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Saturday, January 30, 2010

Public Policy Polling: Fox leads for trust

When I was studying journalism, one the professors said a valuable thing: that no one can report a story without editing it.

I think all media outlets all have an agenda, but in my own experience, Fox does less of the "gatekeeping" than the other major news outlets.

With that said, one of the worst things I believe any news outlet can have is a political agenda. I am against any enterprise which holds the public trust - particularly those involved in dissemination of information - in taking any position. It leads to people developing a skewed perception and therefore inaccurate way of thinking about the world. Some call this "wrong-headed."

We saw it happen with the 2008 election: if one relied solely on the major broadcast news sources, he'd come away with the sense that Obama offered the greatest hope for the future, and would change everything for the good.

One year after he was elected, Obama has demonstrated nothing of the sort. He is really just another politician looking to control things the way he wants to. His actions have alienated young voters. Youthful political particpants are vulnerable to this sort of thing because they have virtually no experience with the workings of the world, and therefore haven't learned what liars and ideologs polticians can be. In Obama and the Democrats, they learned.

Had these voters watched Fox (rather than derided them as harshly as they did), they would have had a different perspective: one that was not entirely negative, but raised serous questions into Obama's readiness and comport for the office. Wisdom is the key.

The point is, when a news outlet doesn't ask hard questions and take an oppositional stance - whether they support a candidate or not - they will never learn the truth about anything. Intellectuals like to talk about the postmodern idea of deconstruction, in which oppositional stances are taken particularly for the sake of critical analysis, but in Obama, they didn't do this. I guess they were too busy enjoying that shiver up their leg.


Public Policy Polling: Fox leads for trust

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Liars.

The other night I was watching an NBC News "expose" regarding the state of the health insurance industry.  The show was part of the dateline franchise and was called "Critical Condition." One of the reports involved a young girl, Nataline Sarkisyan, diagnosed with and treated for leukemia, but who ultimately died because, as NBC's Ann Curry wanted us to believe, because she didn't receive a liver transplant.

Several things were just so outrageously wrong, they had to be lies.  They involve the claimed costs, and the reasoning for the liver transplant.

First off were the cited costs. CBS said the treatment, a bone marrow transplant which is the usual course for leukemia, can cost $700,000.00. I have done video work regarding leukemia, and have been close to those treating the disease. I know how involved the procedure can be.  But, Wow, I thought, that's expensive.   So I checked.  The actual numbers for a bone marrow transplant range from $50,000 to $200,000 for the really complex ones. So how can CBS be so wrong? Because they wanted to be.

First off, journalism isn't rocket science.  Meaning, no one's life is at stake if a few numbers are wrong.  They think that the important thing is to make your point.  However, with the backdrop of Obama's healthcare reform initiative, which specifically addresses costs, don't these numbers have a special meaning? And isn't accuracy especially important because of it?

It looks like NBC News was trying to fire up viewers to feel as though costs are completely out of control.  If one accepts $700K for a BMT, than that assumption would be true.  But if a BMT (a pretty involved procedure, by the way), is correctly marked at $50K, the whole issue looks different. And I haven't addressed the liver transplant yet.

The girl's family insisted that she receive the liver transplant recommended by her physician.  Note that the discussion didn't go into issues such as why her liver had failed.  Point-of-fact, the poor girl was dying, and her organs began to fail. A liver transplant might have extended her life for a few weeks, but no more. In the end, her insurer approved the new liver, but Natalione dies before the procedure could be performed.

I'm not discussing whether or not she deserved it.   But I will say, had she received a new liver then died a few weeks later, that the liver she used would have been unavailable to someone who was less ill, someone whose life could have been saved for years. It's not like we send out to WalMart for a liver; they are hard to come by. This mode of thinking is called triage, and is, at best, difficult. It's life and death. But it has to be done to favor the greater good over the lesser.

So, what should we think about NBC? They munged up all the facts, bending  them to suit. The story was very compelling, and made the health insurer look mean and evil. But the bottom line is that they did everything reasonable to save the girl's life. At no additional cost to the family.

People die. But family members need to accept that it's seldom someone else's fault. The mother of the girl and the tone of the story definitely went that way.

The clarion call of the media used to be Accuracy, but no more. I am reminded on a line from the film, 12 Monkeys - "there's no right, there's no wrong, there's only public opinion."

The moral of the story: Distrust the media.

Monday, January 25, 2010

Obama Administration Steers Lucrative No-Bid Contract for Afghan Work to Dem Donor

Corporate rivals of Checchi were reluctant to speak on the record about the no-bid contract awarded to his firm because they feared possible retribution by the Obama administration in the awarding of future contracts.

"We don't want to be blackballed," said the managing partner of a consulting firm that has won similar contracts. "You've got to be careful. We're dealing here with people and offices that we depend on for our business."

Still, the rival executive confirmed that open bidding on USAID's lucrative Afghanistan "rule of law" contract was abruptly revoked by the agency earlier this year.

"It's a mystery to us," the managing partner said. "We were going to bid on it. The solicitation (for bids) got pulled back, and we do not know why. We may never know why. These are things that we, as companies doing business with the government, have to put up with."

As a candidate for president in 2008, then-Sen. Obama frequently derided the Bush administration for the awarding of federal contracts without competitive bidding.

"I will finally end the abuse of no-bid contracts once and for all," the senator told a Grand Rapids audience on Oct. 2. "The days of sweetheart deals for Halliburton will be over when I'm in the White House."



FOXNews.com - Obama Administration Steers Lucrative No-Bid Contract for Afghan Work to Dem Donor

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Health Care Countdown: Young People Could Bear Brunt of Insurance Mandate

So you kids wanted change, and voted for it and got it. How does it feel? Perhaps you feel a bit "lighter;" you should.

Winston Churchill said that anyone who is young and not liberal has no heart, but anyone who is older and not conservative has no brains. Something to that.

Now, chillun, what have we learned?

FOXNews.com - Health Care Countdown: Young People Could Bear Brunt of Insurance Mandate:
"Young adults are in for a wake-up call if health care reform passes.

For the first time ever, the federal government is going to require that everybody obtain health insurance coverage. For those who have insurance through their employers, the so-called individual mandate may have very little impact. But for young adults, many of whom are not currently covered, the health care bill will add a new and costly expense to their budgets.

'The Census Bureau tells us there are 18 million people between the ages of 18 and 35 who are uninsured -- roughly half of the uninsured population are younger people in that age group,' said Anne Kim, with the non-profit think tank Third Way.

The individual mandate has teeth to it, and anyone who refuses to get coverage will be fined under the health care package."