Politics and the News: A case in point

I watched the news and I saw the report that the Philippines had been hit with a terrible storm, which at that time was reported with anticipated deaths of 10,000.  As the Filipinos were bracing for survival, I braced myself for a telethon.  I was ready for the cashier at Walmart to ask me if I wanted to contribute something to the Philippine recovery.  I was waiting for George Clooney, Bono, and Sting to make a plea for help.  I waited and waited, but it didn’t happen

Not only was I never asked for money, but it stopped being news.  I finally took to the internet to check on the fate of the Philippines.  What I saw surprised me, there was a telethon with happy smiling celebrity faces answering the phones and collecting money, it just wasn’t here, it was in the U.K.  One of the reasons offered for the outpouring of generosity in the U.K. was the U.K. Typhoon News Coverage and of course, the Christmas spirit. 

Which brings us to the issue of media coverage.  It’s not that the story wasn’t covered, it was.  What happened though was that the issue became politicized at a very early stage.  The Philippine media and politician’s seemingly misrepresented a story by Anderson Cooper.  



 

 

An interesting side note is the section of the newspaper article that Anderson referenced written by the President of the Philippines who counseled the foreign press on accuracy and instructed them to report on uplifting stories of resilience and show the world how strong the Filipino people are.  This almost seems propaganda’ish to me by the president’s attempt to influence media reporting.

In addition to the direct effect and circumstances regarding typhoon reporting in the Philippines there is another issue that hits a little closer to home.  A recent Pew report offered a look into partisanship within news organizations.  The study tracked the amount of time dedicated to the Typhoon versus Obamacare.  Without even looking into the difference in the tone of the coverage, there was an obvious discrepancy in the amount of time they devoted to each issue.  The study was based on eight hours of coverage.  The most striking example is Fox who spent seven hours and fifty-two minutes (7:52 / 8:00) on Obamacare and only six minutes on typhoon coverage (0:06/8:00).  CNN was relatively balanced in their reporting of the issues devoting three hours and thirty-three minutes to Obamacare (3:33 / 8:00) and four hours and fifty-eight minutes (4:58 / 8:00) on the typhoon.  Some of which was no doubt related to Anderson’s defense. 





Containing Dissenting Speech

I recently wrote a paper which included, in part, protest pits.  In case you don’t know (I didn’t) protesters are kept in designated areas in the name of security when there are political events.  This is also a big issue for abortion demonstrators and was first implemented here in Atlanta in 1988 during the Democratic National Convention which happened to coincide with abortion protests. 

Since that time demonstration zones have consistently been used during political events and took on a much more prominent and oppressive role after 9/11. 

The first big political event after 9/11 was the Democratic National Convention, 2004 in Boston.  During that event protestors were housed under a railroad track, behind a double fence, with barbed wire at the top of the enclosure, yes enclosure, there was a fenced top

In order for this structures to be considered constitutional the government only has to show that their interest is advanced, they do not have to show that it is the least restrictive means available to advance their security interests. 

 

In 2004 the DNC was held at the Fleet center, which was barely visible from the demonstration zone (DZ).  Aside from limiting access to the delegates the DZ limited access to the media, thereby limiting, if not silencing dissenting speech.

When covering the Republican or Democratic conventions, or other political events where there are protestors, the media covers the political event and the politician’s.  They do not take measures to cover the protestors in the designated free speech zones. 

Perhaps this is one of the reasons that people are unaware of the political issues at hand and another indication of the spoon feeding done by the media on behalf of the candidates. 

 

 

 

Where's my doctor

Over the recent past there has been a lot of attention paid to the sentence “if you like your plan you can keep it” which was a statement repeatedly made by President Obama which many are now just realizing was inaccurate.  However, something that has largely escaped scrutiny has been the second part of that promise which was “if you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor.” Speech to the AMA 2009.

Forbes and the Wall Street Journal have reported that doctors in ten states are receiving termination notices as part of a cost saving measure in which doctors and hospitals must accept a decrease in their fees.  The hardest hit group in this regard are providers who participate in the Medicare Advantage Plans Forbes, WSJ.

Not only is your doctor at risk of being cut for funding reasons, but because of the insurance plan debacle it is possible that your doctor will not be an in-network provider of your new plan.

Last month Kathleen Sebelius went on the Jon Stewart show and tried to convince the American people that the healthcare marketplace was revolutionary in that it provided a market where people could go and shop for plans and prices and check to see if their doctors and hospitals were in the plan that they want and went on to say that “you have never been able to do that before” at which time Jon Stewart questioned her on the point that people are not able to do that under the current system and Ms. Sebelius clearly replied that people would never know what was there Stewart & Sebelius. 

I visited the websites of Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Healthcare.gov.  Is it a surprise to anybody that I was able to do a doctor search from the home pages of Aetna and BCBS but not healthcare.gov.  It was surprising to me that there is no mention of doctors anywhere on the home page of healthcare.gov.  I also watched a video on the website touting the benefits of having insurance and the marketplace Healtcare Marketplace which again made no mention of comparing networks or finding your doctor. 

There are times that world and domestic events are relatively stable, no big news stories to be found.  In this case with the healthcare rollout fiasco there is so much that is being thrown at the people that is inaccurate that it is impossible for the press to keep up with every one of the inconsistencies. 

It is clearly not true that you can keep your plan if you were happy with it, the grandfather clause was always a misnomer because anyone who has ever had insurance knows that your plan changes every year.  It was also misleading to tell people and the AMA that their patient doctor relationships would not be terminated.  Provider networks are effected through changes within the insurance plans themselves, as such there is no guarantee that you can you can keep your doctor, even without doctors being dropped from plans because of funding.  Furthermore, this is not a revolutionary concept, not only because Flo is already doing it through Progressive in the auto insurance industry but because insurers have been providing plan, premium, benefit and in network provider information to potential customers, pretty much since they developed their own websites. 

 

 

Broken Promises

As adults we become desensitized to the ideal of a promise, we use the term flippantly at times without any real consideration to the meaning. 

Children on the other hand understand a promise in its most absolute sense.

How did we lose respect for the promise?  Was it all of the broken promises that we encountered throughout our childhood?  Think of the heartbreak in a child’s eyes when they remind a trusted grown up of a promise made and forgotten or simply disregarded.

This is a typical conversation between a trusted grown up, we’ll call “dad” and his four year old son “Little Johnny” 

L.J.:        Dad, dad tomorrow’s boy’s day and ice cream day, remember?

Dad:       Ooohh hey bud, I’m not going to be able to take you for ice cream tomorrow afternoon something came up at work and I won’t be able to get off early after all.

L.J.:        But you promised that we would have boy’s day and ice cream.

Dad:       Yeah I know bud, but this meeting is really important and my boss needs me to be there, I just can’t get out of it.  But I’ll tell you what I’ll make it up to you, we’ll have boy’s day the next day how about that?

L.J.:        Okaay dad.

L.J.:        (Walks off disappointed and let down, but tries to put on a big boy face and understand.) 

What will happen the day after tomorrow?  Will dad take L.J. for ice cream or will he be detained at work again?  I don’t know and neither does L.J.  Whether or not dad keeps his second promise, L.J. has already been primed that promises don’t mean much, so the next time someone breaks a promise he figures, he understands; promises are empty words, they don’t mean much.  In time L.J. starts making promises he doesn’t necessarily plan to keep because that’s what you do, right?

But what about politicians?  What about our trusted leaders?  When they make us promises should we expect them to honor their promises or do we just take for granted that they either willingly or inadvertently break them sometimes? 

We have come to accept and in fact expect broken promises from our politicians, yet their promises are largely the single most important factor in our support of them. 

So last week when the President said “then we would have broken an even more important promise” I was disturbed.  Regardless of the context, the statement implies that a promise was broken in order to fulfill, what has been determined to be “an even more important promise.”  I have waited and waited for the media to bring up this sentence, but they haven’t.  When we support our politicians based on promises they make to us is there fine print?  Do we give them free reign to determine what promises are more important than others and thereby give them the freedom to pick and choose which promises they deem worthy to keep? 

Does dad get to say you know Little Johnny that ice cream promise isn’t as big as my promise to make sure you don’t get any cavities, so we’re not going to have ice cream, that way I can keep my promise that you won’t develop dental health issues?  At that point should L.J. say oh thanks dad, you’re right that is a more important promise, we won’t worry about that whole ice cream thing anymore.

I don’t think so.