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Sunday, February 28, 2010

CNN Summarizes Health Care Summit in 2 Minutes - What Could Go Wrong?

CNN must be fearful that Barack Obama didn't fare very well in the health care summit last week. They put together a summary for those who missed the 7 hour summit condensing it into a two minute recap of the entire event. Surely they must realize when they are picking and choosing specific soundbites from an event of that length they are editorializing. If they realize they are editorializing you might think a news agency would make that point clearly. Don't strain yourself watching for such an admission, however.  It's missing along with the other 6 hours and 58 minutes they cut to make this summary.

You won't see a single word Paul Ryan uttered proclaiming the health care reform a fiscal train wreck. You won't see Obama cutting off Republicans as they are making clear arguments against the current proposed health care reform and offer reasoned and thoughtful alternatives. Nor will you see Democrats suffering from "annectdotitis" relating stories from constituents who wear their dead sister's teeth when dental coverage is not at issue.

What we do see is a montage of soundbites from Republicans suggesting they start over along with a few snarky responses from Obama on the use of the 2400 page bill as a prop. Worse still, is a montage of seemingly sincere Democrats suggesting there are many areas of agreement between the two sides followed by another montage of Republicans pointing to significant differences. The segment is concluded with Obama's final ultimatum. Having watched nearly all of the 7 hour summit, I would have summarized the event entirely differently. My summary would have been equally biased, perhaps even more so.   Then again I freely admit my bias, maybe it is time for CNN to do the same.



Related at Hot Air "CNN: We need a radical procedure to save the ObamaCare patient"
Cross posted at Potluck

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