don't in the comments bit but i don't know why) then is zmag.org and search for an article called "bbc and fallujah" from nov 27th 2004. interesting stuff.
By
michael the tubthumper, at 2:53 PM
Thanks, Micheal, that is pretty interesting.
And I just cut and paste the links into the browser window when they don't work. And, no, I don't know why.
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 3:44 PM
Well said Mike. I thought exactly the same thing. I hated the coverage. I also thought it had this snobby quality to it.
By
Anonymous, at 6:29 PM
In fact it was so well said, I stole it.
By
Anonymous, at 6:51 PM
You showed some real empathy for the folks in this situation. I wish the sophisticates of the national media could show some of that same feeling when they report on poor and middle class folks.
I was a television reporter for years, and even though I started out at a salary befitting a middle class or even a poor person, toward the end of my career, I wasn't poor at all. I am back to being not so rich right now, and doing ok on my AFTRA pension and health benefits, and I think I have more empathy now for those folks than I did then.
I think the salaries news people get, especially TV news people separates them from the poorer classes and colors the reporting on TV.
By
NEWSGUY, at 3:28 PM
I think the level of salary depends upon the reporter and situation. A reporter in a local market, even a big one like mine in Houston, isn't making big money. And quite frankly, I doubt that the "beat reporters" for NYTimes, Wapo, or the cable news folks make too big a cash, unless they're being groomed. My issue is with the top line celebrity journalists. Woodward, Miller(who got a seven figure severence,) and alot of the "name" reporters on the networks. You know, the one's where they say the reporter's name before they mention the story when handing it over.
I have no issue with people earning alot of money, but at times it can affect their coverage. There are many people outside the media, for example, people I know, who do earn or possess great amounts of wealth, and still have that "common sense of humanity"(well said) that Matt mentions above.
Then, there are others who take their success as a sign that they are somehow better than others, or more troublingly, that God looks on them more favorably and thus they are successful. There are those down here in Texas, too. That weird sort of Calvinist thinking is going to be a long metapost someday.
But, bottom line, the biases of the wealthy are often not discussed because we are supposed to admire them for their monetary success. And from that structural worship, they get a sort of rich man's entitlement.(or rich woman's entitlement, although my anecdotal experience is that the wealthy women I know are less inclined towards this.) Thus, they presume that their biases are the biases of the society as a whole, and thus their bigotry or condescension are presumed to be the biases of the whole.
Sorry, started out to say one thing, and kinda went off track. Bottom line, Matt and Newsguy, I think you're both right, but I felt the need to say that the problem isn't wealth in itself that separates a person from that "common sense of humanity." There are plenty of people whom wealth has not affected in this way.
But some of those that it has, have their own media platform.
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 4:01 PM
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