Healthcare and media manias
I've been tweeting up a storm this morning, harassing the media people that I've been following over their coverage of the presser. It's not that I thought the questions were stupid. They weren't so apparently focused on getting the dumb "gotcha" quote. But they still didn't ask the right ones.
The one burning question I've seen echoed all over the internets in the last couple of days was whether people who have employer-based policies will have the option to switch to a public plan. I haven't seen any clear answer to that from Congress or the White House, but none of the privileged few journos managed to spit that one out. Karen Tumulty was the only journo I know of that would have asked it, but she wasn't called on. Apparently because they have their precious protocols that require the egos of a certain few media stars be satisfied first.
Don't get me wrong, the TARP questions were good ones. As was the question about the arrest of Prof Gates, but as I said repeatedly on Twitter, it was the wrong presser for it. Predictably the media focus today is mainly on Obama saying the cop acted stupidly in making the arrest. Which is true, but ZOMG, it's a post-racial violation -- or something -- to point out the fact that racial profiling very much still exists in law enforcement. The media finds it interesting so that's the lede, the public need for info on health insurance reform be damned.
The best question was about the refusal to release the visitor logs relative to the health insurance reform meetings at the White House. Of course, that didn't get any traction because I see that the White House released the list shortly before the presser. Haven't seen that mentioned anywhere else. No controversy. No coverage.
While I appreciate that the media doesn't get that many opportunities to directly question the president, perhaps they could remember that the purpose of these events is to inform the public, not to amuse them. Maybe next time they could ask why single payer isn't being considered, since it's clearly the most cost effective method which would cover the broadest number of people. Or why single payer advocates have been cut out of the discussion altogether. That's also a question one can easily find being asked by hordes of us *little people* across the spectrum of the internets.
[More posts daily at The Detroit News]
The one burning question I've seen echoed all over the internets in the last couple of days was whether people who have employer-based policies will have the option to switch to a public plan. I haven't seen any clear answer to that from Congress or the White House, but none of the privileged few journos managed to spit that one out. Karen Tumulty was the only journo I know of that would have asked it, but she wasn't called on. Apparently because they have their precious protocols that require the egos of a certain few media stars be satisfied first.
Don't get me wrong, the TARP questions were good ones. As was the question about the arrest of Prof Gates, but as I said repeatedly on Twitter, it was the wrong presser for it. Predictably the media focus today is mainly on Obama saying the cop acted stupidly in making the arrest. Which is true, but ZOMG, it's a post-racial violation -- or something -- to point out the fact that racial profiling very much still exists in law enforcement. The media finds it interesting so that's the lede, the public need for info on health insurance reform be damned.
The best question was about the refusal to release the visitor logs relative to the health insurance reform meetings at the White House. Of course, that didn't get any traction because I see that the White House released the list shortly before the presser. Haven't seen that mentioned anywhere else. No controversy. No coverage.
While I appreciate that the media doesn't get that many opportunities to directly question the president, perhaps they could remember that the purpose of these events is to inform the public, not to amuse them. Maybe next time they could ask why single payer isn't being considered, since it's clearly the most cost effective method which would cover the broadest number of people. Or why single payer advocates have been cut out of the discussion altogether. That's also a question one can easily find being asked by hordes of us *little people* across the spectrum of the internets.
[More posts daily at The Detroit News]
Labels: health care, Media, President Obama
posted by Libby Spencer at 1:12 PM
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