THE WEEKLY REVEAL

Hello! In this issue:

• We dig into the welfare-to-work industrial complex.
• A look at how crime coverage can affect victims.
• Abortion bans are confusing doctors on what's legal.

THIS WEEK’S PODCAST

The Welfare-to-Work Industrial Complex

Ever since so-called welfare reform in the 1990s, the system has been based on the idea that welfare recipients must be doing some kind of work or job-readiness activity to receive government assistance. It’s a system that plays on what Americans have long wanted to believe – that all it takes to move out of poverty is a can-do attitude and hard work.

Now, a growing chorus of politicians argue for more and tougher work requirements for people in need. Recently, Republicans successfully fought to create new work requirements for food assistance under the debt ceiling deal.

In this episode, Krissy Clark from The Uncertain Hour takes listeners into America’s welfare-to-work system.

Reveal partnered with The Uncertain Hour podcast from Marketplace to explore the lucrative industry built on welfare-to-work policies. Critics say these for-profit welfare companies have cultivated their own cycle of dependency on the federal government.

HEADLINES

What’s Happening in the News – With a Reveal Context

As Reveal reporter Rachel de Leon investigated cases of police criminally charging sexual assault victims they don’t find credible for “Victim/Suspect,” she also discovered a second problem: media coverage splashing victims’ names and mugshots all over their community, parroting police statements that they lied about being raped.

In our film, now streaming on Netflix, viewers meet Dyanie Bermeo, who talks about being booked and released, falling asleep in her dorm room and waking up to a police Facebook post about her arrest. The post said she lied about being assaulted and was charged with false reporting. Local media picked it up, and the criminal justice major’s life was forever changed.

Bermeo was acquitted the following year. De Leon found glaring holes in the police investigation, too. But the news stories saying she lied were still online – with no updates.

De Leon has been reaching out to media outlets that covered Bermeo’s arrest to tell them about our investigation and that Bermeo was acquitted. Now, two of those articles have been taken down. "I feel as though it’s a huge step towards my healing,” Bermeo told us.

Stories about an arrest, like Bermeo’s, would have likely lived forever on the internet, even if the person was quietly exonerated. That’s why many news outlets have in recent years created policies around requests to unpublish or take down a story. For journalists who want to learn more, there are resources: Unpublishing The News has sample policies and resources for rethinking your crime coverage or deciding how to handle unpublishing requests from the public. The Reynolds Journalism Institute and the News Leaders Association have examined best practices for unpublishing requests.

As de Leon’s reporting continues, she’ll keep telling news organizations covering false reporting arrests about our work and what we learned about these poorly investigated cases. Already, in most of the top Google results for Bermeo, she’s telling her own story.

A Quote to Remember

Dr. John Visintine works with patients with high-risk pregnancies in the Rio Grande Valley, on the Texas/Mexico border. He says he can no longer counsel patients the same way, and it's got him thinking about leaving.

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