It’s almost over and the media has a big sad. What will they talk about as Congress takes yet another break? Certainly not the many lies sold to them by the GOP this year. That would be embarrassing.
They could squeeze a few more drops of blood out of a website rollout that no one will remember in a year! Oh, yes. PARTY.
ABC isn’t alone in their attempts to portray themselves as serious journalists who will diligently fact check this White House (but not any other White House).
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
Reporters want outside data to confirm that the site is fixed, because the White House might lie to them. Unlike Republicans, whose word apparently is GOLD even though they lied for partisan purposes regarding the IRS “scandal” and the Benghazi “scandal”.
Sure, the media didn’t even bother to vet the anecdotal stories upon which it based the many of its claims that the site wasn’t working, but when the White House says a website is fixed, the media can’t just take their word like they can when a White House says Iraq has WMD.
Oh, gosh no. Especially when the website is so secret and there’s no way of testing it… except for testing it. Or getting a website developer to take a look. Or interviewing an insurance broker who uses it all of the time, like Politicus did. In fact, one can easily fact check these claims- there’s no need to run around screaming about how this administration is probably lying and they are so like Russia with the not allowing the media to take pictures of Obama any time they want and the lack of transparency with this website report.
Of course, if the media actually used the website, they might know that according to those who use it daily to sign people up, it’s been improved for weeks now. No, it’s not perfect and the media should understand that if any entity can.
This isn’t good enough for your fourth estate.
It’s all so very serious journalism to refuse to admit that the website is working much better now. After working as Bush’s stenographers for eight years, the media knows when it spots an easy mark like the ACA website, upon which it can stake its claim of diligent journalism without paying any real cost.
After all, Obama doesn’t come to their parties anyway.
The “liberal bias” of the media is a myth. That’s why they never cared about anyone being denied healthcare coverage until it was a way to undermine healthcare coverage for all. Suddenly being denied coverage is the hottest ticket going.
We have to hand it to Republicans, though, for getting the corporate media to care about people who are being denied healthcare coverage. Only Congressional Republicans, who rarely work, can be taken seriously when concern trolling about a website not working.
Sadly, the GOP hasn’t presented a single idea to address the healthcare crisis that ObamaCare fixes – only that they would like to kick everyone off of ObamaCare and start “over” – as in, repeal and don’t replace, which is also known as the GOP GO DIE plan. Don’t worry – the media won’t care when you die from corporate death panels. No one will cover that, just like they didn’t cover the Iraq war protests and the people being kicked off of corporate insurance plans when they got sick. They are very busy concern trolling the Obama White House for lies about tech glitches — very important, very serious.
This is not diligent journalism. The largest problems facing democracy today are the corporate takeover of our government and elections. A diligent media would take that subject on, but that would require that they clash with Congressional Republicans who are in charge of keeping the media’s corporate overlords unregulated. So let’s stop pretending that this pretense of seriousness is worth anything. It’s not. It’s just another corporate show.
Image: The Journalism Foundation
Listen to Sarah on the PoliticusUSA Pod on The Daily newsletter podcast here.
Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Connect with Sarah on Post, Mastodon @PoliticusSarah@Journa.Host, & Twitter.
