O-mama - Opinionated Moms

We’re calling out the media.  We have to, because we’re disappointed in them after the coverage of the healthcare summit.   What we saw on C-SPAN (yes! we watched all 7 hours!) and what we saw as the network and radio analyses of what we saw on C-SPAN made us feel like we were going a little nutso.   

First of all, the media spin up to the meeting had us expecting the Republicans to act like a bunch of pompous, uniformed, buffoons and show America that they are the party of “no.”   I expected the Democrats, on the other hand, to be there “just for show” and to be setting up a scary “trap.” But that’s not what we saw as the summit unfolded.

There were some tense moments, there were some pre-prepared speeches filled with talking points we’d heard before that didn’t seem to be aimed at making headway.  But, overall Republicans and Democrats both seemed to be there to do some work.   The Republicans came off as serious representatives with serious points to make.  An impressive Paul Ryan comes to mind with his intelligent, well thought out arguments backed by actual facts and figures. The Democrats came off as passionate representatives fighting to make healthcare reform a priority for the American people for sane reasons, not big socialist plots to take over the world.  

The problem is that, business meetings don’t make for great TV.  Which is why even reality shows, although “unscripted”, are filled with people who are prompted by producers to act out and say things that are compelling.  Normal business and normal life are not that fun to watch.  This causes a problem for the media, which they did their best to rectify, and in doing so, tainted the spirit of the democratic process that the public was finally able to view first hand. 

The media, in an effort to “spice up” the day’s ratings, we can only assume, did things like replaying sound bites of the one zippy exchange between Obama and McCain, kept a tally of who “won” each talking point, and interpreted facial expressions and body language ad nauseum.   So, if you were one of the millions who couldn’t watch the actual summit, you could only gather through the media’s coverage of the event, that the healthcare reform process continued as per the status quo.  Everyone was at odds, nothing new transpired and it was all an exercise in futility.  We, on the other hand, were surprised by the intelligence, erudition and seriousness our government and elected representatives showed when dealing with one of the most important issues of our time.   Not a buffoon in the bunch.  Will major things in the bill change? Probably not.  But the differences between the two parties was primarily philosophical…they basically agreed on what needed to be fixed.    That gave us, two moms from different ends of the political spectrum, hope that our government is not as “broken” as we’ve been led to believe.  Instead, we’re thinking maybe our media is what is “broken.”