NewsBusters executive editor Tim Graham appeared on the Fox Business show Varney & Co. on Monday afternoon discuss how MRC research of evening news stories found next to nothing on the victims of Obamacare. (There was just one CBS story on a Saturday in February.)
Host Stuart Varney expressed amazement that the networks haven’t reported the many problems with Obamacare (video below):
STUART VARNEY: You and I talked many times over the past year, and I often thought that maybe the media was at that turning point, that maybe things were so bad that they'd start reporting what was really going on. But you're telling me not so, they're still the same.
TIM GRAHAM: Well, obviously, it was unavoidable during the rollout in October. What I would have said to you then was give it time, they'll drop it. And all this year they've been dropping it. This weekend as we head to the enrollment deadline, on the major networks this weekend, 16 seconds. So –
VARNEY: That's it?
GRAHAM: They’ve done more ignoring it this year than sharing it.
VARNEY; 16 seconds, that's it?
GRAHAM: Yeah.
VARNEY: Well, you know, today the administration is almost certainly going to claim that they've come very, very close to the seven million target. I think that told there's going to be a huge -- that today there's going to be a huge pr push claiming victory, claiming all things positive for Obamacare. And I suspect that if you're right, I suspect it's going to be all over the establishment media tonight, praising Obamacare. I can see it coming.
GRAHAM: Well, obviously, today we saw for the first time since last September when the Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, told Dr. Nancy Snyderman, success looks like seven million enrolled by March 31st. So that's what they're going to claim they have today. NBC ran that sound bite today for the first time since September.
They haven't wanted to focus on the markers. The markers of success. There's just no focus on that whatsoever. The main thing we've gotten in the last couple of weeks was everybody cheering on the morning shows about how funny Obama was, being interviewed by Zack Galifianakis. That qualifies somehow as coverage because that's how he's selling it.
