There's been a rash of commentary from some on the left who've decided that the real problem with Obamacare isn't the crippling technological issues that have made it impossible for almost anyone to enroll in the federally run health-insurance exchanges but the media's coverage of those problems.
It's not the crime, it's the lack of a cover-up.
The complaint takes different forms. Salon's Joan Walsh frames it instrumentally. The coverage, she writes, "only aids [the] unhinged right." In this telling, the problem with reporting on Obamacare's problems is that it helps Obamacare's enemies.
Zerlina Maxwell frames it as a question of insured journalists being unable to see past their own rarified position. "The privilege of analyzing the process from the perspective of someone who is already insured and not in need of coverage allows the core impact of the new program on the health and security of millions of Americans to be missed," she writes.
There are dimensions to these arguments that really center on the job of the journalist, and there, I think Walsh and Maxwell and I simply disagree. But behind this disagreement is a question about how deep the law's problems really go.
As Walsh and Maxwell (and President Obama) say, Obamacare is more than just a Web site.
More balanced coverage, they believe, would be emphasizing all its other good qualities.
"I was actually happy to see the president come out defiantly in his Rose Garden talk, describing the ACA as 'not just a website' and listing the many benefits it’s already providing," wrote Walsh.
"Obamacare is more than a website," repeats Maxwell.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/25/obamacares-problems-go-much-deeper-than-the-web-site/?tid=pm_business_pop
It's not the crime, it's the lack of a cover-up.
The complaint takes different forms. Salon's Joan Walsh frames it instrumentally. The coverage, she writes, "only aids [the] unhinged right." In this telling, the problem with reporting on Obamacare's problems is that it helps Obamacare's enemies.
Zerlina Maxwell frames it as a question of insured journalists being unable to see past their own rarified position. "The privilege of analyzing the process from the perspective of someone who is already insured and not in need of coverage allows the core impact of the new program on the health and security of millions of Americans to be missed," she writes.
There are dimensions to these arguments that really center on the job of the journalist, and there, I think Walsh and Maxwell and I simply disagree. But behind this disagreement is a question about how deep the law's problems really go.
As Walsh and Maxwell (and President Obama) say, Obamacare is more than just a Web site.
More balanced coverage, they believe, would be emphasizing all its other good qualities.
"I was actually happy to see the president come out defiantly in his Rose Garden talk, describing the ACA as 'not just a website' and listing the many benefits it’s already providing," wrote Walsh.
"Obamacare is more than a website," repeats Maxwell.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/25/obamacares-problems-go-much-deeper-than-the-web-site/?tid=pm_business_pop
