It leads to a superficiality that contributes to public confusion.

Fear and confusion are the essence of Republican strategy, and the people controlling the media are more than willing to play along.

This, of course, is one of the reasons for the problem you mentioned in an earlier post--how the Republicans are doing so well with such a bad argument.

And don't forget, very few people who work in the media actually understand very much at all about public policy. Many reporters could explain the debate over a single aspect of the health care debate (universal mandate or not?) (Public option or not?) but could not explain how these questions are connected and part of one whole system that doesn't work. They report the legislative process as though it were a campaign, because that is all they know.

There was nothing unwitting about it.The coverage purposefully obfuscated the policy issues and down played all the polls showing huge public support for reform and the 'public option'. The corporate owned media doesn't want the public to start realizing that Congress doesn't care what the people want.

I think there's a reliance on horse-race and he-said-she-said journalism because it's easy -- and because all of their colleagues and competitors are doing the same thing.

It's a rare institution where the rewards for being wrong exactly like everyone else aren't as great or greater than those for being ostentatiously right, alone.

What is really astonishing is the complete blackout on how the rest of the world deals with health care; PBS had a splendid show on the subject--everybody else, zip.

If I paid as much attention to the ads as to the stories on the evening news, I would have to conclude that the two most important medical problems facing America are erectile dysfunction and incontinence, both of which allegedly can be solved by big Pharma. I haven't seen the network business plans, but I bet biting the hand that feeds them isn't a part.

Also, keep in mind that these media outfits have laid off/fired many of their specialized reporters--everyone from science reporters to policy experts--leaving us with this useless bunch. This makes it especially difficult to start any discussion with the general populace and leads us right to this idiotic storm of nothingness.

"It leads to a superficiality that contributes to public confusion."
And such superficiality helps to explain why newspapers are struggling.

Publishers need to get their act together if they hope to sell access to their product on the web.

I've subscribed to the online Wall Street Journal for 8 years because they dig into issues, find the facts and lay them out in readable prose. Other than McClatchy there is very little of that at any other paper, including WaPo, NYTimes and the Murdoch/News sty.

If they have the resources to do great stories and don't do them, they might as well be pajama-clad bloggers. And I can get those for free.

Par4 - I disagree - the whole point of a corporate owned media is to ensure that the American people know in their bones that Congress does not care about their concerns. Its not a bug, its a feature.

Less voting, less protesting, less of any of that democracy shit - its all good.

Should this really be a surprise?

Look - we all know one of the big problems with the traditional media is that they simply parrot Republican talking points, seldom checking or challenging them. The Republicans are offering no real plan of their own - because they do not have and do not want to do any kind of health care reform. All they want to do is stop the Democrats from succeeding.

So, if all the Republicans have to offer is stuff and nonsense - and outright lies, the natural response by the press is to report that and whatever they can find to 'balance' it.

Because the Democrats and the White House refuse to lay out a clear plan that they are willing to enact (still trying to bipartisan compromise it away), the Republicans don't have to come up with a plan of their own. All they have to do is keep raising the noise level.

If it bleats, it ledes.

Ted Kennedy's words and proclamations on universal healthcare should be used over and and over and over and over and over and over And over again & over and over and over and over and over again and again and again & again to sell universal health care. Redudancy and repetition of out right lies works for neo conservatives, then use the same tactic for Health Care. You can rest assured the neocons would exploit T. Kennedy to get what they want if they could.And still might exploit his memeory for their cause.

The problem is that your average journalist is not very intelligent. They are uncapable of understanding, much less writing clearly about, policy issues.

Maybe part of the problem is that there isn't a plan. And what is leaked about the plans seems very complicated. Why couldn't there have been one simple proposal. Medical insurance reform coupled with the ability for anyone to buy into Medicare based on its per capita cost? Left for later would be mechanisms for subsidizing the later for those who can't afford it. But once you had the structure in place, the expansion, extending it with a formula of subsidies would be straight forward. There is a universe of funding mechanisms to consider.

Obama showed that people WILL listen to detail if it's presented intelligently. Problem is, getting our attention in the first place, and doing the presenting in a way that neither preaches nor condescends.

ABC had an infomercial on a couple days ago about health care costs. I think John Stossel was the pitchman. Apparently, if you have health insurance, you will go crazy and try to have all sorts of procedures done because you don't have to pay for them. It's better to have an incredibly high deductible so that you have to pay for most things out of your own pocket, like an annual check-up, and then the insurance covers catastrophic illnesses like cancer. At least, I think that's what they were selling.

John Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods, seems to have funded this infomercial. They used some sort of weird analogy between health insurance and "grocery" insurance. If you have grocery insurance, then you will buy whatever the heck you want, regardless of cost, because someone else is paying for it. That would be bad! Ergo, health insurance is bad, too!

I didn't hear them talking about premiums and employer contributions and preventative care. Maybe they covered that while I was dreaming about someone paying for all my expensive groceries. If you get a chance, you should try to see this infomercial. It's one slick piece of propaganda, aired by a major network during primetime...

"It leads to a superficiality that contributes to public confusion."
and GREATLY aids their large advertisers who are not the reading piblic.

While the WaPo's ombudsman wrings his hands over the coverage of health care reform, I have to wonder what it would be like if such a concerned and serious journalist only had the ability to influence future coverage in, say, a major national newspaper that serves DC. He obviously would do the right thing himself, if only he had access to the reporters, editors, printing presses, and Web sites necessary to disseminate the important info. Too too bad he doesn't.

Neil Gabler had a great piece on this in today's LA Times.

‘Truth’ vs. ‘facts’ from America’s media

http://www.latimes.com/news/op.....4705.story

” ....So rather than be battered, the media—and I am talking about the respectable media, not the carnival barkers on cable—increasingly strive for the simplest sort of balance rather than real objectivity. They marshal facts, but they don’t seek truth. They behave as if every argument must be heard and has equal merit, when some are simply specious. That is how global warming, WMD and “end of life” counseling have become part of silly reportorial ping-pong at best and badly misleading information at worst. ...”

======

We cannot let he said/she said and the horse race drive real actual healthcare reform off the cliff.

We need an honest, hardworking media. People more interested in ferreting out the truth than careerism. And maybe people without sterling healthcare already, so they have a little empathy too.

Let's try that link again.

Neal Gabler, "Truth" vs. "Facts" from America's Media

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-gabler23-2009aug23,0,4834705.story

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