By John Celock
Last week, I placed a lot of focus on covering a welfare reform bill that was passed by the Kansas state Legislature. This coverage led me to be interested in what other reporters have been writing on the subject, particularly those from outside of Kansas.
Of particular interest to me was a story in The Huffington Post on Saturday regarding the law. In the article, Arthur Delaney, HuffPost’s reporter focused on unemployment, welfare and poverty issues, made a major error in the meaning of the bill. This inaccuracy, which has since been corrected, led not only to readers and commenters to be given the wrong impression about the bill and its facts but led the Rachel Maddow Blog on MSNBC.com to report misinformation around 11:30 a.m. on Monday, citing HuffPost.
The bill has a provision which would limit those receiving welfare benefits to being able to withdraw $25 a day from an ATM machine using their benefits card. In the original first sentence of his article, Delaney said that under the bill recipients “will be unable to get more than $25 per day in benefits.”
The Maddow Blog piece, written by Steve Benen, quotes this sentence of the HuffPost article and then has a follow-up paragraph following that explains the bill, using the inaccurate original paragraph written by Delaney.
As the Huffington Post’s report explained, under Kansas’ TANF program, a low-income family of three is eligible to receive $429 per month in benefits through government-issued debit cards. But under the new Republican plan, families would have to receive those benefits in increments of no more than $25 per day – and the overall monthly total would be reduced through a series of withdrawal fees.
As I wrote, HuffPost has since updated the lede to Delaney’s article to say that it is a limit of $25 a day in ATM withdrawals and has appended a “clarification” to the bottom of the story. The time of the correction is not noted in the story, but an updated time stamp saying when the story was updated would read around Noon eastern time on Monday, which is after Benen’s story was published. It is unclear though if the update from the time stamp would be about the ATM withdrawal.
Sources in Kansas though say they saw the inaccurate version over the story the weekend and a social media debate occurred all weekend.
It is admirable that HuffPost made the correction and updated their story to reflect what the bill actually says. But at the same time, one must question why Delaney even made such a mistake. In the story, Delaney links to a Topeka Capitol-Journal article appearing in The Hutchinson News which cites the correct information and links to the bill text itself. On page 14 of the bill, the text relating to the $25 a day ATM withdrawal limit appears, including the deletion of an original $60 a day limit, which was placed into effect by the state House Commerce, Labor and Economic Development Committee.
“TANF cash assistance transactions for cash withdrawals from automated teller machines shall be limited to $60, as adjusted by the consumer price index ($25), per transaction and to one transaction per day. No TANF cash assistance shall be used for purchases at points of sale outside the state of Kansas,” the bill reads.
The crossed off section is the part taken out by the Senate amendment and replaced by the $25 in parenthesis.
In addition to the bill text that Delaney linked to, the history page for the bill on the Kansas Legislature’s website contains a list of all the Senate amendments offered to the bill, including those that were defeated. This includes a link to the text of the amendment offered by Sen. Caryn Tyson (R-Parker) that changed the $60 a day limit to $25 a day for ATM withdrawals only.
There are also other stories that have been written about this legislation in the last few weeks, including of last Wednesday’s marathon seven-hour Senate debate on the bill. This includes my coverage, which includes when the ATM daily limit was first proposed by Rep. J.R. Claeys (R-Salina) in the House Commerce Committee. At the time, Claeys explained it was a daily limit for ATM withdrawals but would still allow those on welfare to obtain benefits elsewhere.
Sen. Michael O’Donnell (R-Wichita), who carried the bill on the Senate floor, reiterated this fact – including the ability to use the benefits card for money orders for rent and utility bills – during the marathon debate last week. Claeys, in fact, reiterated his comments last Thursday during the debate on this bill on the House floor.
Claeys further reiterated this to The Celock Report on Monday, noting that recipients will be able to withdraw cash from stores that use the benefits as change with their purchase.
“The HOPE Act continues to allow for a recipient to access 100% of the funds on their card immediately,” Claeys said Monday. “There are multiple options for paying bills including money orders for as little as 50 cents and cash back at a point of purchase for no fee. The only limitation is on cash withdrawal from an ATM.”
In addition to Claeys’ comments during the House debate, House Democrats had criticized the provision during the debate, along with Senate Democrats being critical of the ATM provision during the Senate debate last week on the Tyson amendment.
Claeys also said that he believes that the mistakes made by HuffPost and the Maddow Blog could have far reaching consequences, beyond the impression people might get of the bill. He said it could provide faulty information to those on benefits about what changes are in store.
“It is irresponsible to knowingly communicate to the public false information about the program to score cheap political points, potentially causing recipients to believe they cannot pay their rent or electric bill using funds on the card,” Claeys said. “That level of journalistic malpractice can have far reaching consequences for those trying to lift themselves out of a difficult situation.”
Claeys has professional expertise in journalism, having received a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Kansas State University, along with working for the Manhattan Mercury and NewsRadio 1150 KSAL. He has won two first place awards from the National Newspaper Association for online journalism.
The debate over HuffPost’s article has caused a series of social media debates over the weekend, with supporters in Kansas trying to explain the entire issue and the inaccurate information. Outside of the ATM withdrawal issue, Delaney focused on a provision that would not allow the benefit cards to be used on cruise ships. The provision includes a series of other businesses including tattoo parlors, theme parks, lingerie shops, swimming pools and movie theaters. Supporters of the measure said it is needed to prevent taxpayer funds being used on non-necessities.
O’Donnell told The Celock Report that he has problems with HuffPost ignoring other provisions of the bill in the Saturday article from Delaney. He questioned if Delaney and HuffPost were trying to advance a political agenda by focusing on a small portion of the bill. Among the other areas the bill addresses is provisions for a new three year lifetime limit on benefits with an optional fourth year for hardships, promoting workforce training and new provisions relating to allowing those with felony drug convictions to receive benefits if they agree to drug tests and stay clear of future drug convictions.
“What the Huffington Post did was legitimate journalistic malpractice,” O’Donnell told The Celock Report on on Monday. “Trying to sensationilize a piece of welfare reform into some crusade against Republicans that we believe that welfare benefits are for lavish cruises and eating steak and lobster. The impetus of this bill is to make sure the resources are there for needy families.”
O’Donnell stressed that the bill would still allow individuals to use their benefit cards on a wide range of necessities and they can withdraw funds for money orders to pay bills. He also stressed that the changes, which will put in statute several policies promoted by Gov. Sam Brownback (R), would help make welfare temporary in nature. He said the goal he and his colleagues are trying to achieve is to transition people off government assistance and into the workforce.
“Everything including childcare is available for people to take these steps and not being stuck in a system of long term welfare assistance,” O’Donnell said. “This is about giving individuals the resources to get off government assistance and HuffPost knows that. They are intellectually dishonest to promote one provision of the bill relating to cruise ships. It was limited the locations where they can use the cards to card money out.”
It is unknown why Delaney chose to write his original story in the way that he did and why the story was allowed to be posted in such a way and likely not corrected until Monday. It is also unknown why the Maddow Blog chose to run with inaccurate information and not do more independent research for their piece. As I said it is good though that HuffPost chose to correct the original story and keep it highlighted on their site on Monday afternoon.
It is an odd coincidence though that I write this on the same day that my alma mater, the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, has explained the report they did on the Rolling Stone story about the rape allegations at the University of Virginia. The J-School’s report highlights the need for fact checking in journalism. While the scope of the two stories and the fact checking needs are very different. It is clear though that Delaney and the news desk at HuffPost should have done more fact checking on the original story on Saturday, especially when the facts existed in several items that were linked to their story.
Editor’s Note: John Celock is the former state politics reporter and Patch Liaison for The Huffington Post.
