I
chose the topic of apologia within the context of the ACA. The artifacts I
chose were comments to media coverage of the Obama apology speech to those
persons who lost their health insurance and for the website snafu.
Apparently
the President made certain promises that persons who have health care plans
they like, would not lose them under the Affordable Care Act (ACA, Obamacare).
As it turns out there were so many people who lost their health insurance that
the President found it necessary to make a speech to apologize to them.
For
example, even though it is my ex-wife’s legal obligation, according to a court
order, to provide health insurance for our children, she can no longer get
insurance for them because they do not live with her.
Also,
the ACA contains a deadline to make the application before a tax penalty takes
effect. A website or web network was established in order to accept the
applications of some 114million plus
households and 27
million businesses in the U.S. The website had crashes and other serious
problems leaving millions unable to apply for health care. So the net effect of
the ACA appears to be that currently less people have health care than before
its enactment. These website problems were also a subject of Obama’s apology.
In
doing my research for this blog, I wanted to get a well-rounded set of
opinions. So I tried to find both pro-Obama (pro-ACA) and anti-Obama (anti-ACA)
articles with reader comments. I think I heard the little voice inside my head
say “Good luck with that”.
The
majority of the comments I found, from both pro and con, are negative. I’m not
sure if that means that conservatives are reading and commenting on liberal
sites or if many of the liberals are now angry with Obama too.
A
third possibility is that the Foxfire has me pegged as a conservative and is
frontloading all the conservative comments.
I
am really a very middle of the road moderate. I’m not sure whether I’m the most
conservative liberal or the most liberal conservative that I know. I guess that
depends on whether I am living in California or Utah at the time I make the
assessment.
Which
side I lean toward often depends on the topic. On the liberal side of the fence
I believe that drug laws have caused more damage in America than drugs ever
thought about and therefore ought to done away with. And on the other side, I
think every citizen has a duty to own a gun and be fully qualified to use it.
Those
are just examples, but let’s get back on track.
This
morning I decided to revisit the articles to see if anything is new and I found
changes in the comments section that require me to rewrite my blog. It appears
that the news organizations have editors who work through the comments
eliminating the distasteful ones. However, at the time I wrote the original (for
the material that was in the comment section at the time) my comments were
valid. So rather than throw them out I will lead the blog with them. Then I
will follow up with the new data and comment on this phenomenon.
With
the exception of a few comical remarks most of the comments on the different
pages lacked substance. The educational value of the data vomited onto the
various blog threads was minimal, while mudslinging and name-calling prevailed.
The exceptions to this are mentioned below, notably the Washington Post and
Reuters comments.
While
there were several good laughs, one interesting thing was the comment posters’
unique names. My favorite was gardyloo, which is what people in England used to
holler just before dumping the contents of their chamber pots out the window.
That of course was before the advent of indoor plumbing. At least that poster
has a sense of humor about the value of what he/she is saying. Ironically,
gardyloo is one of the more intelligent sounding commenters.
Posts
from a CNN article, The truth about Obamacare began with
sarcasm. A head of household (poster) discussed how his family lost their
health insurance and now has to pay thousands more per year. But since Obama
apologized he feels soo much better. Another poster apologized for voting for
Obama. The discussion continued on toward impeachment, with one poster trying
to conduct a survey for readers to vote for or against impeachment.
Another
post labeled “The truth about
Obamacare” was a response seemingly from a CNN reporter or it may have been
copied and pasted from the CNNreporter’s
article with
an example using a case where some person could have got a better deal from the
California exchange and detailing how the ACA plan was better.
The
response to that began with a poster stating, “You have just stated the same
reasoning as most German's did during the 1930's”. From there, the replying
posts moved to Hitler and then to comparing Obama to Hitler.
My
trust of the Guardian is not based on
their political leanings or because I consider them unbiased, rather because I
have, in the past, seen them both attack and defend President Bush, depending
the topic rather than the politics of the individual.
The
Manchester Guardian’s article seemed neutral enough in context of the reporter’s
own words, but the comments lacked that neutrality.
An interesting comment from a poster “Someone
really needs to tell you Tea Partiers that anything slightly left of Mussolini,
is not by definition ‘socialism’” reflects the overall mood of the left slant.
Of course there was opposing banter, which included “The yank-neoliberals say
that this is the careerist/corporatist baby-killer in chief's ‘signature
legislative accomplishment’”.
From
there, as often happens, the banter sidetracked off onto a tangent that has
nothing to do with Obamacare or apologies. “Does one really need a smartphone
to feed a parking meter”? I thought this topic was interesting from the context
of our class discussions on uses for technological advances. However the topic
really didn’t develop much beyond the examples that follow the next paragraph.
From
these sources, it appears that rather than citizen journalism, this process of
posting comments seems to be a forum for bored, contentious people who are more
concerned with vomiting their opinion in a most obnoxious way, rather than
taking time to examine the facts and determine if their opinions actually
possess any validity.
For
example one poster (referring to the use of smart phones to pay parking meters)
states, “If making simple social transactions is to depend on expensive
technology not everybody owns, or which may have broken, or run out of credit,
or simply been left at home, this is an obvious step backwards, designed to
suit the supplier, not the consumer.”
To
demonstrate that poster’s lack of
checking the facts another poster replies, “The meters in question have a slot
for coins as well as the facility for paying.”
Other
examples include the use of personal affronts rather than replies that concern
facts or data or the relating of any information that might even attempt to
resolve the issue.
A
poster’s answer to one statement was, “Aren't these Republicans awful, stupid
people? Are the members of a modern human race?” (note the misspelling of the
word “they” or “thee” whichever was intended) To which the response was “Are
you even part of the human race? You awful, stupid person.”
I
guess the issue is that many of those who have time to surf through the myriad
of comments lack actual research skills so they are unable to obtain facts; or
are too lazy to spend the energy it takes to discover the facts from both
sides. Is that because it is more important to continually verbalize knee jerk reactions
than to form an opinion that might give birth to an intelligent reaction?
The
impact all this banter has on Obama’s apology (or any other topic that
journalists are discussing) is that it severely impedes the readers’ ability to
find intelligent reactions to the topic. There is no way to know if all the
time you are spending reading the comments will net any worthwhile piece of
information.
It
is sort of like catching your dog swallowing a piece of jewelry, but you’re not
sure whether Fido got the bubble gum machine ring or the gold one with a fat
diamond. You have to decide if the jewelry is actually worth digging thru the
crap to retrieve it. You have to search through all the grossen scheisen
without knowing whether the object you are seeking actually has any value.
One
poster, Mado-Toronto, stated, “not the kind of speech on would expect of a
Harvard educated person” (copied verbatim) note the misspelling of the word
“one” which really took the wind out of Mado’s sails as far as I’m concerned.
Revisiting
the Washington Post’s story revealed some interesting comments. While there was
still a tendency to get side tracked those posts present are somewhat more
intelligent and less adversarial than those from the other sites. They also had
an option to select older, newer and most popular posts.
As
of this writing there are only 26 Washington Post comments. I am not sure if
that means that someone in that news organization went through deleting the
negative, intolerant, inappropriate & irrelevant posts or if there were not
very many Washington Post readers that actually posted comments.
Which
ever the case, there appeared to be more citizen journalism among these few
posts than in all the comments from the other sources (with the exception of
Reuters) I read combined.
Some
of the comments represented successful citizen journalism because they
contributed to dialogue about possible solutions or offered comments aimed at
promoting thoughtful consideration by the reader.
For
example there was a question about why was the website the only way to sign up.
The poster stated that call centers should be offered as an additional
solution. He/she also recommended being sure to cook your turkey properly if
your health insurance was dropped.
The
satirical turkey comment represents several posts that provide humorous relief
to the readers’ lament over the misfortune caused by the event. Throughout
history satire was used to soften the blow of frustrations caused by laws and
decrees handed down by less than scrupulous leaders. Satire can be good
journalism.
To
be useful, citizen journalism should get the reader to think and ponder rather
than simply to react. Not that reaction is in and of itself bad. If the
response is thought based rather than blind reaction, it can contribute in some
way to the overall solution.
Reuters
story Obama’sapology
(of sorts) for his “keep your plan” promise contained 16 posts that
were thought provoking. Included was a discussion of how a one payer system
would be more efficient but “smacks of ‘socialism,’ i.e. ‘communism,’ to those
for whom those words strike fear and trembling – and an almost complete lack of
ability to think. Brain freeze.” Here the comment began with a logical idea but
quickly digressed into degrading the opposition. Which is, perhaps, one way in
which citizen journalism is differentiated from the professionals.
Another insightful comment from
Reuters was, “Perhaps the only solution is to educate the electorate to look
beyond the sound-bites, the rhetoric etc.; and to train a civil service of
bureaucrats that understands how to help the politicians write better laws.”
National
Public Radio’s site has an article titled These
Californians Greeted Canceled HealthPlans With Smiles (thanks Eric)
that discusses people who were glad their policies were cancelled. A
self-employed writer was stuck in a bad plan because of a preexisting
condition. Other people found they could get better plans.
The
comments discussion begins with an interesting testimonial that was good
because it recaps the article in a concise abstract. The discussion quickly
moves to warm banter about Canada’s health care system. For the most part these
posters maintained a healthy discussion paralleling taxes in Canada to health
insurance premiums in America. The discussion broadens the knowledge base of
the reader, which I believe is good citizen journalism.
There
were digressions, unfortunately with a poster comparing Republicans to Nazis.
The same poster said that “50 million Americans will go hungry this
Thanksgiving”. Not sure where those figures came from but another poster called
him/her “a bald faced liar”.
Another
poster asked if there are similar stories (to those in the article) from other
states.
In
spite of some apparently emotional deviation, there was a lot of insightful
discussion that paralleled some of the Reuters commentators in journalistic
quality, if not necessarily in majority point of view.
It
appears that most of the larger news outlets that allow comments to their web
stories are reviewing the comments and editing out those useless and/or derogatory
comments. If my memory serves me correctly the CNN site had an excess of 4000
comments when I first reviewed it. On the last review there were fewer than
500. I wish I had taken screen shots of all the articles so I could be sure how
of which sites are filtering and which ones have good commenters to begin with.
With
the use of in house editors the web news sites greatly assist in the
transformation of comments into productive citizen journalism by eliminating
much the crap I previously mentioned and allowing the reader to sort through
comments that are worthwhile. My advise to any who wish to read serious
material is to wait a few days for the editor(s) to filter out the crap.
In deference to e's objections, I removed the purely speculative portion of my blog.
