About the Initiative

Chasing the Dream: Poverty and Opportunity in America is a multiplatform public media initiative from The WNET Group in New York. We are reporting on poverty, justice, and economic opportunity, and showcasing promising solutions. Our goal is to better inform using facts that go beyond personal biases, media narratives, and presumptions about the American Dream. Chasing the Dream’s reporting focuses on inequality: economic and structural inequities informed by issues of race, age, and class. We also focus in on what works to bring people out of poverty, and what lessons we can learn for the future. 

Reporting and distributing content since 2014, Chasing the Dream has produced more than 660 reports across every platform of public media, on-air and online. They include national documentaries in collaboration with FRONTLINE and WORLD Channel, news reports on PBS NewsHour and PBS NewsHour Weekend, and regional reporting on MetroFocus, NJ Spotlight News and Long Island Business Report. Our content partners also include WNYC public radio, Twin Cities PBS’s Next Avenue, and PBS Member Stations across the country.

Major funding for Chasing the Dream is provided by The JPB Foundation with additional funding from Sue and Edgar Wachenheim, III.