Could we handle the truth?

Truth is, on any given evening, there are more journalists dedicated to covering the New York Yankees fulltime than Healthcare in America.

 

Sorry, but the point to all this is that journalism/media is failing this country moreso than corrupt politicians.

Journalism's job should be to seek the facts, which should lead to the truth which should lead to writing stories that reduce a complicated story to easy-to-understand levels. That ain't happening anymore and this country is worse off because of it.

Blame the left, the right, Obama, Bush ... but when journalism looks in the mirror it sees shame staring back at it.

 

But what "facts" are you looking for? Where are the "facts" that would make the health-care debate an easily digestible issue?

The fact is, they don't exist, no matter how Matt Taibbi pines for them.

 

Hmmmmm, facts such as:

Are there "death" panels?
Is Medicare required once you turn 65?
Will federal health care be mandatory for everyone or a choice?

Kinda like the following facts that each major newspaper should have been printing on their front pages since Day One of the Iraq War:
Number of days in Iraq
Number of U.S. Military casualties
Number (estimated) of civilian casualties
Estimated money spent on the war

Instead, newspapers were more interested in Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, the Academy Awards or whatever fluff they thought would sell papers. Guess that worked out pretty well, didn't it?

 

I don't talk politics anymore on SportsJournalists.com (if I can help it), so I'll confine myself to saying that you're making two arguments here, and neither is very compelling.

I happen to think it's not newspapers' job to go out and confront head-on every iota of spin emanating from politicians, interest groups and blogs. But even if we stipulate to your interpretation that newspapers should take it upon themselves to refute every discredited talking point on both sides, I think plenty of newspapers have answered the three questions you list there in great detail.

It's not newspapers' fault if people aren't persuaded, and it certainly isn't indicative of either journalists' fear of right-wing "bashing" or the absence of Taibbi's nebulous "journalism of truth."

As for your thoughts on Iraq war coverage, you may be showing more of your hand than you should. "Each major newspaper" should publish -- on A1 and daily, no less! -- a context-less list of facts likely to diminish public support for the war, without providing background for the numbers and in addition to the reams of newsprint already devoted to war coverage? Hardly sounds like a politically disinterested "journalism of truth" to me.

 

I'm not sure this is true. People who were in their teens and 20s a few decades ago and reading Rolling Stone still buy it. The magazine still writes about acts from the '60s, '70s and '80s, caters to those who were reading it in its heyday, and just published a cover story about why the Beatles broke up.

I think RS is getting more readership from middle-aged white people than from teen-agers and twentysomethings.

 

I was curious. Their latest media kit states the median age is 31 and 78% white. But the core is definitely A18-49.

http://www.srds.com/mediakits/rollingstone/demographics.html

 

I went out of my way to buy this issue and it was an absolute pleasure to read.

This debate reminds me of Blackwater watchdog Jeremy Scahill ripping into NBC's Chuck Todd on Bill Maher last week. Scahill pulled no punches. Todd seemed generally shocked that anyone would question the way he worked.

 

Wingman, I think you're glossing over the overriding point here, and I think it's a good one:

Journalists are far too often content to "give both sides" while making no attempt to ferret out where reality may lie. It's not a partisan point, though the author clearly thinks the truth lies farther on one side than the other.

It's pretty lame to say "The White House says it can insure everybody by taxing only the rich without increasing the deficit; Conservatives say the plan will set up death panels to kill old people." But that's the extent of most of the coverage. The first half is very likely bullshit, the second half is definitely bullshit, but we act like it's OK because we're peddling the bullshit from both sides.

You say it's not journalists' job to confront the spin, but if all they're going to do is report the spin, they're pretty damn useless.

 

I think you're simplifying the coverage of the issue...I doubt anything printed in any mainstream source really comes within a zip code of "conservatives say the plan will set up death panels to kill old people."

In fact, the coverage of Palin's "death panel" remark has been universally dismissive. The reason it's persisted is because it's struck a chord with people, particularly as it relates to the president's negative take on his late grandmother's hip replacement and some ill-considered remarks by the Orszags and Zeke Emanuels of the world.

Let's stop talking in generalities, though, and switch to specifics. I decided to check the most recently posted stories on the Web pages of four prominent newspapers: The New York Times and the Washington Post (for obvious reasons) and the Des Moines Register and Austin American-Statesman (randomly selected for some geographical balance). Do any of these stories strike you as giving equal time to the critics, much less being motivated by fear of the right wing?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/26/nyregion/26about.html?ref=politics
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/26/AR2009082603485.html
http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2009/08/26/latham-weve-already-got-a-form-of-universal-health-care/
http://www.statesman.com/search/content/region/legislature/stories/2009/08/23/0823teaparty.html

A fairer, and related, criticism is that so much of the coverage has focused on process: The question of whether a bill can pass is always going to be more interesting to political reporters than the question of whether a bill is good policy. Reasonable people can disagree, but I think that's a positive...political reporters should cover the horse-race aspect; let the think tanks and the Atlantic Monthly argue over the policy details.

 

Regarding Palin: She said she would have been forced to abort her baby. Then, a few days later, she called for more reasoned and thoughtful discourse on health care reform. Then, about two days later, she said the plan included death panels to help weed out the elderly. Then, a few days later, people grew dismissive.

I think journalists are now starting to actually call people on some of the more egregious lies tied to this, but certainly not early on, and not with any regularity. The town halls are routinely covered with a tone of "lawmakers sure are getting an earful!" cutesiness with a bunch of people screaming about fascism and death panels, and no effort to (a) explain what the plan would really do, or (b) explain what actual content came out of these town halls.

Totally agree with the criticism that too much of the focus is on political maneuvering and process.

 

That was absolutely awesome the way Scahill called out Todd, who like most Washington journalists is a continuous suckup and really never asks the tough questions. It's people like Scahill and Taibbi who are the new breakthrough journalists, telling truth to power. Newspaper reporters could take a few lessons from them.