We have all seen the footage from multiple health care town hall meeting. This footage usually includes someone yelling at their local representatives or in the case of Rep. Lynn Jenkins we see her laughing at an uninsured mother and her son.
Many of us have been to a few town halls and find them often to be nothing like what we see in the media. This morning I found an article expressing that the media coverage of these heath care town halls is truly a media fail, and does a pretty good job explaining why.
More than 600 health care town halls have been held, and while hosts and attendees have shown fiercely different opinions, they all agree it’s the media’s fault.Every summer the news media struggles during vacation season, and people of all political ideologies have blamed each media outlet for bringing their own bias to about President Obama’s efforts to reform health care by focusing on sensational outbursts at town halls.
I attended one such meeting at a community center in Germantown, Maryland, where Rep. Donna Edwards – a Maryland Democrat – addressed diverse concerns on the bill but stressed the need for people to research the legislation for themselves to create a productive debate.”Do me a favor, don’t rely on talk radio or cable news for information about all this, instead decide for yourself,” Edwards told the crowd. “Afterwards I’d be happy to have my staff help you look over particular parts of the bill.”
The crowd seemed to have made up its mind before it got there. In predominantly Democratic Maryland, many had support Obama signs that they printed up from the Obama for America listserv. On the other end of the spectrum, supporters of economist and conspiracy theorist Lyndon LaRouche passed out brochures of Obama shaking hands with Adolf Hitler and Dracula.
“We’re not going to change each others minds, but it’s important we have this debate on such an important issue,” said Edwards. “There are a couple of things I heard tonight that made me think. Like this one tonight, most of the town halls my colleagues have told me about were civil. But then you get a handful of outbursts that they play over and over on TV.”
Reflecting traditional Republican concerns that public health care will create too much government control, some debates at the meeting spilled over into privacy protection about electronic records, services for illegal immigrants and government controlled job qualification.
Outside the meeting, an illegal alien watchdog group called Help Save Maryland, was concerned that Obama’s health care plan would drive up hospital costs and allow services for illegal immigrants.
“I think the situation here is that everybody is looking for a platform – protesters and politicians of both parties,” said Scott Stockton of Germantown, Md., and a member of the group. “I think news is too often controlled- they release information to distract from the issue, but coverage of these events is bringing the issue of socialized medicine to the forefront.”
Across from them were members of CASA de Maryland, an advocacy group aimed at equal opportunities for low-income Latinos. Help Save Maryland has pushed the state legislature to remove CASA’s public funding, but they protested peacefully in their own spaces outside the event.
Along with official groups, media coverage of the events has fueled suspicions among some, like Ned Leone a civil rights lawyer from Washington, D.C., that partisan officials are sending operatives into crowds with planted comments.
“The media coverage has been irresponsible focusing on the outbreaks of people with guns instead of the contents of the bill,” said Leone. “This is a very important time in our history to revamp health care and then you see these town hall meetings where the meeting is framed by G.O.P. operatives.”
When Leone said this, a group of women next to him started arguing with him. We were cramped together at the back of the auditorium and I was caught sandwiched in between a shouting match.
“Oh, G.O.P. operatives are behind all this,” said a group of women including Anne Oswald, a small business owner from Olney, Md. “If Canada’s health care system is so great, why do they keep coming down here for surgery? We have the best system in the world; this is the best country in the world… Pay your bills if you want health care. Go to hell!”
After the meeting a group of medical students from Johns Hopkins University interviewed some of the speakers to catalogue the issues in the bill that concerned them, such as how an American public option could benefit from experiences in Canada. One of the students, Shiva Gandhi, said the media should have been more selective on giving nationwide platforms.
“Covering these town halls, reporters have given a disproportionate voice to a vocal minority and legitimized them in the process,” said Gandhi. “Some of the people who spoke today about Canada’s health care didn’t give the right facts. The media needs to do a better job as gatekeepers of information and not let it devolve into a contest of screaming heads.”
Original article can be found here
I agree with article on many points especially when it says that the media has been exploiting the shouting matches at the town halls and never doing any fact check on the clips they show.
When people see these “facts” presented at the town halls on the news they often believe it because they count on the news to tell them wether or not these “facts” are actual true statements.
The media needs to be more responsible in their reporting and needs to accurately inform their audience, and by accurate I don’t mean fox news style, we should hold the news stations and papers responsible for reporting accurate health care reform information not just what is presented in the rambling of angry town hall folks.
Loading ...