Hunting Down The Welfare Queens

             I was attracted to Joe Nocera’s column on the Op Ed page of this week’s New York Times (Living in Fear of the NCAA) that tells us of the probing into the very personal financial lives of the families of some college star athletes. The column set my mind wandering back 60 Years to a time when I found myself professionally involved in what you might call, the hunt for “welfare queens”, a similar, but slightly different situation.

            I was a young reporter quite new to the business, and somewhat naive to the realities of big city daily journalism. I was assigned to the “health and welfare beat” of the Cleveland Press. The job was touted by my top editors as key for Ohio’s largest newspaper that had earned a reputation as serving the fundamental needs and interests of the hard working blue collar population of our great town.

           Our  compasionate concern for the working poor, the sick and helpless, and their struggles for a decent life in our heavy industry town separated our newspaper from the rest. Indeed, Time magazine had just listed The Press one of the ten greatest newspapers in the nation.