Good biz journalism on Sesame Street

Ryan Chittum of the Columbia Journalism Review likes how the PBS show “Sesame Street” explained how the current economic turmoil has affected families.

Chittum writes, “I only saw the last forty minutes or so of the one-hour special, so don’t consider this a full review. But let me tell you what I saw: Poignant stories of real people laid low by the crash. Stories of a kind and quality you don’t see much done by journalists. Stuff that hit home.

“I’ve said it before, but it’s awfully easy — especially for grizzled business-media veterans — to become numb to the reality of what it means to lose your job or your home. Sure, most of us in the media business have friends and colleagues caught up in our own industry’s depression. But then again, that depression means our own industry is less and less able to produce the kind of quality work it took for granted a decade ago.

“Even back then it was all-too-rare to see something as simple and well done as what PBS did with this special, which was to just go to someone’s home and tell the story of a struggling family and how it’s coping.

“I saw a vignette on a family of six in Detroit where the father lost his job as an auto engineer. They’re surviving off of his wife’s salary and the dad, clearly a sharp, talented guy, is pretty much resigned to being a stay-at-home father in the bombed-out job scene that is Detroit. ‘Sesame Street’ shows you the vicious circle of the economy at work by showing how the family has severely reined in its spending. When will they be able to turn that back on a bit? It doesn’t look like anytime soon. Tell them about ‘green shoots.’”

Read more here.