ToW #14 - Article from The New York Times: "50 Years Later, War on Poverty Is a Mixed Bag"

 

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        This article by Annie Lowrey depicts the long-fought "War on Poverty" through the usual New York Times media -- exposition, statistics, quotations, and speculation. Clearly written approximately 50 years after Lyndon B. Johnson declared the War, the main operation of this article is to catalog the current state of poverty in the United States of America. As this article deals with a fairly sophisticated issue, has logic-oriented media, and is published by the scholarly New York Times, it is clear that it is intended for an intelligent and socially aware audience. Its author, Lowrey, seems to be of the economically conscious grain -- the operative words of many of her articles vary from "wage" to "unemployment". Her credibility in writing an article on poverty reform is also aided by the fact that she is a graduate of Harvard University who has previously worked for The New Yorker, Slate, and Foreign Policy.

        In presenting the state of U.S poverty to its audience, this article succeeds thanks to its appeals to primarily logos and secondarily ethos. With its consistent spread of statistics, historical facts, and analytic conclusion-drawing, its evidence-craving audience should be pleased with the read, allowing them to learn more from their trusted teacher. One outstanding display of logic in this article manifests itself in two statistics: one straight-forward decrease in the poverty rate from 1964 to 2014 followed later by a reevaluated decrease adjusted for government aid. This display is exactly what the analytical audience of The New York Times wants to see; going beyond a single statistic and finding a more truthful one does a lot for an author's credibility. And credibility is not only gained with a scientific evaluation of evidence; it is also gained with numerous quotations from Presidents, university professors, researchers, and economic advisers. In her appreciation for what an analytical audience desires, Annie Lowrey is highly successful in educating her readers about both modern and decades-old poverty reform.