It's like shouting down the well
On Thursday morning I attended a breakfast and roundtable discussion sponsored by the Missouri Health Advocacy Alliance that discussed the Affordable Care Act one year on, and how it has benefited Missouri small businesses since the first provisions started kicking in last September.
When I walked up to the table to sign in, I was surprised that they were so thrilled to see a B-list blogger show up with a netbook and a digital recorder to capture and report on the event. Then when I walked into the room I knew why. There was not another soul in that room that even remotely resembled a reporter, even though a press release went out last week announcing the event.
This meeting was held at the Plaza Marriott, at 45th and Main in Kansas City. The KKFI studio is at 39th and Main, the KCUR studio is at 48th and Troost and the Kansas City Star is at 17th and Grand. It isn't like it was held in an inconvenient location. I didn't expect television cameras, but I did expect some coverage by either the print or radio press.
I mean, if 50 teabaggers who are against healthcare reform get together and wave misspelled, grammatically incorrect signs around, the Star covers that. But 50 small business owners and administrators who have benefited from the provisions of the law that have already kicked in, gathered in a meeting room to discuss those benefits? Nothing to see there, they don't even bother to send a reporter.
They will report on people who scream about "death panels" and "government takeover of healthcare" -- both rated "lies of the year" by PolitiFact for 2009 and 2010, respectively -- but they don't report on the very real benefits of the legislation.
No wonder the law isn't more popular.
If the traditional media had sent a reporter to the Marriott Thursday morning, they could have reported on the benefits to small business, like the tax credit that allows Merrill Gobetz, the operations manager of Bistro Kids to insure her chefs, and how access to healthcare has made her employees healthier, less stressed and more productive. Or they could have reported on the grants available right now through the Department of Health and Human Services. These are funds that are set aside to help small businesses devise and implement workplace wellness programs -- which are proven to pay for themselves and even turn a profit in the form of reduced overall costs in both healthcare and lost productivity.
A lot of small businesses jumped at the chance to offer their employees health coverage as soon as they could afford to, thanks to the tax credit. Low income individuals who aren't offered health coverage benefit as well, because the ACA increased funding to subsidize community health centers, where low-income people can receive care either free or at a reduced rate. Kansas City has several great working examples of this in action that could serve as models for the rest of the country -- the Swope Health Center clinics and the Truman Medical Centers hospital system. We have these wonderful assets that are making our community healthier, but I never see or hear local stories about how what we have been doing right for years is being rewarded and will be able to expand and help even more people, thanks to the ACA. Why is that?
They would also have had the opportunity to educate the public about the exchanges that will be set up and offering coverage options by 2014. Exchanges will essentially be a clearinghouse where you will be able to compare rates and details of coverage for all of the plans in the exchange and pick the plan that your prefered provider accepts assignment from, and select the level of coverage that is right for you, and that once you decide on a plan, the company won't be able to deny you coverage, even if you have a pre-existing condition. Or that if you are self-employed or employed by a small business that is exempt from the mandate, your income will determine your premium, which will be charged on a sliding scale.
They also missed the opportunity to inform the listening/reading public about the "webinar" that the Small Business Majority is hosting on March 31st at 2:00 p.m. Eastern, 11:00 a.m. Pacific, that will focus on what the ACA means for small business and how both federal and state provisions help local small business owners understand how the law can benefit them and their employees, and that those interested in participating or just following along can preregister at www.smallbusinessmajority.org/webinar and that questions can be submitted in advance to national@smallbusinessmajority.org.
But they won't pass along any of the reasoned and factual information that people need to know because they didn't send a reporter.
The lopsided reporting is definitely something to keep in mind the next time you hear a report about how unpopular the ACA is.
It's also depressing as hell, because I have no freakin' idea how to break through the media blackout when the only person who shows up to report on the positive aspects of the law is a blogger with 500 regular daily readers.
This post originally appeared at Show Me Progress
news business is in.
They all seem to be under the impression that all people want is sensational news - earthquakes, tsunami's, mass murders, missing white girls, etc.
Or, how government DOESN'T work. And site examples of that.
But, in reality, most people turn to local news and papers for local information first, then state and national news.
A success story like this would have been covered, if not trumpeted, not too long ago. But, with local news trying to stick with the sensational, and go away from the local, the less readers they have. And the less readers they have, the less money they make on advertizing and at the newstands, which means they have less reporters, which means they have to pick up more sensational national stories instead of local ones, which means even less readers, etc.
Maybe if it was advertized as an event covering 'Our Revolutionary New Health Coverage,' and everyone wore late 18th Century attire, and had a fife, a drum and a flag, the local news might have come out. Some mis-spelled signs, and attendee's on Motorized Medicare Scooter might have helped, too.
In short, this country won't die from too little news, but too much cable TV-like news.
The death certificate might say it the USA died from mulitple causes:
too little relevant news coverge,
too much sensationalistic TV coverage,
too many high paid talking heads screaming at each other,
one dedicated propaganda TV channel,
too few reporters who aren't lazy, or so stupid that they fall for the lines the rich and powerful give them, and treat them as gospel,
and shitty, lazy editors.
Now, when I think of the Fourth Estate, I think I want to drink a fifth.
3 million more than a year ago.
Hope none of them get sick before 2014 . . . . and that they can afford to buy their own insurance then - or at least be able to pay the fine.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
If the small business doesn't have at least 300 employees, the news won't cover it.... unless it's a sob story. Sob stories are entertaining.
look up ''small' business'' in the government context, you may be surprised.
Well there you go, the liberal media. Just another of countless memes on the right that sound other planetary to conscious beings.
It should be fairly obvious that the major media is a part of the corporatocracy or at the very least has bought into the American way/social Darwinism of the right.
Both were easily rebutted lies - and the only challenges made to a health care plan that put off any meaningful reform for four years and was written by the very industry it was supposed to control.
“I want to thank you for your support of the healthcare reform movement," Bill Clinton as keynote speaker to the health insurance industry lobbying group America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP). Of course, AHIP should probably be doing the thanking; the industry's proposal was the one enacted.
So how do you let the fox write the rules for the hen house? You ensure that the discussion revolves around "death panels" and "government takeovers." 'Cause hey, any health care plan can pass those tests.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
AHIP promised not to campaign against or run ads against the ACA.
Then gave millions to the Chamber of Commerce specifically to do just that.
The main problem is that the media only tout the words of the opposition.
Even this morning in the NYT, a whole paragraph was devoted to saying that Obama was 'trying' to take charge of the message on the Libyan attack without even ONCE stating what HIS message was. But the Republican opponents' rather confused messaging on this was given in the greatest specific detail.
You tell me if that is fair reporting. It is not. And it simply reinforcing the major Republican meme that Obama is weak. But if you think back to his confrontation with the House Republicans that they foolishly allowed to be filmed and you saw a bunch of sniveling cowards quaking in their boots when he answered their utterly NONSENSICAL charges.
You can't beat that for the propaganda formula. Along with the firebaggers criticizing ferociously each and every facet of the law and holding hands with Grover Norquist (who made him king, by the way?) as they did so, the media reporting on the law was never straightforward.
MyMy
. . . about how similar the resulting ACA is to the Heritage Foundation's plan of the mid-nineties. Nor that the foundation of the ACA was written by an insurance executive who'd left WellPoint for that very purpose.
Not fair reporting at all - but very beneficial for Obama. All he had to do was prove his plan wouldn't kill grandma. Talk about a softball issue.
The insurance industry masqueraded as it's own "opposition" And what an "opposition." The Koch brothers astro-turfed some Tea Partiers to whine about a plan that the Koch brothers themselves had previously financed through the Heritage Foundation. They got to "oppose" their own plan.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
...smells like stale bullshit.
Cue the Kabuki....
self employed and not making a god damn dime. Whats my premium going to be? or can I get the General Electric deal where I pay zero taxes? Maybe register as a One Broke Person With No Future Inc. or something?
Subsidized.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
So, what else is new? It's getting redder and redder here, and it hasn't been very blue in a long time. There's a little Chamber of Commerce in every town, run by the Republicans and scaring the bejesus out of the small business owners. We're not the best read citizens in the U.S, and we have one of the most uncivil groups of legislators anywhere. So, some right wing newpaper and chicken shit TV stations who don't want to upset their Fox lovin' viewers by covering something positive about Obama's term in office really shouldn't surprise anyone who has been in Missouri more than overnight.
But it will be a pictures slideshow in Community Faces. Pics of smiling people with name tags holding cocktails and eating free tacos.
Routinely, roads in Missouri change names and route numbers from one county to the next adjoining one -- the only ones that don't are IIRC Federal highways ... :)
FWIW, I almost (Almost) made southwestern Missouri my home -- in a forty+ acres and a sway-backed mule kind of way. First time I ever saw a cozy 1 bedroom apartment built inside of a much larger steel framed tractor shed. Of course, one of the biggest detractors was that there wouldn't have been any jobs of note within 100 miles. Rollo area far to the North was way too expensive for my discount domestic beer budget. A shiftless lefty like me would have stood out like a turd in the punch-bowl in Deep Red Missouri. That was 5+ years ago. I'm pretty certain it hasn't gotten any better since then -- every area of the country has suffered economically.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
-- John F. Kennedy
writing a letter to the editor of the paper about both the benefits of the bill and the lack of attention to the meeting? It's worth a go, I would think.
I don't know if the Star even has a mail room anymore thats how broke they are.
...since it's unlikely that the editor would appreciate being confronted with the fact that he or she dropped the ball, whether by accident or by design, writing the editor might not make much of a difference in the end. This is not to say that it isn't worth doing, even if only as a token gesture -- but if they ignored the story deliberately, that mentality probably isn't going to change simply because one reader writes a letter unless that letter has teeth of some kind in its mouth (such as a regular subscriber threatening to cancel their account). After all, one of the reasons why the newspaper industry is in crisis is because the internet age is slowly rendering them irrelevant!
Never trust anyone who insists that patriotism requires you to blindfold yourself with the flag.
Television covers around here is Sports, Cupcake Contests, and our Soaring Homicide Rate.
I've mentioned this to you and Driftglass before, Blue Gal, but at least one of the comments above makes it worth repeating: "Small" when referring to businesses means different things to different people. According to Small Business Administration guidelines, some of these businesses seem huge to me. Politicians deliberately try to make us think Bob's shoe repair shop or Sue's deli, though (most of them?) are well aware that's not necessarily true.
Dog bites man? Piffle. Man bites dog? That's got news value. If it bleeds, it leads; if not, it languors (if that isn't a word, it ought to be!). Good news has little news value, bad news lots. People getting along with each other is boring. People getting angry or violent with each other has news value. Good people are boring. Bad people are exciting. Satan's by far the most fascinating character in Milton's Paradise Lost, right?
If you want coverage of a good news, positive event (especially if it's good news for Democrats), you should hire some actors to march outside with megaphones and misspelled signs. Well, no, you shouldn't do that, but you do need to find some way to create news value.
At least you got there, bluegal.
far left loon >.<
...this is simply one more piece of evidence demonstrating that the notion of the "liberal media" is a farce and a lie. To all appearances -- provided that a person has the ability to see through all the window dressing and superficial crap, which many Americans no longer seem able to do -- the mainstream media and perhaps the American public collectively has very little genuine concern for the cares of the average citizen unless influential people either stand to make a profit from it or else risk losing their own rarefied position as a result of something they've done or haven't done (and even then, they usually deny all responsibility and take shelter behind a team of lawyers). What other reason can there be for the fact that our culture has been treating the people who crashed the economy as if they were inviolable and sacrosanct while at the same time attacking some of the people (such as teachers and firefighters) who actually help make up the bedrock upon which this society rests?
Never trust anyone who insists that patriotism requires you to blindfold yourself with the flag.
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