David K. Shipler
David K. Shipler, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, worked for The New York Times from 1966 to 1988, reporting from New York, Saigon, Moscow, Jerusalem and Washington. His most recent books are The Working Poor: Invisible in America and A Country of Strangers: Blacks and Whites in America. Reprinted from Columbia Journalism Review, November/December 2005. © 2005 by Columbia Journalism Review.
Monkey See, Monkey Do
The people who staff antipoverty programs hardly ever get interviewed, although they’re primary sources of non-ideological information about the grassroots problems of the poor.