Separate Realities: The Dream and the Iceberg - Scarecrow Press

50 Chapter 2
increased substantially while “social mobility” from lower and middle incomes
to higher-income ranks “seems to have stagnated.” 21 The series also
noted that the advantages of privileged-class-based family membership—
more so than merit alone—now have become (much more so than in the
past) centrally important in ensuring the continued distribution of high levels
of economic rewards to privileged-class members. Despite these trends, the series
reassured middle-class readers that mobility is still possible by including
profiles of individuals who have “moved up.”
Following the series, the Times published an editorial that assured concerned
middle-class readers that the paper was on their side. This piece argued
in favor of “a truly merit-based society where class finally fades from
importance.” 22 While the Times’ editorial sentiment may be laudable, in the
absence of structural changes that would reduce privileged-class advantages,
members of the working and middle classes are left in the same powerless
and disadvantaged position as was the case when the Times profiled their
plight nine years earlier in its “Downsizing of America” series. Then, as now,
in the final analysis, the central focus of each series was not on class-based
policy reforms but on individual effort. In the mid-1990s, “The lesson, heard
again and again, [was] that while government and business can do some
things, in the end workers have little to fall back on but themselves.” 23 In the
mid-2000s, the “lesson” was get an education! While the Times editorial favored
some programs facilitating greater access to college for low-income
groups, the unstated message (lesson) was that in the meantime, working- or
middle-class individuals interested in improving their lot in life should find
ways to advance their education. 24
The second exception to avoidance of class issues includes mass media
glimpses into the lives of the privileged class, as well as tours of the excluded
class. 25 Television programs often take viewers to both destinations. The glamour
of life at the top is routinely showcased on both conventional and tabloidstyle
TV newsmagazines (e.g., 60 Minutes, 20/20, Entertainment Tonight, Inside
Edition); such programs frequently broadcast profiles of wealthy entertainment
and sports figures, along with occasional reports on charismatic corporate
elites. The grim realities of life-at-the-bottom experiences turn up most often
on occasional PBS or cable TV documentaries concerning poverty, homelessness,
welfare, and related issues.
Sometimes the plight of the poor becomes the focus of mainstream media
attention—as in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which stuck New Orleans
and the U.S. Gulf coast on August 29, 2005. In this instance, dramatic television
and print media coverage of rescues and government relief miscues focused
public attention on the widespread and intense suffering of the poor. 26
But the attention was short-lived. Despite occasional media reports in the following
weeks encouraging the allocation of more public resources to deal with
the problems of poverty, by October the plight of the poor, as laid bare by Katrina,
had begun to fade from media, government, and public attention as the