Covering rural America: What reporters get wrong and how to get it right

Sarah Smarsh reports on socioeconomic class, politics and more for national and international outlets, including The Guardian, The New Yorker and The Cut. Her forthcoming book, Heartland: A Daughter of the Working Class Reconciles an American Divide, delves into her experiences with class and place growing up on a working farm in Kansas. Smarsh spent the spring of 2018 at Harvard as a Joan Shorenstein fellow, developing a podcast exploring the intersection of health and poverty. She spoke to Journalist’s Resource about what many reporters get wrong when covering rural areas, and how they can improve their work.

"The fact that I work in journalism and in particular for national outlets that have an urban base, and simultaneously I live in a largely rural state and am from a rural area and background makes me sensitive to the problematic ways that a national, coastal media often talks about parts of the country in an overly pat way that I think is not constructive for political discourse," Smarsh said.

Chloe Reichel

https://journalistsresource.org/tip-sheets/reporting/rural-america-reporting-tipsheet-sarah-smarsh