It is necessary that a report should create new questions.  However, it is
preferable to explore the background and facts around the naturally arising
ones. Otherwise viewers will get frustrated and may perceive the report being
distorted by hiding some facts and pushing an agenda.

In this example, I have the feeling that for many viewers the report will
immediately trigger questions regarding the amount of responsibility the
featured family has in their financial situation.  There are comments and
discussion regarding this, especially in the second half, but will all
viewers get to that part?

I think that viewers from the political right will feel that the report
intends mainly to evoke empathy and not finding a solution.  A solution that
probably entirely consists of making better decisions by the family
portrayed. I do not agree with the “entirely” part of that assessment.

In selecting the family portrayed the journalists could have picked one not
headed by a single woman or explain that that is the most common case and
explore the circumstances (divorce, husband lost in war, etc.).  The gut
reaction from a right-wing viewer: “Where is the husband?” will reduce the
chances of a successful dialogue. The mother does not have a high school
diploma.  At least one of the sons has a smartphone and they spend $280 for
the cable, internet, phone combined. There was no better family found to
portray? One which demonstrates that they made the hard but right choices and
they therefore unarguably deserve the help from society?

When the mother is asked about the cable bill, she says that she needs the
internet for job search. It would have been appropriate to mention that one
can have just internet without cable and that libraries provide access too. A
smartphone is a waste from their financial standpoint, a pay as you go
no-contract talk only plan would be more appropriate.  We do not know whether
they are locked in to a plan, but the long unemployment (it is mentioned it
may run out) may indicate that they could have ditched the plan already. Note
these are not the kind of questions that should be left unanswered. If the
report has no time to cover these aspects, then pick a family that does not
have these issues.

We do not know the details of the car expenses, just that it is very high
($734).  This is quite frustrating for an educated viewer. They drive a Honda
sedan which I assume has decent mileage and could not cost that much to
purchase.  So we suspect that it was purchased new and the interest on it is
frighteningly high. This ties in with the comment by the son who wants to be
a special education teacher but has no concept about interest.  They pay
check cashing fees… Is there no credit union they could join? The gym costs
seem also excessive, I have a hard time believing that there was no cheaper
alternative.  The cost details are not broken down where it matters (car,
gym, phone/cable) but the $1.5 cost for coffee is featured. How did that make
sense for the journalists?

The background and answers to the above questions should have deserved some
exposition.

Of course the big question of the segment has been formulated and some
discussion was included: Why do people make bad choices? This probably cannot
be answered quickly and this should be the one we concentrate on. The other
questions (trivial in comparison) that are brought up by the report are
unfortunately getting in the way.

Turning away job applicants solely on the grounds of
their employment status is unfair, discriminatory, bad for the economy, and
must be prohibited under federal, state, and municipal law. It is also generally considered a poor human
resources practice to exclude a job candidate for a personal reason or if a
bona fide qualification of current employment for a position is absent.

There
may be no reason to be pessimistic about the likely effectiveness of new laws
that would prohibit discrimination in hiring based on unemployment status.
While unemployment discrimination is typically difficult to prove, this does not mean that it should be allowed, and banning hiring decisions
based on the current or very recent employment of job applicants would be a
strong move in the right direction towards making this a universally
unacceptable employment practice within the United States.

In absence of any law banning unemployment discrimination, there is no legal recourse
for aggrieved job applicants when actual cases of discrimination occur unless
they happen to currently belong to protected class under employment law and can
claim that they have been subject to disparate impact. Once laws that protect unemployed job applicants from discrimination exist, public sector resources will need to be committed to
compliance and enforcement. Both employers and job applicants will need to
carefully document each step in the job application and interview process so
that each will be able to support their defenses and claims when investigations
of unemployment discrimination do occur.