The White House vs. CBS

A report by Bill Moyers is attacked as "below the belt"

One of Ronald Reagan's favorite rhetorical devices is the vivid example—a "welfare queen" ripping off the system, a school lunch program providing meals to affluent children—that purports to exemplify a pervasive national problem. Such anecdotage, critics claim, tends to oversimplify and distort complex situations. But the device was turned against the Administration last week when CBS News used emotion-charged tales to make the case that some of the nation's truly needy are falling through the social safety net. "Hunger in America is back," said CBS Commentator Bill Moyers in his introduction...