New York Times’ Obama cheerleading harms the nation

New York Post ^ | November 10, 2013 | Michael Goodwin

[Puzzleman]

Poor Barack Obama. Ending his fifth year as the world’s most powerful man, he is running out of scapegoats and fairy tales. Blaming George W. Bush has lost its punch, and the ObamaCare debacle is shredding the myths he is competent and honest.

[USNBandit]

No one has focused on how the media is complicit in all of this. But they very much are.

A really good example of this would be local coverage of the Obamacare rollout. Chances are if your local paper is associated with one of the big paper companies, like McClatchy, they did a story that will sound like the one from my paper.

My local paper just happened to send a reporter to a local "community group" that you aren't told is being paid to sign people up for ACA. Then the article covers two people who work, but don't get coverage. After being helped they have coverage and it is either cheap or free, and everybody lives happily ever after, the end.

When FReepers posted articles from their papers I noticed that they all sounded exactly the same. These articles have faded since the rollout has been so bad, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a replay of this as soon as the website stops making news. The Administration knows they needed to deflect attention from the loss of individual policies with a counter narrative.

[Billthedrill]

Instead of just expressing its own liberal views, the editorial page serves as the propaganda arm of the administration, the Jay Carney of print media.

Whoa - now that one will leave a mark. BTT

[what's up]

The repubs were STUPID for letting them delay part of it

They didn't do it...Obama did.

[GOPJ]

The term ‘ObamaCare’ was invented here too...

[Steve_Seattle]

I think it’s mostly seniors who still watch TV news. I get my local news from my local liberal paper (web version), and supplement that with FR, National Review Online, MSNBC (my default web page), Drudge, Newsbusters, and Breitbart. In five minutes I can expose myself to ten times the stories I’d see by watching TV news for an hour, then I can go back and focus on what interests me.

[Steve_Seattle]

It seems that Obama counted on the news media to do the work of selling the plan. My local media were nothing but cheerleaders the first couple of weeks, before all the problems started to get noticed. Even now, the problems are soft-pedaled and always offset with “good news.” Six weeks into the law, I still have not received one word from the government about what to do, or from any of my liberal congress people. “Oh, well, check the website.” WHICH website? There’s the federal one and the state ones and all the medical insurance companies are running ads for THEIR websites. And what about the millions of people - mostly seniors - who still aren’t on-line?

[Steve_Seattle]

When Bush II was president, the media were just drooling for scandals. Even before he was elected, remember the absurd RATS “scandal” with the so-called subliminal messages? Then the accusations of “adding mercury to the water system” because he ordered a review of a costly last-minute Clinton executive order? The whole overblown Wilson/Plame fiasco? The Thanksgiving turkey scandal? The hunting accident “scandal”? The fired U.S. attorneys scandal? And, of course, “Bush lied, people died.” They never let up.