FAIR’s latest Action Alert (4/23/10) concerns the Frontline program Obama’s Deal, which not only didn’t mention the single-payer proposal, but misrepresented single-payer advocates as proponents of a public option. You can leave copies of your messages to Frontline, or comments on the alert, in the comments thread of this post.
To PBS:
Recent coverage on Frontline of health care misrepresents advocates of single-payer, medicare for all health care as proponents of a “public option”. The two are not the same, as you well know. Medicare is not a “public option” for seniors, it is THE health insurance plan for them.
Your inaccurate reporting on this issue shuts out the views of millions of Americans who advocate medicare for all, and whose voices have been effectively silenced in the corporate media throughout the national debate on health care. If you wish to be our *Public* Broadcasting System, and not a mouthpiece for corporate insurance barons, you must do better than this.
Sincerely,
Joel Hildebrandt
To: frontline@pbs.org
CC: ombudsman@pbs.org
I am a supporter of a single-payer health care system like most civilized
countries offer. I can’t see why anyone in their right mind would not support
single-payer unless they were being paid not to. I understand that the
insurance companies are being paid not to, they make millions of dollars from
victimizing the weak and sick. I get that. But why does PBS in general, and
Frontline in particular, not support or at least deal fairly with the
single-payer concept? Why does Frontline systematically misrepresent and
marginalize single-payer advocates, as in the Obama’s Deal program? I can
only guess that PBS is being paid not to. And if PBS is being paid not to
deal fairly with my interests, I’m certainly not going to give them money, too!
I would be a natural supporter of PBS were it not carrying the water for the
corporations that seek to victimize me. It’s a shame.
-Peter Langston
Seattle, WA
Dear Frontline:
I have been a long time Frontline fan as a source of public service for the truth.
However, since Health Care Reform began through the Obama Administration, culminating with Frontline’s “Obama’s Deal,” I have been more and more shocked and disheartened by the blantant
distortions and outright lies of Frontline in relaying the news to the American people.
By completely ignoring, completely denying and refusing to voice the huge popular viewpoint in support of a Single Payer solution to our health care problem, and twisting this support into the lie and watered down version of “public option,” is outrageous.
It smells of Rat and makes me wonder if you all are also in line to line your pockets and are bought off like the others who have sold their souls and have chosen self interest over Shared interest.
Your actions reflect how our Democracy and our very existence is on the brink of collapse.
Sincerely,
JoAnn Nelson
A MODERATE –someone who is aware of our (“American”) human condition as we pass through this particular era of “civilization” (or lack thereof.)
I wonder whether we might have been able to get a real health care system in this country if PBS had given the Single Payer proponents a fair hearing.
As a long time but now disaffected supporter of KQED, I can only tell you that Ed Radenzell would be ashamed of you.
Carolyn Scarr
I was deeply disappointed in the lack of reporting on the very strong, single payer national health care movement from your Obama’s Deal frontline episode. When the pubic is asked if they would prefer a national health program that covered everyone even if it meant an increase in taxes, consisently there is a majority that say, “Yes.” And you weren’t hard enough on Karen Ignami of AHIP. She’s a snake in grass and I trust the snake more. You did show the political realities but leaving out the very strong fear of the single payer movement and how that influenced everyone was unfortunate. The last thing the insurance companies want is single payer and the politicians are afraid to support single payer even though most Americans want it because they don’t want to lose health insurance money for their campaigns. That’s the real story: 45 million Americans die unnecessarily each year from preventable illness because they lack the means to pay for it. National health care is the new abolition and those opposed to it will be seen in the same light as those who opposed the abolitionist movement. That’s the real story. You’re missing it. Horse-race news isn’t very helpful longterm
Your recent program Obama’s Deal should
have accurately explained the views of single-payer
advocates. Irresponsible journalism at best.
Back to CNN.
Frank Thompson
Ruidoso, New Mexico
Dear Frontline:
It was irresponsible of you to portray Single Payer advocates as Public Option advocates when you covered the Health Care Reform bill on April 13. Physicians for National Health Care is an organization that promotes Single Payer, i.e. Government-provided Health Insurance for all, NOT a public option. While it’s true many Single Payer advocates favored a public option in the health care bill, many did not – and their views ought not to be conflated with Public Option advocates.
There are many more sides to health care reform than the simplistic view portrayed in mainstream commercial media. I would have thought Frontline had more journalistic integrity than to misrepresent the views of Single-Payer advocates in order to better fit into an artificial construct of what views should be covered.
To the Ombudsman:
Another disappointing Frontline episode. Sick in America was bad and this was hardly better. To misrepresent Dr. Flowers and the single payer protestors at the Baucus hearing as public option supporters was wrong. Single payer is supported by the majority of Americans – as long as it’s described for what it is – not by it’s name of single payer. The American public is so far ahead of our elected officials on this. One important element missing was that single payer got put off the table because of health insurance companies campaign donations. Politicians want to get re-elected and insurance companies are big contributors. Maybe if Frontline does a show on the corrupting influence of campaign money they could highlight single payer as a good example of where the majority of Americans are for a policy but won’t get it because of campaign money from health insurance companies. I don’t know if you all know how bad it is in the average American household when it comes to the cost of health insurance and health care. There is a solution that is both morally and economically best: single payer. It’s backed by two Nobel Prize winners in Economics: Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz – yet barely a mention of this model. No other industrialized nation has a system like ours. They all have some form of national health care. They pay half as much per person and have as good or better outcomes as we do and the only real difference is that they don’t allow for-profit health insurance companies to play a major role in their systems. These countries are all democracies – they could change their systems with votes – but they don’t. American needs more accurate reporting on national health care – not more shows on political horse race power struggles.
I hope you will encourage Frontline to have more relevant and useful health care reform programs in the future.
My letter to Frontline:
Dear Frontline,
I was greatly disappointed with the inaccuracies in your “Obama’s Deal” piece. Your mischaracterization of the intent of the PNHP protest at the Baucus hearing and your twisting of MSNBC host Ed Schultz’s support of single-payer health care are important falsities. I hope you tell your listeners the truth about this, but then, the cat is out of the bag, isn’t it!
Mr. Getler,
I am a stalwart single payer activist and advocate, and I am disappointed that Frontline would unfairly mischaracterize one of the most recognizable proponents of single payer health care reform as a supporter of the public option. In fact, Bill Moyer’s Journal aired an interview with Dr. Flowers after she was arrested trying to meet with President Obama to discern why he was ignoring single payer as a legitimate option in the health care reform debate. To subsequently air a segment that did not explicitly mention the nature of Dr. Flowers’ single payer advocacy, and instead grouped her with supporters of a â┚¬Ã…“public optionâ┚¬Ã‚ lacked the journalistic integrity I would expect from Frontline.
I think you owe Frontline viewers an apology for redacting substantive context from your coverage of the health care reform debate.
Regards,
Robin Wilt
Rochester, NY
OBAMA’S DEAL How come you didn’t include Single Payer and all of us who were fighting for it in your documentary?
Also a little more clarity in explaining differences between proposals and what people really want etc. would have been helpful, as well as coverage of the Big Insurance Money going into the coffers of the most powerful players.
Sincerely, LMS
Dear Frontline
I am an avid viewer and I watched the program, “Obama’s Deal”. I was left scratching my head at the confusion between Single Payer and a Public Option as presented in the program. I am a Registered Nurse and it was my fellow nurses who were among those shouting down Senator Baucus at the Senate Finance committee. I was there in Washington that week as we protested and marched and lobbied for Single Payer. I feel the program does a disservice to those nurses and doctors who have promoted a solution for healthcare that has not been justly debated. I would hope in the future that Frontline better present the facts and if possible correct these mistakes.
Richard Sandness, RN
to frontline@pbs.org
cc ombudsman@pbs.org
After considering Frontline’s continued censure of even a discussion of single-payer as a viable option for health care in America, one can only surmise that Frontline has joined CNN, Fox and other “mainstream” media in representing only private interests and not those of their viewers.
The failure by Frontline to even use the words “single-payer” is insulting and frustrating to the millions of knowledgeable Americans who are familiar with and endorse single-payer. Those of us who consider single-payer the most democratic and cost-effective avenue to meaningful health care reform can not be lumped in with supporters of a public option. The plans are dissimilar as are their goals. Whereas single-payer is focused on the patient, the goal of the public option was to expand insurance — not health care — while protecting the profit-focused plan.
Kathlyn Stone
St. Paul, MN
TO: Frontline
As a regular viewer of Frontline, I’m distressed that what has been a proud journalistic tradition has, once again, been watered down. I count on Frontline to provide factually accurate and comprehensive coverage of the critical issues of our day, and generally, I am satisfied. But over the past year I have become increasingly unhappy with the work of Frontline. In particular the failure of your reports “Sick Around America” and “Obama’s Deal” to honestly cover the full debate over health care reform. Specifically the seemingly intentional exclusion of the entire Universal Single-Payer movement from the narrative has left me frustrated and angry. I now have to wonder what other critical elements have been left out of other programs? I’m used to mainstream media mis-characterizing, and mis-representing the role of Single-payer in our national debate on healthcare, and with other issues as well, but for frontline to fail in this way …. as I said, I’m deeply distressed.
J. Michael Gilbreath
Wayland, MA
Dear Frontline producers and staff:
I am extremely disappointed in your incomplete and misleading coverage of the health care reform debates In your “Obama’s Deal” program. Your lack of even a mention–let alone accurate coverage–of the single-payer movement, as well as your leaving the mistaken impression that some single-payer advocates were instead advocating for a public option, leaves me without confidence in your reporting and your journalistic standards.
And characterizing those wanting to include single-payer in the discussion as displaying “liberal outrage” without even mentioning the substance of or reasons for such opinions is not what I have come to expect from PBS in general or Frontline in particular.
How can the public (as in “public broadcasting system”) trust you, and how is this type of program serving the public interest?
Regards,
Harry D. Corsover, Ph.D.
Castle Rock, CO
I, too, am shocked by the Frontline special, “Obama’s Deal” and its misrepresentation of the facts about the single payer movement. Is PBS now selling American citizens and our country out, too?
If this kind if dishonest reportage continues, you’ll certainly never get another dollar from this PBS supporter. Your political views are consistently being watered down and slanted to support corrupt corporate interests, rather than the public and our interests. You cannot claim to be broadcasting for the public, when you are so obviously representing corporate interests.
This is the final straw! For me, it will now be almost impossible for Frontline to remove this new layer of tarnish from its once peerless reputation. It started ten years ago with their strongly biased reporting in favor of Bush over Gore. If you recall, they repeatedly showed pictures of a bleary eyed Al Gore in Viet Nam and then went to the other extreme with Bush, portraying him as a fine young fighter jet pilot; with no word about his draft dodging with the Texas National Guard, or his DWI of his suspected AWOL. The treatment they gave Kerry four years later wasn’t much better.
I guess that most of what Frontline does is still of a high caliber, but being betrayed on these vital news stories will be hard to forgive and forget. It colors everything going forward. Sad.
Your recent show “Obama’s deal” gave the false impression that Margaret Flowers was protesting in support of the “public option.” I’m surprised by this, because she told you clearly when interviewed that she was in favor of single-payer health care – quite different from the public option.
You should apologize to your viewers for being dishonest about such an important issue.
Dear PBS:
Your recent program on Frontline featuring Obama’s Deal should have accurately explained the views of single-payer advocates. With all the distorted facts on Fox and MSNBC, I rely on Public Broadcasting to get a fair reporting of the news. You let us down with your reporting on this one.
Sally Miller
Lansing, MI
TO FRONTLINE (with CC TO PBS OMBUDSMAN):
As supporters of PBS since 1972, and longtime fans of FRONTLINE, we were shocked by the failure of Obama’s Deal to present honestly the view of millions of Americans (like us!) who favor Single-Payer Medicare-for-All health care.
In your one-hour documentary, surely you could have spared 5 minutes to interview someone from Physicians for National Health Care (PNHC) who could explain that Single-Payer is more comprehensive and less costly than the other “reform” plans covered by the program.
Is PBS too beholden to its corporate sponsors to report the truth? If so, why should “People Like You” (meaning people like us) continue to renew our annual support for PBS?
Your recent program Obama’s Deal distorted the health care debate, by portraying supporters of Single Payer (health care for all) as supporters of the ‘public option’.
Yes, you made it clear that the health insurance industry bought off corrupt Senators like Max Baucus, but you erased the most significant movement to guarantee health care to everyone and eliminate the insurance industry from health care.
The health insurance companies are parasites- they get rich while they deprive millions of Americans of access to the care we need.
President Obama and his corporate Democrat advisors like Rahm Emanuel did their best to keep single payer ‘off the table’ , and they apparently succeeded even more than they’d hoped. It is pathetic when a PBS special on health care doesn’t mention HR 676, the Conyers sponsored single payer bill, which had 93 co-sponsors in the House .
Journalism in the US has gotten worse and worse. It’s extremely unfortunate when a PBS show isn’t able to do an adequate job of covering a central issue in American politics.
Please- you can do much better.
Honestly,
Here is my complaint to Frontline:
i watched Frontline’s program on Obama’s deals with much eagerness. When I saw the Baucus 8 featured I was pleased that, at last, single payer advocates were getting to state their case. It is only in retrospect that I realize Margaret Flowers and Wendell Potter, both single payer advocates, were portrayed as public option proponents. I just re-watched the program online and the words “single payer” are never uttered.
I expect Frontline to correct this error of omission.
The concept “single payer” was anathema to the Administration. The only sensible solution to our healthcare problems was kept “off the table” because the single payer rationale is so convincing. We could cover everyone in this country, cut costs now and control cost escalation going forward. We could cut our deficit and save our economy. The economists in democracies such as France, Canada and Taiwan are not stupid.
The current bill is a bailout to insurers who will take our taxpayer-funded subsidies and laugh all the way to the bank!
Harriette Seiler
Louisville, KY
PS: I also object to the use of Tom Daschle as a source. He has been discredited.
to: ombudsman@pbs.org
subject: PBS once again shamefully succumbs to pressure from corporate overlords on the health insurance issue.
Dear Michael Getler,
First PBS edits out T.R. Reid’s most important fact from his documentary causing him to remove his name from the project. That fact: America is the ONLY industrialized country where selling primary health insurance for profit is illegal. (source: Thom Hartmann Radio Show)
Now PBS has distorted FRONTLINE’s latest piece, Obama’s Deal. Why was a decision made to edit an interview with a single-payer advocate and footage of single-payer protesters to make them appear to be activists for a public option instead? (Source: FAIR, Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting)
What has this country come to when we can’t even trust PBS not to distort the facts?
“Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.” ~ Benito Mussolini
Ohâ┚¬Ã‚¦ that.
Saying that I am disappointed is a severe understatement.
Charell W. Charlie
Pico Rivera, California
Dear Sir:
I am extremely upset that you have omitted covering the single payer option
accurately. I have always looked to PBS, and Frontline, to provide more honest
and complete coverage of issues. Also, the single payer option is actually the
BEST option, and one which is even now on the ballot in California. It is not the
same as the public option. Just because we have passed a watered down
compromise for health insurance coverage is no reason to completely forget
single payer, which is the system we must still work toward, and the one that
is in effect in most advanced democratic countries.
I am very disappointed in your coverage. I hope you will cover this extremely
important issue better in the future.
Sincerely,
Jane Hirsch
Pacific Palisades, CA 90272
Frontline: another instrument and tool of fraudulent news working for the current Criminal Health Care System made worse by recently passed HCR Bill.
Shame on Frontline.
edgar a. lopez md. facs.
40206
Copy of email to Frontline:
I am puzzled as to why you would utterly disregard and exclude any mention of Single Payer (Medicare for All) advocates in your program on the health care debate and the pitiful legislation that resulted. Congressional leaders said it was “not on the table” but their stance is easily explained, follow the money: big donations to the campaigns of politicians. But I assume you have not received money from the insurance industry or Big Pharma. Why do you exclude a significant proposal supported by a majority of Americans, as polls show when the question is framed fairly. Shame on you.
Jim Simons
Austin. TX
Frontline;
I, along with millions of Americans, believe that a single-payer health insurance plan would be best for America. I’m disappointed and disgusted that corporate interests have influenced the choice of content that Frontline has chosen to include in its reporting. Does Frontline have any idea how many Americans are in favor of single-payer health insurance? If the proportion of the program allotted to discussing a plan was equal to the proportion of the American public in favor of that plan and it was only one percent, the time allotted would be about 30 seconds.
What I would like to see is a program that discusses the politics of pushing single-payer off the table of Obama’s deal makers and of the politics of leaving mention of it out of the Frontline program. I would find it hard to believe that they were both not a political decision.
Ken Molinkiewicz
To PBS:
PBS ombudsman Michael Getler is exactly correct about this “mistake” (ignoring single payer healthcare); he writes:
It seems to me that to ignore something that was out there and popular with millions of people and thousands of healthcare professionals, but not really on the table, was a mistake. Although obviously tight on time, the producers should have found 30 seconds to take this into account, because many Americans support it, yet the deal makers never mention it, nor is the politics of discarding it addressed.
Why on earth is PBS contributing to the media-made falsehood that single-payer doesn’t exist? It is the clear preference of a majority of citizens and a majority of healthcare providers.
Don Porter
To Whom it May Concern,
I am extremely disappointed. Your recent program, Obama’s Deal, should have accurately and clearly explained the views of single-payer advocates. I am such an advocate, having lived in the pre-Thatcher UK.
The notion that we should employ insurance companies and other for-profit entities in the delivery of health care is immoral.
Sincerely,
Meredith Richmond
106 Main St.
Battle Ground, IN 47920-0059
To PBS/Frontline,
My family, several generations, are what I’d consider “core audience” members of PBS. We’ve made donations of cash and time over the years as we value journalism free from corporate interference. You have failed by that measure on several occasions in coverage of healthcare reform. Your recent program, Obama’s Deal, and the selective editing to misrepresent the views of those interviewed left us with the feeling we’d just seen a Fox News Lite program. Medicare for all the “single payer” phrase you censored, would cost Americans a FRACTION of what’s being stolen from them with each monthly insurance premium. Let’s be honest-insurers are the only industry to routinely and legally kill Americans through rescission, that the democrats would pimp our entire nation out to them is the ultimate toss beneath the bus. Funny, but if Obama hadn’t gone on the networks and committed the bald faced lie of saying single payer had NEVER been part of his platform just a week before the Massachusetts special election I guarantee Teds seat would still be held by democrats. There’s a lesson here not yet fully played out. Scott Brown should never have been more than a footnote to that race. But, people in Massachusetts have experienced mandated insurance coverage and know full well what it means to be serfs to the insurance cabal and saw right where Obama was steering us towards. We sent the message we didn’t want to work for insurers. Now our premiums-ours went up 60% a friends 71% in one year-will be laundered by BCBS, Wellpoint, etc. and slipped into pockets all over DC to beat down any attempts at an honest reform of what’s surely the cruelest industry in America. We worked our tails off sweeping the blue thru all 3 houses and this is what we get, how disgraceful and very very sad to see that you, too, are part of this deception.
Regards,
Scott Plantier
Terry Carlo
Sophie Carlo
Herbert Forslund
Thomas Plantier
Dorene Plantier
DJ Plantier
AND I THOUGHT PBS WAS ABOVE MANIPULATED REPORTING.!
Big mistake implying in â┚¬Ã…“Obama’s Dealâ┚¬Ã‚Â, the recent Frontline presentation, that health reformers arrested during the Baucas hearings were for the Public Option. You swallowed the Beltway’s interpretation of what happened and why, rather than listening to the people who protested. As a 12-year health reformer and health professional, I can say your assumption was wrong. Personally, I know the health professionals arrested and they are avid supporters of Single Payer, or as we are willing to call it, Medicare for All. They were not there to support any old public option the White House was cooking up. Real reformers want the private insurance companies excised from the health care picture all together. Insurance companies as brokers deliver no direct care.
As I remember, Frontline also produced T.R. Reid’s commentary which compared health care in France, Taiwan, Japan, England, and Switzerland. Did anyone in your company bother to watch it and learn? Obama’s health reform has very little to do with modeling itself on any of those successful health care alternatives. Mr. Reid understands the concept of universal care and withdrew from this project because he did not approve of â┚¬Ã…“the widely reported topic journalismâ┚¬Ã‚ PBS used as an excuse for its bias. The Frontline in question is commentary, not confirmed factual reporting.
Obama care is insurance reform, not health reform. It’s more of the same thing we already have in the US. It doesn’t go far enough to solve the problem of getting health care access for everyone and it does nothing substantive to cap health costs, insurance company profits, costs of drugs, or remedy portability over the entire country with one basic standard. Had the government not tossed away all its bargaining chips so early by escorting the health insurance industry and pharmaceutical companies through the front door of the White House, perhaps all of us would be up to speed on the difference between Single Payer and the Public Option and the health reform mess we still have.
I expect better from PBS, even in its commentary pieces. It is just one more example of the lack of depth in reporting today in the US. The Beltway was scared to death of Single Payer, because had it been given a real chance to get a fair comparison side-by-side with all the weaker proposals that went into the present Obama care, it would have been the winning solution, hands down. Single Payer has had years to get it right through research and involvement of real health professionals rather than political strategists. It’s refined and ready for prime time. If I had presented Obama care as a solution/ plan to a well assessed problem in US health care (not health insurance reform), I would have gotten an â┚¬Ã…“Fâ┚¬Ã‚ from my Nursing professors in school. Single Payer would have gotten me the â┚¬Ã…“A.â┚¬Ã‚Â
Sincerely,
Jan Howe, RN,BSN, PHN, BA
Member of the California Nurses Association, Health Care of All, California Alliance of Retired Americans, League of Women Voters â┚¬“ California, Contra Costa County Commission on Aging, all of whom support Single Payer SB 810 (Leno)
To: ombudsman@pbs.org
Subject: standards/manipulation
Date: Apr 24, 2010 8:06 PM
dear sir,
the kind of manipulation described in: “Frontline Edits Out Single-Payer
Documentary misrepresented advocates as supporters of a public option” 4/23/10 (the FAIR website), is the sort we normally associate with FOX NEWS, frank luntz, and – if your memory is long enough – donald segretti.
if you dispute the factual accuracy of this report, i’d appreciate a response detailing such.
i personally stopped donating to pbs/opb several years ago, when it became obvious that the desire to please underwriters had compromised your effective objectivity. but this, as described by FAIR, reaches an entirely new level of affront to journalistic standards.
i look forward to your response, in the hope that a reasonable explanation exists.
sincerely yours,
j culver
portland or
What am i missing? I thought single payer and public option were the same thing… or, at the very least, they are not mutually exclusive! Medicare is a single payer plan.
mb medwid
Like most Americans, I’m deeply concerned about the affordability and access issues surrounding health care. I’ve made my decision: this country desperately needs to join the civilized world, by providing single-payer care. For me, the so-called “public option” is a half-baked proposal that’s hard to support with any enthusiasm. But when you pretend that the only meaningful debate is between public-option supporters and status-quo supporters — when you pretend that single-payer isn’t worthy of a serious look — you’re selling out your mission, I’m sorry to say. Please don’t dumb down the public TV audience; open up the debate, and the story. Help democracy work.
It has come to my attention that you deliberately mis-represented the statements and positions of single payer advocates on your recent Frontline program, Obama’s Deal.
While people (and regular watchers) like me were willing to accept the public option as a compromise for what we know is the better and most financially
responsible way to provide the whole American population with health care, we are very upset that PBS never gives a full hearing–except by Bill Moyers–to our point of view and that, further, you discredit both single payer and public option supporters by calling us “left of center” and similar terms.
Polls repeatedly show (or used to, before the media started distorting the picture) that most Americans know that single payer is the best idea. PBS is becoming–like our politicians–all too comfortable with the corporate power structures in our country. You are losing credibility and support from people like me.
Marguerite Rosenthal, Ph.D.
I understand PBS’s Frontline found a new way to edit out Single Payer and Medicare For All “on the April 13 special Obama’s Deal–by selectively editing an interview with a single-payer advocate and footage of single-payer protesters to make them appear to be activists for a public option instead”.
Kenneth Tomlinson’s legacy still carries on with CPB, NPR, and PBS. George W. Bush earliest appointments in 2001 involved major changes to take over the public trust and he appointed Kenneth Tomlinson as head of CPB. Tomlinson did not disappoint Bush. He turned a very respected public broadcasting forum into the “Reader’s Digest” of the airways. Bill Moyer was pushed off the programs, but luckily he was able to return. Many of the newscasters quit the News program “MacNeil/Laird Evening News” shortly after Tomlinson’s take over.
The Kenneth Tomlinson’s Legacy continues even after he was found to be using CPB funds to buy racehorses and other expensive personal items.
Now we are hearing that Frontline has been compromising and distorting facts. Will any integrity and trust be left of Public Broadcasting after Bush and Tomlinson?
Murray Pender
Dear friends,
I am an American citizen resident in Canada. I am grateful that as a legal resident here, I have the benefit of the Canadian health care coverage. I have been following the efforts in the U.S. to achieve universal health care, and believe that the single-payer model would bring that about most effectively. The public-option model is a watered-down version that would cost the government, and therefore tax-payers more money, and help health care consumers less.
Your recent program Obama’s Deal did not accurately explained the views of single-payer advocates. It conflated public option and single-payer. As a strong supporter of the single-payer model, I am disappointed that Frontline has ignored this opportunity to help people understand the nuances of single-payer health care.
You dropped the ball, and I hope you find a way to make up for it.
To Frontline and Michael Getler:
It has been common in the media to not cover the cry for a single-payer system….to just ignore it and stay silent on the subject. But I recently learned that PBS, through some creative editing, managed to use interviews of single-payer advocates and instead make it seem as though they were advocating for a public option. That is manipulative and deceptive and I find it outrageous. I always thought that that kind of thing was beneath PBS. Other news organizations are beholden to their corporate masters and we somewhat expect that kind of behavior, but the “P” in PBS is “public” the last time I checked, which means you are beholden to only the public interest. I believe the public would be interested in an accurate, unedited, objective view of reality.
PBS should have accurately represented the views of those advocating for a single-payer health care system.
Regards,
Kris Berthold
April 26, 2010
Written to PBS ombudsman
Dear Ombudsman:
This is the letter I’ve sent to: frontline@pbs.org
‘I’ve just returned from living overseas (New Zealand) that has a Direct Service Health Care system. When I returned and listened to the debate, read the polls and listened to the media it seems that the voices of many people who would like a direct service health care (Universal HC such as VA or Indian Health) were intentionally ignored.
So were those who wanted: Single Payer and even Public Option. The entire media/polls focused on ‘opposition’ as only against ‘Big Government’.
Your programs have added to the confusion and given inaccurate representation.
Shame on your organization’.
After recently watching, Frontline’s “Obama’s Deal” I was quite disturbed by the manner in which the health care debate was presented throughout the show. Though, I no longer not find it particularly upsetting when the corporate mainstream media makes such grotesque misrepresentations of the facts, I had expected more integrity from a PBS program. Indeed, I was very much saddened and disheartened to watch Frontline engage in the same dishonest reporting practices. Most offensive was the omission of the concept of a single-payer health care system. The episode neglects entirely to even mention the single-payer system, a system that enjoys the support of a wide margin if not the majority of Americans according to numerous polls. Instead, the show chose to inaccurately portray single-payer advocates as supporters of the public option, a different kind of system altogether. On the contrary, the efforts of the anti-health care reform activists and their raucous town hall meetings, first brought into the national spotlight by the corporate mainstream media, were revisited in great detail leaving unsuspecting viewers with the misleading impression that such reactionary views are widespread and representative of most Americans. If PBS and Frontline wish to preserve and perhaps regain their reputation as trusted and authoritative sources of news and information, I would suggest that they characterize people and issues accurately and factually, thereby functioning as the genuine journalistic institutions that are so integral to a functioning democratic society.
Michael Getler
PBS ombudsman
Mr. Getler,
Well PBS has done it again, first with Sick In America, and now even more egregiously with Frontline’s, Obama’s Deal. Why has this network so badly debased its once sterling reputation? With this last one, PBS didn’t simply fail to fairly and accurately present the views of single-payer advocates. It smeared them as petty leftists mounting a “counterattack” out of “outrage” at being left out. As a long-time proponent of single-payer funding for American health care, I was personally insulted, and as a concerned citizen I am deeply troubled that such a trusted and important institution has been so thoroughly misused to propagandize against anything of such great importance to the American people.
And Ed Schultz — one of the most fierce proponents of single-payer, in broadcasting — they used his own voice to lie, fabricating an opinion diametrically opposed to his true opinion…. SHAME!
Dear Police Bullsh*t Sycophants (PBS):
F you.
Sincerely,
One of the many Americans who will be pointing and laughing when you’re swinging from a lamp post
Dear Frontline:
It is extremely disappointing that you couldn’t even give a minute of your show to explain that single payer wasn’t even being discussed. When I was told Frontline had done this, I was shocked, because I remember seeing the “Sick Around the World” show with T R Reid a couple years ago, and figured Frontline would understand the importance of this distinction.
I am author of a single payer bill in the Minnesota Senate, and have over a third of the legislature (73 House and Senate members) as co-authors. Yet, the media pays scant attention to the issue, and one would think it is similar to every other form of health insurance legislation. I urge you to pay more attention to this issue.
Please recognize that we rely on Frontline for fairness and accuracy.
John Marty
Further information: http://mnhealthplan.org/faq.html
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Dear Frontline:
Affordable health is perhaps one of the top three issues facing this nation today. Not giving a fair depiction to the single-payer option does our nation a disservice.
Sincerely,
Naoko Shibusawa
Cranston, Rhode Island
You can watch the full episode of “Obama’s Deal” online here:
http://www.pbs.me/
Click on the FRONTLINE Icon.
Lets start over on public television & radio. Stop contributing. The News Hour & NPR are so not!