07.29.09
The media is failing on health care
That our media in this country is in flux is no longer in question. While the recent news in Texas of a new media venture has sparked interest, we’ll still have to wait and see what kind of product it produces and if it can succeed. As far as where the media currently stands there’s very little substance in most of it. Which got me thinking – I know, uh oh! – about the media’s stake in the current debate about health insurance reform.
They’re obviously not trying to inform the public about the proposed policy changes. As this LAT article points out, Media needs to deepen coverage of healthcare reform, the current media is doing little if anything to actually inform the public about what’s really at stake.
A key senator had begun to explain a proposal that might help clear the way to national healthcare reform. Television cameras zoomed in as Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, began to explain the potential compromise.
But if you were watching CNN on Tuesday about the time that Baucus mentioned instituting a cost-control commission he called a “Med-Pac on steroids,” you quickly found yourself whisked back to the studio. The senator had gotten into messy details, “a little bit in the weeds,” as CNN anchor Tony Harris said.
Rather than try to explain to its viewers how such a commission might control Medicare costs, CNN cut away to an all-important update on . . . Alberto Contador’s ongoing war of words with fellow cyclist Lance Armstrong.
By all means, let’s recap the story of two big-name jocks man-slapping each other, rather than help Americans sort out the central domestic issue (Snore!) of the moment.
[...]
Campaign-style “horse race” coverage seemed to me to have shoved aside more pertinent reporting, and on Tuesday, that view got some confirmation, in the form of research from the Project for Excellence in Journalism.
The Washington-based watchdog group found that more than three-quarters of the coverage (by 55 outlets across television, radio, newspapers and websites) in the week ending last Sunday focused on politics and legislative strategy. That means less than one quarter of the coverage centered on current medical care conditions, the details of reform proposals or the effect of healthcare on the larger economy.
[...]
The complexity of the debate has not been lost on anyone, but even accepting the difficulties, many outlets have shown a dazzling determination to highlight conflicts and legislative timetables while telling us almost nothing about potential changes in insurance and care.
Many outlets have obsessed, in particular, over the likelihood that the legislation would not be settled by this week’s congressional recess.
[...]
“Now it looks like that’s happening again,” Lieberman said, “and again, we’ve degenerated to the kind of coverage we had in ’93-’94 — who is up, who is down, who’s winning, who’s losing?”
(Here’s the link to the PEJ study). Essentially the traditional media can no longer inform the public on the big issues facing them in their daily lives. They can’t inform on what the debate is about, but all that really matters is which side wins or loses. No matter that it really is a matter of life and death. It’s like one big long Super Bowl pre-game show for them until the legislation either passes or fails. What’s included in that legislation, in the long run, is just a side show, literally.
The media has largely abdicated their role in showing what the current state of health insurance is in this country. And they largely obfuscate or don’t lay out what the alternatives can be. All one has to do is listen to what Wendell Potter had to say on Bill Moyers a few weeks ago about how scared the health insurance corporations were of Michael Moore’s movie Sicko. You can watch Potter’s most recent interview last night on MSNBC with Howard Dean.
It is deep in the weeds, and not the most exciting TV, but it is very informative as to what is actually going on.
Part of the reason the media pays attention to the so-called “horse race” aspect is because it pays the bills. The longer the issue stays alive, the longer both sides and their advocacy groups are spending money on ads all over the country. Also they have a vested interest in the changes that are being proposed to the health insurance system, and have a preferred outcome for their bottom line. Anyone who watches TV knows that the drug commercials are everywhere, and that likely pays a good portion of their bills. Therefore it stands to reason that they would have a negative stance on a plan that would alter that revenue stream.
The media should be informing the public about all the possible health insurance reform solutions that extist, as well as how other country’s insure their citizens. But they should also be explaining the details of the policies that are being proposed, instead of harping exclusively on polling, how this will affect the 2010 election cycle, and the chances of it getting something passed.
The traditional corporate media model is no longer an honest borker, and hasn’t been for some time, in policy debates in this coutry. That is why, for the most part, they’re struggling. It’s also why there is so much hope when new media ventures come along.