Journalists' experiences
"We need to report poverty in all its ugliness, yet without exploiting it"
Ros Wynne-Jones, Senior Feature Writer, Daily Mirror
Here, a number of journalists and film-makers explain how they see the issues and how they have tackled some of the problems to achieve a balanced and sensitive approach. Click on the links below for their full stories.
Deserving vs undeserving (Ros Wynne-Jones, Daily Mirror)
We need to report poverty in all its ugliness, yet without exploiting it. It is the dilemma that faces the photographer in a famine zone facing an emaciated child. And it is a dilemma in UK poverty terms we are only starting to explore now.
The story of the Farepak savers (Huw Williams, BBC Radio 4)
… the downside of having to have an example is that people’s real lives don’t fit neatly into compartmentalised boxes. Someone is never just an example of the aspect of poverty we’re trying to illustrate. To really understand them, you have to understand the background…
Problems in reporting poverty (Neil Mackay, Investigative journalist, film-maker and author)
There are a variety of problems for any journalist trying to report on poverty. Firstly, you have to try and find some way to circumvent existing prejudices amongst both colleagues and readers.
Child poverty: filming Ewan (Rachel Hellings, independent film-maker)
At the outset, we discussed how we should approach potential contributors, for we knew that finding and getting access to case studies wasn’t going to be easy. We realised, too, that the terminology and language we used would be important. We decided that the word ‘poverty’ wasn’t going to do us any favours. It can be offensive and it’s vague. Instead we favoured terms such as ‘low income’ or ‘disadvantaged’.
Further content
- Poverty in the media: Getting seen and being heard - how people who have experienced poverty can have a more effective voice in the media.
- Reporting poverty in the UK - provides journalists with an overview of UK poverty, highlights the dilemmas they face in covering it and suggests ways in which the subject can be dealt with fairly and authoritatively.
- The media, poverty and public opinion in the UK - analyses how the media reports UK poverty and its impact on public understanding and opinion.
- Communicating poverty report (PDF, 850KB) - report from UKCAP with perspectives on the media from people with experience of poverty.
- Journalist's perspective (4:29) - Caroline Becks, freelance radio producer and journalist who works often for Radio 4, tells the reality of making a poverty-related story for radio.
- Digital storytelling (4:37) - Daniel Meadows, Cardiff University lecturer in Participatory Media and award-winning photographer, talks about how powerful individual stories can be told through digital storytelling methods.
- Kate Green on the perception of poverty (5:17) - Kate Green, Chief Executive of Child Poverty Action Group, discusses a JRF report on public perceptions of poverty on PR Week.
Some examples of media coverage:
- Daily mail story (PDF, 950KB) - as discussed in 'People in poverty - how they view media coverage'. See 'Perceptions of media coverage' section.
- Sunday Herald story (PDF, 1MB) - a copy of two articles published in April 2007 about child poverty in Scotland.
- York press story (PDF, 920KB) - a feature that takes the findings from a Joseph Rowntree Foundation study on poverty and wealth and makes them relevant in a local context.
Image courtesy of Anna Kari, Save the Children