Fox News "Reports" on SNAP: Binging, Losers, And "Too Much Food"

[alp227]

Once you realize this kind of anti-poor bigotry has permeated into Mainstream America, Fox so-called News becomes more horror than comedy. As Simon Maloy writes at Media Matters:

Roughly 45 minutes into Fox News' "special" investigation into the Department of Agriculture's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or "food stamps," per the outdated parlance), host Bret Baier posed a question that gets right to the heart of what Fox News specifically, and conservatives generally, are trying to accomplish with regard to public attitudes toward social welfare programs. "Shouldn't there be at least some stigma?" Baier asked, referring to people who accept SNAP benefits. Baier's just-asking-questions lament about the lack of stigmatization was all part of Fox News' slipshod and flagrant piece of agitprop intended to shame the needy and promote public resentment of the government safety net.

Everything about Baier's special, "The Great Food Stamp Binge" -- from the title to its absurd focus on a thoroughly unlikable miscreant named Jason Greenslate who proudly abuses SNAP benefits -- was designed to provoke hostility to the idea of nutritional assistance programs. Greenslate, a California musician who refuses to work and spends his monthly SNAP benefits on sushi and lobsters, is an anomaly in a program that has proven to be both efficient and effective. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, "fewer than 2 percent of SNAP benefits are issued to households that do not meet all of the program's eligibility requirements." The USDA estimates that just one cent of every dollar of SNAP benefits is lost to "trafficking," a type of fraud. "About three out of four SNAP households included a child, a person age 60 or older, or a disabled person," per the Congressional Budget Office.

Greenslate, who is in no way representative of the typical SNAP recipient, was the subject of two separate segments, totaling nearly nine minutes, of Fox News' hour-long special. Baier proclaimed him "the new face of food stamps."

(video)

Greenslate is "the new face of food stamps" for no other reason than Fox News wants him to be. Baier offered no data to back up this assertion, and no fact-driven justification for even including Greenslate in the report. But this freeloading oaf is an easy-to-hate villain, someone the viewer can immediately dislike and a convenient punching bag for small-government agitators. Near the program's close, Fox News reporter John Roberts, interviewing Greenslate, attempted to shame him -- and every other recipient of SNAP benefits. "It used to be that, you know, that if somebody was on food stamps it's like 'hey, they're on food stamps, you know... loser,'" said Roberts.

[Archae]

1. If this guy in the report even exists.

Don't forget this is the same network that went all the way to the Supreme Court, demanding the "right" to lie.

[Enrique]

2. I expected this to be that Varney guy

or maybe Cavuto.

[Half-Century Man]

3. Followed this story for a bit...

...and there are a lot of gullible re-thug-lacans on yahoo that believe in and hate this movie character (he is Spicoli from "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" brought to life at 30). I guess Baier was cast as Mr Hands.
If this report had been filmed in the rinse pit of a slaughterhouse stockyard it could not be anymore full of shit.

[Arkansas Granny]

4. The thing that really gets to me about some of these "reports" is that they will ignore the facts,

like this:

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, "fewer than 2 percent of SNAP benefits are issued to households that do not meet all of the program's eligibility requirements." The USDA estimates that just one cent of every dollar of SNAP benefits is lost to "trafficking," a type of fraud. "About three out of four SNAP households included a child, a person age 60 or older, or a disabled person," per the Congressional Budget Office.

but they can always find some asshole to show hoe badly the program is being abused.

[sakabatou]

5. Truth doesn't exist on Fox "News"

[LostOne4Ever]

6. Repukes are more concerned

about one person out of 50 who is cheating the system than the thousands upon thousands who are being honest and barely scraping by as it is currently.

They would rather honest people suffer than let one person cheat and are willing to punish the innocent because of the anomaly.

I hate that party soooo much.

[madinmaryland]

7. They've been doing this shit for more than 30 years. Remember "welfare queens" as invisioned

by Raygun?? There is nothing new about the demonization of the poorest of the poor in this country.

[nolabear]

8. Uh huh. And then there's this guy.

And these stats. And about 45,999,999 more. (Edited because I made the number too SMALL)

[SwissTony]

9. ...sushi and lobsters???????

and apparently doing very well on this meager diet!! And shouldn't he have a Gibson and a Strat in the background to go with his Marshall?

What's next on Fox? The tooth fairy actually exists?

[Dreamer Tatum]

10. For every one of him

there's probably 1,000 kids who'd starve without SNAP.

Eat shit, FOX.