Not unlike the British tabloid press, there has long been a populist trend in the American conservative media to ‘name and shame’ abusers of the social system, isolated though such cases may be. Whether they are published in tabloid dailies like The New York Post or aired on cable news networks like Fox News (both of which belong to Rupert Murdoch’s media empire News Corp.), such reports are intended to nurture the suspicion that a disproportionate share of the American poor are fraudsters and/or social parasites, and  encourage slashing social programs, especially food stamps.

Here is a selection of such stories and columns published in the The New York Post over the past few years:

– « Take Take Take »: a column describing contemporary America as a country of « moochers » (January 2012)

– « Thank You Very Mooch »: a story about New York City’s « luxury » shelters for the poor (April 2013)

– Story about two New York City public workers defrauding the food stamp system (December 2015)

As indicated above, such stories are just as frequent in right-wing media outlets like Fox News, as in the case of a documentary that made quite a splash in 2013 (the clip is the first of a six-part series):

Conversely, comic programs like Comedy Central’s The Daily Show enjoy nothing more than to spoof the disingenuousness and cynicism that often characterize this poor bashing, as Jon Stewart brilliantly does in these two clips from 2013:

– Jon Stewart: « Welfare Academy » Part 1

– Jon Stewart: « A Past Odyssey » Part 2