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CT Mirror (7/30/26)
This week on CounterSpin: If you look for media coverage about the Farm Bill that’s currently passing through Congress, you can find it–at sites like agriculture.com or agri-pulse.com, or those outlets that have “ag” sections. If you look for coverage of SNAP, the largest food assistance program in the country, you can find that lots of other places. And while some of those headlines are about “Deadbeat Parents” and “SNAP Fraud,” these days many more say things like “Nearly 19K State Kids Have Lost SNAP Benefits Over Past Year” (that’s Connecticut) or “Illinois Launches New Program to Provide Food Benefits to People Who Lost SNAP,” or “Small Grocery Stores Cutting Inventory, Considering Layoffs as SNAP Dollars Decline.”
Overwhelmingly, local reporters are documenting how cuts to SNAP are hurting people and communities. But the lack of major media stories linking the program to the Farm Bill seem somehow emblematic of the opacity around this country’s lawmaking on critical questions around food.
We get an update from Gina Plata-Nino, director of SNAP policy and advocacy at the Food Research & Action Center.
Also on the show: People who rely on food benefits programs have long been a punching bag for both right-wing ideologues and their corporate media enablers. Claiming people working full time jobs that don’t provide enough to feed their families are really just grifters living high on your dime is a time-honored tactic, no matter how far it falls afield of reality. We talked about that last year with the president of Food Research & Action Center, Crystal FitzSimons; we add a little of that conversation as well.
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