Nearly 40 million Americans live in poverty, making less than $26,200 a year for a family of four. Their stories and their struggles, however, rarely appear in the mainstream media. If we want to end poverty in the U.S., we need to hear from those who experience it. This week on The Laura Flanders Show, we hear about the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and the work it’s doing to empower reporting on poverty.
Watch the 30-second promo for this week’s episode here
“We’re having the reckoning in terms of race and gender in terms of who tells what story, and there’s an acknowledgement, at least the beginnings, that people of color need to tell their own stories, women need to tell their own stories. But we haven’t had that conversation around class, around working people.”
— Yoruba Richen
In this episode:
David Wallis – Managing director of The Economic Hardship Reporting Project. Previously, Wallis served as opinion editor of The Forward and deputy editor of The New York Observer.
Yoruba Richen – Director, producer, filmmaker and board member of Economic Hardship Reporting Project. Richen’s work has been featured on PBS, New York Times Op Doc, Frontline Digital, and New York Magazine’s The Cut. Her latest film, The Green Book: Guide to Freedom, was broadcast on the Smithsonian Channel in February 2019. Richen's last feature documentary, The New Black, won multiple festival awards and was nominated for an NAACP Image Award and a GLAAD Media Award.
- Joseph Rodriguez – Internationally-recognized documentary photographer, born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. His work has appeared in such publications as Fokus Magazine, American Photo, Black&White, ESPN, The New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, Jane, Cosmopolitan, GQ, Los Angeles Magazine, Mother Jones, Newsweek, Esquire, Stern and Der Spiegel. He was awarded Pictures of the Year by the National Press Photographers Association and the University of Missouri in 1990, 1992, 1996 and 2002.
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