More Journamalism (Time Magazine Edition)

Karen Tumulty of Time really wishes she didn't have to spend time listening to candidates talk about health care:

Re: Nevada Health Care Forum--Tumulty's Take - Swampland - TIME: Okay, after three very intense hours (plus) onstage moderating this health care forum, I really needed a massage and a margarita. Not in that order.... I suspected that my colleagues in the press filing center weren't entirely thrilled at spending a Saturday in Las Vegas this way, and it was confirmed when this e-mail appeared on my Treo as I prepared to go onstage:

In the press file. We have taken a vote. We don't want to write about health care. Please adjust accordingly. xoxo,

But that was my mandate, so I swallowed my butterflies, communed with my inner wonk and forged ahead.

Would it be asking too much to have Time replace Tumulty with somebody who actually likes learning about candidates thoughts and plans on health care? Rather than somebody who sounds like she is having a root canal?

Comments

[jerry]

Keep it simple, but not too simple.

That so many people go MEGO when discussing health care indicates to me that our current state of health care funding is way too complex and way too convoluted.

I think this is so because there are too many "for profit" reasons to make it overly complex and convoluted.

Ezra had much the same reaction as Tumulty.

If we can describe the equivalence of mass and energy in five characters, shouldn't we strive for a description of health care funding that an educated high school or college student can understand?

[Joe S.]

Health care policy--at the level that Edwards is explaining it--is considerably less complicated than Rotisserie League baseball. A good trial lawyer--or politician--is skilled at explaining complex matters in simple terms. Since nobody wants to hear about even a John Edwards-level discussion of health care, we must look to reasons aside from subject-matter complexity:

1. People would rather think about baseball (or Britney
Spears, depending on taste) than public policy. This doesn't mean they can't think. Barroom discussions of baseball can be pretty sophisticated. But they don't want to think about policy. This distaste for policy apparently includes generalist members of the press. Most folk aren't into self-governing, I'm afraid.

2. The press doesn't seem to hire many beat reporters any more, except for the sports beat and the Britney beat. Our press believes more in entertainment than democracy.

#1, of course, is far more significant. But we might be a bit more capable of self-government if the press could pretend that it cared.