The Business & Media Institute released the brand new Special Report: UnCritical Condition today about network news treatment of health care.
BMI looked at morning and evening shows on ABC, CBS and NBC from Jan. 20 to June 24, 2009. We found that the networks boosted the administration's case for government run health care in several ways:
- Favoring proponents of ObamaCare to critics by a margin of more than 2-to-1
- Barely discussing the $1 trillion or higher price tag (9 percent of stories)
- Exaggerating the number of uninsured Americans 80 percent of the time
- Ignoring Medicare's "explosive fiscal situation" despite calling Obama's public option plan for health care reform "Medicare-like."




















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Sebelius deception
July 22, 2009 - 16:12 ET by BluegillI saw her on the morning shows, she and Obama have been saying that the CBO report showed that the Healthcare plan is Deficit Neutral over 10 years? Where is this reported or just made up?
No one asked about the Investors Business Daily editorial or the fact that the polls are not in their favor. When Bush was in office, polls were the lead story, now they only mentioned Republican opposition and not the poll numbers, huh.
She can says it is deficit
July 22, 2009 - 16:20 ET by bedmondsonShe can says it is deficit neutral over 10 years at this point because if you remove the money added to "fix" medicare payments then it does according the the CBO become deficit neutral. It is toss back to fuzzy math.
Plus
July 23, 2009 - 13:38 ET by StarAZThey know perfectly well everyone will forget all these cuts and savings in a hot second...much less 10 yrs, when a thousand other crises have intervened and this one has been tacked onto the rest of the catastrophe.
CBO meeting with Obama
July 22, 2009 - 16:24 ET by BluegillI failed to mention that the Director of CBO went to meet with Obama at Obama's requested. Where is the media regarding how unethical it is for him to meet with the President? Will this effect the CBO's assessment?
I don't think the msm is
July 22, 2009 - 17:08 ET by EdhenryI don't think the msm is smart enough to report on economics. They get taxes, private sector job creation, gov't decisions that cause job losses, deficit projections, energy wrong every time
I don't know if it's
July 22, 2009 - 17:36 ET by mattmI don't know if it's because they are dumb, or if it's because they're just spinning everything to hoodwink the public.
I tend to believe the latter, because it's hard for me to think these people could truly be that stupid.... It's probably a little of both.
BMI
July 22, 2009 - 17:14 ET by WR JonasWhen I saw those initials I automatically thought of Bowel Movement International . Another organization that is dedicated to the principle of " speading the s--t around.
Obamas Healthcare ( sorry, the Democrats Kennnedy Memorial Healthcare plan, designed to give you the s--ts for life ) has progressed nicely passed the "swooning media' stage, to "overwhelm the last sucker standing" phase and will soon be available at broken down and boarded up crack houses everywhere.
WR Jonas--
July 22, 2009 - 17:18 ET by Kat Outta the BagMy first thought was Body Mass Index, but I like yours better.
Networks will be playing to get ahead of the curve..
July 22, 2009 - 17:18 ET by Gary HallWell, with pubic opinion quickly changing such that at best for the administration it's about a split on those who favor the current rash of health reform bills as those who oppose, it no surprise that the MSM is:
As the public is somehow being educated (no fault of the MSM) and coming to their senses, we should see a fairly strong majority against Obamacare within a week or so. By then, I'd expect that the 3 networks will be favoring showcasing proponents by a 3:1, or better, ratio.
(;~> gary
How Many Uninsured?
July 22, 2009 - 18:02 ET by cjbreischHow many uninsured need additional help from taxpayers?
With nice pretty charts to boot.