President Obama calls out Fox News, media for poverty stereotypes
President Barack Obama called out Fox News on Tuesday for helping propagate stereotypes about poor people. Obama’s remarks were made during the Catholic-Evangelical Leadership Summit on Overcoming Poverty, held at Georgetown University.
In order to change how politicians think, Obama said changes will have to be made to how the media reports on issues like poverty:
I mean, I have to say that if you watch Fox News on a regular basis, it is a constant menu– they will find folks who make me mad. I don’t know where they find them. They’re all like, ‘I don’t want to work. I just want a free Obamaphone,’ or whatever.
And that becomes an entire narrative that gets worked up and very rarely do you hear an interview of a waitress, which is much more typical, who’s raising a couple of kids and doing everything right but still can’t pay the bills.
In April, a local Burger King employee who makes minimum wage told Boston.com about his struggle to make ends meet and take care of his family. He said no matter how many hours he works, his paycheck is never enough to cover what his family needs.
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