MediaWatch: April 1994

Janet Cooke Award: All Four Networks, Newsweek Distort Studies of Hunger in America

The Media's Eating Disorder

How is the problem of hunger in America quantified? Since the federal government conducts no national measure of hunger, liberal interest groups favoring more government food handouts have issued their own studies. Each in turn has become a national news story, featuring liberal experts, but no conservatives. In each case, the media overstated the findings.

The Food Research and Action Center contended on March 26, 1991 that 6 million children went hungry on at least one day in the previous year. Dan Rather began the CBS Evening News: "A startling number of children are in danger of starving...one in eight children is going hungry tonight."

Tufts University's Center on Hunger, Poverty, and Nutrition issued a press release on June 10, 1993, doubling the FRAC number to 12 million who were hungry at some time in 1991. On the June 16 NBC Nightly News, Tom Brokaw reported to the nation: "Hunger in America. There are some startling facts tonight. A study... claims that 12 million American children are malnourished."

The Urban Institute claimed on November 16, 1993 that "between 2.5 and 4.9 million elderly Americans -- many living well above the poverty line -- suffer from hunger and food insecurity." CBS Evening News anchor Connie Chung cited "a disturbing report tonight about older Americans in this country. Millions of them, even some living above the poverty line, don't know from day to day where their next meal is coming from."

Second Harvest, a national network of food banks, issued a study March 8 claiming that 26 million Americans used a food bank at least once in an 18-month period (from June 1992 to December 1993). The networks again exaggerated the findings and ignored skeptical experts. All of the networks claimed 25 million or more people "rely on" or "need" food banks, not that the study counted a single trip in an 18-month period. For their misreporting of the hunger problem, all four networks and Newsweek earned the Janet Cooke Award.

NBC's Larry Carroll beat the competition with a February 22 news story on Second Harvest, claiming "there's 25 to 30 million Americans who go hungry at some point every month and need the services of not just public assistance like food stamps, but also private food banks and soup kitchens and so forth."

On the March 8 World News Tonight, ABC's Kathy Wolff did a brief story focusing on Richard Lohr-meyer, who lost a well-paying job selling software. "Today's study claims 26 million Americans rely on food banks -- a surprising number of them middle class."

CNN's Jeff Flock contended: "The largest hunger relief organization in the United States, Second Harvest, has for the first time surveyed hunger and found 25 million Americans -- that's one in ten -- who rely on food pantries, soup kitchens, and homeless shelters for food."

On CBS, Dan Rather announced: "The country's largest network of food banks is out today with a new survey on hunger in America. The study finds almost 26 million Americans -- that's more than one out of ten -- rely on soup kitchens or other food charities to eat." The next morning, CBS This Morning co-host Harry Smith promoted the study: "A new study by a national network of food banks says hunger has spread to the suburbs and into the American working class. Second Harvest says children account for nearly half the 26 million Americans who rely on food pantries and other emergency feeding programs."

All of the networks also neglected to mention the study's funder -- Kraft Foods, a corporation with an obvious interest in increasing support for federal food subsidy programs. Kraft also funded the FRAC and Urban Institute hunger studies. None explained that Second Harvest is currently lobbying the Clinton administration to continue an $80 million program which sends surplus commodities to food banks.

MediaWatch called all four outlets. CBS didn't call back. World News Tonight spokesman Arnot Walker rebuffed our call: "If you want a quote, we'll say we stand by our report." At NBC, Carroll admitted "any of the numbers out there are non-specific," but credible: "What we discovered was there has not been an actual count of individuals using food banking services on an individual -by-individual basis. The 26 million is something of an extrapolation...which the Department of Agriculture acknowledges is probably correct."

CNN's Flock checked his script again and agreed the word "rely" may be too strong: "It does seem to be overcharacterizing the relationship. According to the numbers I'm seeing here, 40 percent have received food assistance for more than a year, so they count for `rely.' About 30 percent were between 3 months and a year, and that could arguably be `rely,' and another 30 percent were 3 months or less. That's certainly arguably not `rely'...you make a good point. They said `rely' in the press release. I looked at a transcript of our interview with the Second Harvest person, who characterized it that way. But the numbers I don't think bear it out completely."

The Newsweek story, authored by Laura Shapiro, avoided some of these pitfalls, noting that Second Harvest found that 26 million "now make use" of food banks. She also added some balance by quoting economist Robert Havemann ("I don't believe that many people are hungry") and Heritage Foundation analyst Robert Rector. He told MediaWatch: "The average poor child by age 18 is one inch taller and ten pounds heavier than the GIs who stormed Normandy. Poor children today are not malnourished, they're supernourished by historical standards."

Shapiro's article claimed "Second Harvest's results jibe with previous hunger surveys by organizations like the Urban Institute and the Food Research and Action Center, as well as poverty statistics." Shapiro did not note poverty statistics can't measure hunger, or question the FRAC and Urban Institute methodologies.

The FRAC study classified children as hungry if they answered "yes" to five of eight questions, including two which didn't deal directly with missing meals, and two that dealt with adult eating habits. The Urban Institute survey was conducted by mail, an obviously unscientific way of polling.

So isn't that piling up dubious study on dubious study? Shapiro told MediaWatch: "Your basic point, which is that all of these studies lack a lot of scientific depth, is true. I think that is why a very important story which I didn't include, and I wish I had space to include, is that there is now a whole move at the USDA to calculate hunger more scientifically. It's a picture that's very hard to get a hold of. I think the Second Harvest study provides one more perspective." When asked about why Kraft Foods wasn't mentioned, Shapiro conceded: "You know, I never put that together."

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