In a climate of political controversy there are bound to be news missteps. But given the criticisms about health care changes, it is reasonable to assume falsehoods about it might be advanced.
An example of advancing falsehoods is an alleged Obama response to a blogger about healthcare. The “news” was initiated by Sean Hannity of Fox News,
then repeated by the Heritage Foundation’s Foundry, the Drudge Report and Rush Limbaugh. These news sources are associated with conservative opinions consistently, and according to political and newspaper fact-checkers, so could there be political bias?
It's also reasonable to fact-check the “information” put forth that President Obama, on a conference call with bloggers about health care reform legislation, said with respect to a question about private health insurance becoming illegal under it, "You know, I have to say that I am not familiar with the provision you're talking about."
Media Matters has done fact-checking and revealed how facts have been twisted, taken out of context and repeated.
“In fact, Obama did not make such a statement," says Media Matters, as he was referring not to the legislation but to false information being put out that the bill would do away with private health insurance. He wasn’t familiar with it because it wasn’t true.
In the comments to which the Fox News hosts were referring, Obama was responding to a blogger who asked him to comment on a claim made in a July 15 Investor's Business Daily editorial -- which Media Matters for America has noted
is false -- that the bill, in the blogger's words, "will make individual private medical insurance illegal." Obama responded, "You know, I have to say that I am not familiar with the provision you're talking about." What he was responding to was the fact he was not familiar with this false claim.
Still the false information, along with blogger follow-ups, is repeated by those who did not fact check the direct source material. For in the source material, Investors Daily is not the Obama quote but the statement about private medical insurance being declared illegal under provisions of the new healthcare bill, something that is not true according to those familiar with the legislation.
Bloggers from
the right and
citizen journalists have followed up, and citing the same false source without bothering to check the facts, as Media Matters did.
There is a tendency to make mistakes in writing or rewriting news where facts are not readily available, which occurs both with mainstream and citizen journalists. On the other hand, consistent, intentional falsehoods are
looked at unfavorably in reporting.
Critical reading of the news is recommended as a result, which can mean in that familiar phrase “consider the source” as discovered after investigating this issue.
