Invisible People and Poverty

Shine a Light: Invisible People

• Madeline Adams Tate, an invisible person in Roanoke, Virginia, froze to death in her unheated home in January 1985, during the city's coldest night since 1912.
• Tate lived with George Williams in a house without electricity, using a wood stove for heat, and paid $50 monthly rent.
• Despite city officials claiming efforts to help those without heat, they were unaware of Tate's situation, and the city covered her funeral costs of $255.
• The Roanoke Times initiated a year-long investigation into the city's housing conditions after Tate's death, revealing around 1,200 substandard houses.
• The investigation highlighted the lack of heat and plumbing in inner-city homes, endangering poor residents, and exposed the invisibility of their struggles to society.
• Many news organizations have cut reporting staff, reducing their focus on giving voice to the marginalized.
• David K. Shipler criticized the lack of media coverage on poverty, except when prompted by catastrophes.
• Anne Hull, recipient of the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award, aimed to shed light on Americans living on the margins, contrasting with a decline in this type of reporting due to newsroom cutbacks.
• Focus on people, not institutions, by considering the impact of institutional actions on communities, who benefits, who is harmed, and ensuring marginalized voices are heard.
• Journalists should present communities as they are, driven by journalistic values rather than political correctness or pleasing sources.
• Gary Dotson, senior editor at the Belleville News-Democrat, emphasizes social justice by reporting on the disabled, poor, old, and neglected, highlighting government shortcomings.
• The Boston Globe's investigation of Catholic Church's sexual abuse by priests and Eric Eyre's series on West Virginia's opioid epidemic exemplify challenging powerful institutions.
• News organizations must seek out stories of ordinary people who have suffered from abuses of power.
• Represent your community in all its diversity, encompassing various races, ethnicities, political viewpoints, faiths, ideologies, social and economic classes, sexual orientations and gender identifications
• Expand story searches beyond official sources and experts, visiting marginalized communities.
• Sonny Kleinfield of The New York Times focused on "unnoticed and eccentric stories" about ordinary, sidelined individuals.
• Journalism's core responsibility is to provide citizens with essential information for navigating society, implying a commitment to comprehensiveness.
• Don't ignore the voices of everyday citizens when they raise concerns in their communities.
• Following Tate's death, Roanoke held hearings and task forces, but inner-city problems persisted, with a similar tragedy occurring in 1996 involving Goldie Christine Duncan and her grandchildren.
• despite repeated investigations and recommendations, improvements are slow. Journalists must persist in telling important stories, maintaining faith in eventual justice, akin to Martin Luther King Jr.'s belief in the moral universe's arc.
• It is the journalist's job to force society to pay attention to desperate lives and difficult conditions.

Be a Watchdog: Serving the Public

• The Belleville News-Democrat investigated a case of a 14-year-old girl who reported a sexual assault, revealing inconsistencies in how such cases are handled.
• The investigation required driving over 3,500 miles to courthouses in 32 counties and using the Illinois Freedom of Information Act for police reports.
• Reporters George Pawlaczyk and Beth Hundsdorfer encountered obstacles such as uncooperative court clerks and redacted police reports.
• The "Violation of Trust" series revealed that 70% of over 6,700 reported felony sex crimes never went to court and the chance of a suspect going to prison was just 10%.
• The series led to the Illinois attorney general forming a task force to overhaul sex crime investigations.
• A journalist's primary duty is to serve as a watchdog, holding society and its institutions accountable, and giving citizens the information needed for sound decisions.
• Watchdog journalism involves uncovering hidden information, clarifying distortions, and exposing corruption and injustice in various sectors.
• Good watchdog journalism sheds light on issues that would otherwise remain unseen, revealing disparities between expectations and reality.
• Scott Lewis describes watchdog journalism as a public service necessary to operate a civil society.
• Good watchdog journalism alerts citizens to changing circumstances, challenges assumptions, and invites civic judgment.
• Watchdog journalism is a key component of your civic obligation as a journalist, linked to the freedoms in the First Amendment.
• With limited resources, The Belleville News-Democrat has been recognized for investigative reporting and watchdog journalism
• The Belleville News-Democrat's track record of watchdog journalism comes from a philosophy to devote a certain percentage to doing high-impact journalism
• Watchdog journalism at the paper is an “attitude rather than a project.”
• Reporters approach small stories as well as large ones with a watchdog mindset
• Public records are crucial to watchdog reporting and applying the same standards of verification to documents and records as you do to human sources
• Laura Frank recommends keeping a list of ideas from daily reporting, selling stories by outlining minimum and maximum plans, being organized in reporting and interviewing, and writing as you report.
• I.F. Stone believed all reporters should be investigative, striving to uncover truths and expose secrets.
• Approach each day with a watchdog mindset to tell people what’s really going on and why, to get to the bottom of the story, to discover information of public importance that someone wants to keep secret
• Not all of them will become watchdog stories, but some will
• Watchdog journalists realize this kind of reporting feeds their souls and makes a difference in the lives of people around them.

Checklist

• Do a content analysis of who your sources are to improve diversity
• Review the places you’ve visited in the past month and keep venturing out somewhere new
• Make a list of new people to talk to and places to visit with a plan to do so regulary
• Use multimedia to help you see diversity and heighten your awareness of the need for diverse sources in your stories.
• Always ask how and why to look for flaws in systems that allow injustices to occur
• Make it worthwhile and do not concentrate on trivial matters
• Don’t forget people by keeping them in the heart of the story
• Be fair and get it right, verify everything and don't be afraid to change your mind.
• Transparency is important and explain how your work was done to give your story more credibility
• Don’t preach or be a scold, your readers are to decide on their own
• Join Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE)
• Remember that change can be slow and to be patient