Hard News Is Personalized, about Individuals--two

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by: Jordon

Conflict was added to the mix with the visit of welfare workers to the site, coupled with the fire department turning off the hydrants and the police ticketing nearby residents who were assisting the protesters. Capturing conflict and drama and personalizing the issue by focusing on mothers and children camped in an otherwise vacant lot, the Philadelphia Inquirer's story was headed "Camp Seeks, and Fears, City's Notice." The subhead suggested conflict: "The homeless Links Of London Frendship Bracelets camp is, in part, a protest. So far, it's getting only unwanted attention."

The Inquirers article admits that the camp drew press attention only when the prospect of conflict with the city arose. "For a while¡ªas flies buzzed around their donated food, as the heat hit record highs and the rain fell in torrents, as children bathed at fire hydrants and slept in stuffy tents staked in dusty gravel¡ªit looked as if nobody would notice," said the article. "Then, for better or worse, the homeless camp at the corner of Fourth Street and Lehigh Avenue started getting attention. The fire department turned off the hydrants. . . ."

With shelters overcrowded, the tent city was the welfare rights group's way of trying to impel city action, action predicated on the sympathetic coverage of local news outlets. The article answered the question Why are the homeless there? With two explanations: This was a protest to draw attention to the absence of adequate housing, and the shelters were overcrowded. Some questions were unasked: Why are the shelters over-crowded? Is there an increase in homelessness in summer? Has the city reduced the number of housing units? Cut shelter capacity? Is it significant that all of the homeless quoted in the article bear Hispanic surnames? Is that an indication that the problem is uniquely concentrated in this group? And because the family shown in the photo has recently moved from Puerto Rico, is this a problem occasioned by immigration? As important is the absence of a larger social context: Is this a problem unique to Philadelphia or common to other large urban areas as well? Is it local or national in scope? And, if national, what is being done or can be done about it?

As this example illustrates, personalizing issues is a problem both because it diverts attention from more substantive questions Links Of London Charms and because the choice of persons to cover is frequently skewed by their class, race, ethnicity, and gender. For example, during the week of the highly publicized rape of a white investment banker in Central Park by a nonwhite gang, twenty-eight other women in New York also reported rapes. Nearly all of these were women of color, and their assaults, including at least one of comparable brutality, went largely unreported by the press.

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