Stealthy Wealth

Abstract

A decade ago, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) ended welfare as we knew it. Since 1996, national media reports of the consequences of welfare reform have been decidedly positive. Yet a handful of journalists for metropolitan newspapers and the nonmainstream press have drawn attention to welfare-related scandals. These scandals have revolved around welfare privatization, an option PRWORA gave to the states. What could the public have known about privatization prior to reform? To answer this question, the authors investigate the elite debate over privatization and how the network news characterized this debate. They analyze the content of congressional testimony and news coverage by ABC, CBS, and NBC and conclude that the networks paid scant attention to privatization, and the coverage they did provide failed to accurately convey to viewers what postreform welfare administration might look like