What Real Media Bias Looks Like (2010)

(Curated post originally published Apr 8 2010)

The subtle ways in which some media outlets will deliberately attempt to manipulate public opinion rather than just reporting the facts never ceases to amaze me.  This article about the health care bill provides an excellent example of what real media bias looks like – the subtle manipulation of public opinion though the use of loaded words and phrases to play on existing fears or create new ones, which in turn feeds conflict and drives interest in the news, which creates profits for the news companies.  A given organization or writer may also unwittingly wear their bias on their sleeve.

Such as this article from McClatchy today:  Health care overhaul spawns mass confusion for public

In this case, a series of reasonably neutral facts are embedded in a story full of negative anecdotes, some of which make deliberate pretense to fact for the sake of adding negative tone.  To wit:

“They’re saying, ‘Where do we get the free Obama care, and how do I sign up for that?’ ” said Carrie McLean, a licensed agent for eHealthInsurance.com

“Obama care” is a buzzphrase for all of the negative hype associated with the health care reform bill, used exclusively by conservative commentators and agitators.  I’ve yet to see a credible news source, or a credible commenter on either side of the issue refer to the bill as “Obama care” (or “Obamacare”).  Further, this is the third paragraph in the article – so one of the first evoked emotions is resentment by the conservative “base” against those evil greedy welfare leeches who want a free ride from ol’ Karl Adolph Obama. [ed. note 2023: this was long before Obama & the left began embracing the label]

So if you already lean conservative on the issue, by the end of paragraph three you’re already pissed.

It continues on with a claim that call centers have been “inundated” with requests from people who think that they have OMGRITENAOFREEDRUGS.  This strikes me as a highly questionably assessment; I participate widely in conversation on this subject with a very diverse group of people and viewpoints, and I’m not sure I’ve heard anyone who thought that the recent health care bill created immediate free health care for everyone…although in an ideal world that’s what it would have effectively done via single-payer.

(Of course if we’re all healthy, then we can think about things other than needing medical care.  Things like how to properly detect bias in ostensibly objective news articles, for instance.  I can’t imagine anyone who would want to prevent THAT…)

Watch the REAL media bias:

• Consumers are cast as “frustrated” and “confused,” the article says, leveraging the power of suggestion to create confusion where there is none (the HCRB is actually pretty strarightforward, considering the scope and source of the thing) and further inflame negative opinion. 
• A “new wave of inquiries” is coming; laid-off workers on COBRA are going to lose funding (cue a bunch of people on unemployment complaining about LOSING their socially subsidized health insurance for the unemployed while simultaneously railing against socialist health care policies).
• A breast cancer survivor (cue sympathy!) is “confused” (oh that poor dear, how could that rotten Obama and his socialist minions have done this!) as to whether she should “try to access private coverage again some day” (Of course she should, if that’s the best option available, and that’s so self-evident as a result of both media coverage and the broad availability of both bill and summaries that I’m forced to wonder if “Ann Wooten” even exists.  Prior to te HCRB, of course, private coverage was the ONLY option other than abject poverty, and it wasn’t an available option at all and never would be to “Ann Wooten” due to her pre-existing condition.)
• The state employee whines about how long the reform will take; a Hollywood Librul AND Furrner shows up to gloat down his nose at the rabble because he has good insurance through his labor union; small business owners are cast as confused and lost and at risk of cost increases or fines, with vague suggestions of IRS entanglements and labor cuts to “contain costs” – and of course “containing costs” implies that there are new costs to be “contained,” costs that will of course be well in excess of current costs.  The problem is there’s no data to support that implication.
  • One of my favorite passages: 
    Dimarob said many small businesses wouldn’t be able to participate. First they must do research to see whether they qualify. “It requires them to understand the intricacies,” she said.
    
    What I love about this is that it’s completely meaningless, but it SOUNDS scary.  “Many?”  What is “many?”  Is that a majority percentage?  Or is it “five,” which is indeed many but sure isn’t much among the millions of small businesses in this country?  The great thing is, I can’t find a provision anywhere that would prevent ANY small business from participating – indeed, one of the biggest complaints about this bill is that PARTICIPATION IS MANDATORY.  So how the hell are small businesses going to “not be able to participate?”  Uh-oh…look out, Joe, here come the INTRICACIES for you to have to sort through!  OMG WHY DOES GOVERNMENT MAKE RUNNING A BUSINESS SO HARRRRRRD?

All of the above aspects of the article add to an overall negative tone – this health care bill is clearly confusing, expensive, and puts at risk the ability of small business (HI JOE THE PLUMBER!) to hire employees and pay their bills.  It makes cancer patients exhaust themselves trying to run the maze of regulation; it leaves parents unable to cover their adult children all the way until SEPTEMBER!!!  It forces small business owners to deal with more paperwork and “intricacies!”  It’s so EVULLLL!

But it’s not just about accentuating the negative – you also have to negate the positive.  Our intrepid reporter accomplishes this with aplomb, leaving no positive aspect of this legislation untouched by her blighted point of view:

• Rather than parents grateful for the ability to cover their kids an extra eight years, they’re parents who “have heard” that they can do this, “however” they have to wait until September.
• Every single positive statement about the new law or the administration is delivered with a qualifier.  Every.  Single.  One. 
  “The administration is launching a public education campaign, BUT…”
  ”Parents can cover currently ineligible children, HOWEVER…”
  “Those with good coverage aren’t worried, BUT…” 
  “He explained many highlights…[h]owever..”
• The software engineer who defends the bill’s clarity – the only person quoted who had anything positive to say about it – still has his caveats about detail. 
• Obama has been “touting” a tax credit for small business…note how nasty that sounds, as opposed to the actual objective fact:  Obama has discussed small business tax credits along with the rest of the bill, because it’s now the law and people need to understand it and as President part of his job is to try to help people understand it because he’s the number one talking head in the country.  But rather than that, let’s choose words and phrases that a) make this sound like it’s still one mans quixotic crusade rather than a matter of accomplished federal law and b) then make the president sound like a snake-oil salesman “touting” the latest nostrum.
• And of course, the president has been traveling to “talk to ordinary Americans.”  Because of course he couldn’t be “explaining” or “meeting” with people – he’s got to be “talking to” them, like a professor or a judge…and let’s not forget that the President is anything but an “ordinary American,” shall we?

And then the same people who read this article as though it’s an example of objective, fact-based reporting sit and sneer at how dumb the people quoted in the article are for not realizing that their communist dreams of a free ride at the expense of us good, christian, white people who pay taxes are in vain.

This is what our political discourse has come to, and this is why.  If we don’t start using our heads for something other than a place to put our iPod ear buds, we will continue getting the government, and the country, that we’ve earned.