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An exercise in critical discourse analysis is presented with the purpose of establishing the representations made by opinion journalists about poverty, reproduced in one of Mexico's leading newspapers in the strategic period of global economic crisis of 2008-2009. By using scaffolds of levels and textual categories, rhetorical and ideological, fourteen pieces published over nine months were analyzed. The analysis confirms the widespread use of fallacies and rethorical resources aimed at building a stereotypical characterization of poverty, representing subjects as victims without agency and particularly disadvantaged in material terms, eliding other dimensions of the problem. The repeated attribution of poverty to the government, without any explanation linking the economic crisis, suggests that the issue is being dealt as a way to criticize the government institutions, rather than an attempt to explain the problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]