Essential reading and documentaries for journalists covering poverty

by Grey Pentecost, graduate research assistant

(Pentecost is a graduate student in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass
Communication, University of Georgia. These references are drawn from interviews with
journalism professors across the U.S. whose courses include instruction on coverage of
poverty. See list of faculty here.)
Banerjee, A.V., Benabou, R., & Mookherjee, D. (2006). Understanding Poverty.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Product Description (Amazon.com): Understanding poverty and what to do
about it, is perhaps the central concern of all of economics. Yet the lay public almost
never gets to hear what leading professional economists have to say about it. This volume
brings together twenty-eight essays by some of the world leaders in the field, who were
invited to tell the lay reader about the most important things they have learnt from their
research that relate to poverty. The essays cover a wide array of topics: the first essay is
about how poverty gets measured. The next section is about the causes of poverty and its
persistence, and the ideas range from the impact of colonialism and globalization to the
problems of "excessive" population growth, corruption and ethnic conflict. The next
section is about policy: how should we fight poverty? The essays discuss how to get drug
companies to produce more vaccines for the diseases of the poor, what we should and
should not expect from micro-credit, what we should do about child labor, how to design
welfare policies that work better and a host of other topics. The final section is about
where the puzzles lie: what are the most important anomalies, the big gaps in the way
economists think about poverty? The essays talk about the puzzling reluctance of Kenyan
farmers to fertilizers, the enduring power of social relationships in economic transactions
in developing countries and the need to understand where aspirations come from, and
much else. Every essay is written with the aim of presenting the latest and the most
sophisticated in economics without any recourse to jargon or technical language.
Bragg, R. (1997). All over but the shoutin. New York: Pantheon Books.
New York Times reporter Rick Bragg tells the story of his family, of growing up
in poor, rural Alabama. After reading just a few pages, it is easy to see how Bragg won
the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. In this book Bragg tells about his war-scarred
father, who abandoned a wife and three young sons. And he tells about his mother, who
picked cotton and did other peoples housework to support her children. He says in the
prologue that anyone could have told this story, and thats the shame of it, writes
Bragg. A lot of women stood with babies on their hips in line for commodity cheese and
peanut butter. A lot of men were damaged deep inside by the killing and dying of wars,

then tried to heal themselves with a snake oil elixir of sour mash and self-loathing (xii).
But Bragg seems to be the right person for the job, and has given us this very personal
account. Though he claims it will only be important to his own family, I think that it is
not only an example of great writing, but can help journalists get a better feel for
humanity affected by poverty and all the pain and lessons that it encompasses.
Chavez, L. (1991). Out of the barrio: Toward a new politics of Hispanic assimilation.
New York: BasicBooks.
From Amazon.com: Hispanic Americans are not an impoverished minority
group on the fast track to the permanent underclass, despite all the rhetoric to this effect
coming from the victimization industry. To the contrary, they are an upwardly mobile
group in pursuit of the American dream. Like immigrants in the past, they simply need
time to adapt to their new home. In this brilliant analysis, Linda Chavez conclusively
shows that the main obstacle to their progress is not racism or nativism among the nativeborn but misguided public policies such as bilingual education that inhibit Hispanics from
entering the mainstream.
Daugherty, J. (2006). Remembering those who are usually forgotten. Nieman Reports,
Vol. 60, No. 1. Retrieved June 18, 2008, from http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/.
Daugherty, a four-time winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for coverage
of the disadvantaged, wrote this article for the Nieman Reports magazine. In it she talks
about how journalists often overlook the unique problems of the poor in their reporting of
natural disasters and other events/issues. She uses the coverage of Hurricane Wilmas
damages as an example. Daugherty writes, The unfortunate reality is that American
journalists do not systematically or analytically cover the plight of the poor, the
marginalized, the isolated, or the powerless. When we put together elaborate hurricane
coverage plans, organize medical beats, determine Iraq war coverage, or decide on
approaches to stories about globalization of the economy, our focus generally is on
implications for the affluent and what experts have to say, while keeping a watchful eye
on breaking news To try to avert massive tragedies like those experienced by so many
New Orleans families stranded on rooftops or abandoned for days in the Superdome,
journalists should draw attention to the obvious fault lines that exist in how well various
communities are equipped to respond to an impending disaster.
DeParle, Jason. (2004). American dream: Three women, ten kids, and a nations drive
to end welfare. New York: Viking.

DeParle chronicles the everyday struggles of three women, their families and the
relationship they all had with welfare. He shows their lives through the events
surrounding Clintons idea of ending welfare as we know it and looks at how policy
was formed from it.
Ehrenreich, B. (2001). Nickel and dimed: On (not) getting by in America.
New York, Metropolitan Books.
From Publishers Weekly: In contrast to recent books by Michael Lewis and
Dinesh D'Souza that explore the lives and psyches of the New Economy's millionaires,
Ehrenreich (Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class, etc.) turns her gimlet eye
on the view from the workforce's bottom rung. Determined to find out how anyone could
make ends meet on $7 an hour, she left behind her middle class life as a journalist except
for $1000 in start-up funds, a car and her laptop computer to try to sustain herself as a
low-skilled worker for a month at a time. In 1999 and 2000, Ehrenreich worked as a
waitress in Key West, Fla., as a cleaning woman and a nursing home aide in Portland,
Maine, and in a Wal-Mart in Minneapolis, Minn. During the application process, she
faced routine drug tests and spurious "personality tests"; once on the job, she endured
constant surveillance and numbing harangues over infractions like serving a second roll
and butter. Beset by transportation costs and high rents, she learned the tricks of the trade
from her co-workers, some of whom sleep in their cars, and many of whom work when
they're vexed by arthritis, back pain or worse, yet still manage small gestures of kindness.
Despite the advantages of her race, education, good health and lack of children,
Ehrenreich's income barely covered her month's expenses in only one instance, when she
worked seven days a week at two jobs (one of which provided free meals) during the offseason in a vacation town. Delivering a fast read that's both sobering and sassy, she gives
readers pause about those caught in the economy's undertow, even in good times.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Ewing, H. (Producer), & Ewing, H., & Grady, R. (Directors). (2006).

The boys of Baraka [Documentary]. USA: Velocity.
From Amazon.com, by Jeff Shannon: If everyone in high government office saw
The Boys of Baraka, who knows what kind of positive change it might inspire? From this
remarkable documentary about hope and second chances, the message is clear: The
poorest, most violent, undesirable neighborhoods in America are a breeding ground for
hopelessness and despair, and there's a solution if only we'd give it a good fighting
chance. The scene is Baltimore, Maryland, in 2002, where 76% of all African American
boys living in the inner-city ghetto will never earn a high school diploma. As one adult
tells the kids at a Baltimore school, they have three choices: jail, an early death, or
graduating high school--and you know she's telling the cold, hard truth. That's when we
learn of the Baraka School in Kenya, East Africa, where 20 African American boys (ages

12 and 13) are chosen each year to enter a transformative two-year course of schooling,
away from their families in Baltimore. The purpose of the school, in part, is to
demonstrate that the toxic environment of Baltimore, and its negative impact on the selfesteem of ghetto residents, can be reversed by removing these boys to Baraka, where a
strict regimen of classes and responsibilities has an immediate, if not always permanent,
beneficial effect.
Gilbert, P. (Producer), & James, S. (Director). (1994).
Hoop dreams [Documentary]. USA.
From Amazon.com essential video, by Dave McCoy: This completely absorbing
three-hour documentary follows the lives of two inner-city African American teenage
basketball prodigies as they move through high school with long-shot dreams of the
NBA, superstardom, and an escape from the ghetto James moves his scope beyond a
competitive sports drama (although the movie has plenty of terrific, nail-biting basketball
footage) and addresses complex social issues, creating a scathing social commentary
about class privilege and racial division.
Harrington, M. (1994). The other America: Poverty in the United States.
New York: Collier Books.
(From the back cover): When Michael Harringtons masterpiece, The Other America,
was first published in 1962, it was hailed as an explosive work and became a galvanizing
force for the War on Poverty. Reviewing the book for The New Yorker, Dwight
Macdonald said: In the admirably short space of under two hundred pages [Harrington]
outlines the problem, describes in imaginative detail what it means to be poor in this
country todayand analyzes the reasons for the persistence of mass poverty in the midst
of general prosperity. It is an excellent bookand a most important one. This
illuminating, profoundly moving classic is still all too relevant for todays America.
Katz, M.B. (1996). In the shadow of the poorhouse: A social history of welfare in
America. New York: BasicBooks.
While exploring the history of welfare, Katz explores the roots of Americas
ambivalence toward welfare and the welfare state. Part I is called The Poorhouse Era
because poorhouses symbolized the spirit and intent of welfare practice (p.xii). In this
first part outdoor relief and the voluntary sector are also discussed. Part II is called
Building the Semiwelfare State. Chapter 5 focuses on the late nineteenth century
reform movement of child-saving. Subsequent chapters in part two discuss the
reorganization of cities, the labor market and the nation. Finally, Part III, From The War

on Poverty to the War on Welfare, traces the relation of social welfare to some of the
great themes of post-World War II experience: the civil rights movement, the urban
crisis, deindustrialization, and the emergence of a new structure of poverty (p. xiii-xiv).
Kotlowitz, A. (1992). There are no children here: The story of two boys growing up in
the other America. New York: Anchor Books.
A national bestseller, this is the story about two years in the lives of two brothers,
Lafayette and Pharoah, who live in an inner-city Chicago housing project. The book
starts out when the boys are nine and eleven. Kotlowitz tells their stories, along with
those of the other children in the neighborhood, as they struggle to survive in the poverty
and other harsh conditions associated with life in the inner-city. Kotlowitz, a journalist,
first met the boys in the summer of 1985, when they were seven and ten years old and
was so drawn to the family and their situation that he decided to tell their story in this
book. It is written in a descriptive, narrative style that is compelling to read.
Kovach, B., & Rosenstiel, T. (2001). The elements of journalism: What news people
should know and the public should expect. New York: Crown Publishers.
This book started with the gathering of twenty-five journalists at the Harvard Faculty
Club. The group new that their profession was in trouble. They decided on a plan:
engage journalists and the public in a careful examination of what journalism was
supposed to be (p. 11). Kovach and Rosenstiel say that this book is the fruit of that
examination, a description of the theory and culture of journalism that emerged from
three years of listening to citizens and journalists, from our empirical studies, and from
our reading of the history of the profession as it evolved in the United States (12). The
first element of journalism is that the purpose of journalism is to provide people with
the information they need to be free and self-governing. To fulfill this task the authors
have come up with nine other elements:
1. Journalisms first obligation is to the truth.
2. Its first loyalty is to citizens.
3. Its essence is a discipline of verification.
4. Its practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover.
5. It must serve as an independent monitor of power.
6. It must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise.
7. It must strive to make the significant interesting and relevant.
8. It must keep the news comprehensive and proportional.
9. Its practitioners must be allowed to exercise their personal conscience. (12-13)

Kozol, J. (1995). Amazing grace: The lives of children and the conscience of a nation.
New York: Crown.
Kozol (Savage Inequalities) began visiting New York's South Bronx in 1993,
focusing on Mott Haven, a poor neighborhood that is two thirds Hispanic, one third
black. This disquieting report graphically portrays a world where babies are born to drugusing mothers with AIDS, where children are frequently murdered, jobs are scarce and a
large proportion of the men are either in prison or on crack cocaine or heroin. Kozol
interviewed ministers, teachers, drug pushers, children who have not yet given up hope.
His powerfully understated report takes us inside rat-infested homes that are freezing in
winter, overcrowded schools, dysfunctional clinics, soup kitchens. Rejecting what he
calls the punitive, blame-the-poor ideology that has swept the nation, Kozol points to
systemic discrimination, hopelessness, limited economic opportunities and New York
City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's cutbacks in social services as causes of this crisis. While
his narrative offers no specific solutions, it forcefully drives home his conviction: a
civilized nation cannot allow this situation to continue. (From Publishers Weekly)
LeBlanc, A.N. (2003). Random family: Love, drugs, trouble, and coming of age in the
Bronx. New York: Scribner.
Journalist LeBlanc spent more than 10 years following two Latina women from
the Bronx, and in this ambitious work, she tells their stories, beginning in the late 1980s
with their young teen years. Older Jessica becomes a mistress to an enormously
successful heroin dealer, and Coco falls for Jessica's brother, an aspiring gangster. The
two women find love, weather abuse, have babies, endure their own and their partners'
prison terms, and struggle with health problems, social systems, motherhood, their own
mothers, the violence of their communities, and the uncertain future. (From Booklist)
McChesney, R.W. (1999). Rich media, poor democracy: Communication politics in
dubious times. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
(From the Preface): This book is about the media crisis in the United States (and world)
today and what we should do about it. The main point underlying the book is the
contradiction between a for profit, highly concentrated, advertising-saturated, corporate
media system and the communication requirements of a democratic societyI discuss
for example: the decline of journalism and the hypercommercialization of culture; the
antidemocratic manner by which communication policy making has been and is being
conducted in the United States; the close relationship of the media system to the broader
(globalizing and neoliberal) capitalist economy with its dilapidated political culture; and
the way that the Internet is being incorporated into the heart of the corporate
communication system, decidedly undermining the democratic potential envisioned by its
founders (ix).

Ray, J. (1999). Ecology of a Cracker Childhood. Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions.

From Publishers Weekly: Ray, a poet and an environmental activist, takes a
tough-minded look at life in rural southern Georgia in this blend of memoir and nature
study. She presents detailed observations of her family members, most notably her
grandfather Charlie, who was "terrifying, prone to violent and unmerited punishment";
her father, whose decision to buy a tract of land near Highway 1 and turn it into what
became a massive junkyard with a house in the middle set in motion the key events in
Ray's life; and her mother, whose total devotion to her family was tested when her
husband began a three-year bout with mental illness. Interspersed with these portraits are
various chapters describing the beauty of the longleaf pine flatwoods and other natural
treasures found, and often endangered, in her home state. Ray's writing is at its best when
she recalls her most harrowing memories, such as when her father gave her and her two
brothers a whipping after they stood by and watched a friend kill a turtle. These scenes
resonate during the interpolated naturalist chapters, which evoke the calm of the
landscape and give readers a respite from the anger and pain that drive much of the
family narrative. In a final chapter (in which she includes appendixes on the specific
endangered species of the South), Ray laments the "daily erosion of unique folkways as
our native ecosystems and all their inhabitants disappear." What remains most
memorable are the sections where Ray describes, and attempts to prevent, her own
disconnection from the Georgia landscape.
Rosenstein, E., Weisberg, R., Reid, F., & Harris P. (Directors). (2006). Waging a living
[Documentary]. USA: Docudrama.
Product Description (amazon.com): Tender and eye-opening WAGING A
LIVING takes an unwavering look at America s working poor--people who work hard
and play by the rules but never seem to get ahead. Over three years the film follows four
hard-working individuals as they strive for their piece of the American Dream but find
only low wages dead end jobs and a tattered safety net in their way. As they raise
children try to get a college degree and take care of sick relatives these working class
heroes make you root for them to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Mixing
stunning facts about poverty and social injustice with the personal testimony of real-life
workers two-time Academy Award-nominated director Roger Weisberg cuts through the
fog of politics and prejudice to bring the disturbing reality of the working poor into the
light of day.
Sen, A. (1992). Inequality reexamined. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

From the Publisher: In this deft analysis, Amartya Sen argues that the dictum "all men
are created equal" serves largely to deflect attention from the fact that we differ in age,
gender, talents, physical abilities as well as in material advantages and social background.
He argues for concentrating on higher and more basic values: individual capabilities and
freedom to achieve objectives. Sen was the 1998 Nobel Prize winner in Economics.
Shipler, D. (2004). The working poor: Invisible in America. New York: A. Knopf.
Shipler delves into the lives of the working poor and examines the issues and
situations they deal with. He tells the personal stories of many in various situations, from
immigrants and those dealing with welfare to those whove experienced sexual abuse.
Shipler also talks with the employers of the working poor as well as teachers,
physicians, and other professionals who try to make a difference (p. xi.). This book puts
a face on the problem of poverty.
Sutherland, D. (Director). (2006). Country boys [Documentary]. USA: PBS.
From PBS Previews (http://www.pbs.org/previews/countryboys/ ): David
Sutherland returns to PBS with a major new work: Country Boys, a moving portrait of
the trials and triumphs of Chris Johnson and Cody Perkins, two teenaged boys coming of
age in eastern Kentucky's Appalachian hills.
Country Boys, a six-hour film airing in three episodes on January 9, 10, and 11,
2006, was filmed over three years (1999-2002) and tracks the dramatic stories of Chris
and Cody from ages 15 to 18. With the same intimate cinematic technique and sound
design that distinguished The Farmer's Wife, Sutherland's new film bears witness to the
two boys' struggles to overcome the poverty and family dysfunction of their childhood in
a quest for a brighter future. Country Boys also offers unexpected insights into a
forgotten corner of rural America that is at once isolated and connected, a landscape
dotted with roughshod trailer homes and wired with DSL.

The New York Times. (2005). Class matters. New York: Times Books.
From Publishers Weekly: The topography of class in America has shifted over
the past twenty years, blurring the lines between upper, middle and lower classes; some
have argued that the concept of class is irrelevant in today's society. While the 14 pieces
in this volume (all originally printed as part of a New York Times series) shed light on a
different aspect of class, they all agree that it remains an important facet of contemporary
American culture and draw their strength by examining class less through argument than

through storytelling. The reader, by following three heart attack victims through very
different recoveries, by witnessing the divergent immigrant experiences of a Greek diner
owner and his Mexican line cook, by tracing the life path of an Appalachian foster child
turned lawyer and a single welfare mother turned registered nurse, or by seeing the world
from the perspective of the wife of a "relo" (a six-figure executive who relocates every
few years to climb the corporate ladder), quickly realizes class is defined by much more
than income. The collection has the power of a great documentary film: it captures the
lives and ideas of its subjects in lively, articulate prose that, while grounded in statistics
and research, remains engaging and readable throughout. The result is neither an attack
on the rich nor a lecture to the poor, but a thoughtful consideration of class dynamics. Its
empathetic take on this divisive subject and straightforward prose style will make the
book of interest to a wide range of readers. Recommended.
Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights
reserved.