CBS’s Giles Complains ObamaCare Fiasco Over-Covered by Media
On Monday’s All In show on MSNBC, during a discussion of what stories were over-covered or under-covered by the media in 2013, CBS contributor Nancy Giles griped that the HealthCare.Gov glitches were overecovered, and seemed to suggest that hackers may have been to blame for ObamaCare’s rollout problems. Giles began: “I thought the Healthcare.gov Web site glitches, I thought they were kind of covered without context, like, there was no mention of whether they could have been hacked. I saw all these different Web sites, you know, KillObamacare.Gov, you know, all kinds of problems that could have happened that way, site tampering, and there were a lot of people that signed up by phone and got on successfully. So I felt like the fixture on the Web site problems were a little too much.”
ABC Touts ObamaCare’s Popularity, While NBC Reports Website Problems
For the second straight morning, ABC’s Jonathan Karl was merely a White House stenographer when reporting on ObamaCare’s year-end deadline, touting enrollment numbers and parroting White House talking points. Tuesday’s Good Morning America framed the latest ObamaCare delay as a result of the law’s popularity, as opposed to NBC reporting that it was, at least in part, due to website issues. “A crush of visitors to the website yesterday caused the White House to expand this year’s deadline for signing up through the end of today,” co-host George Stephanopoulos reported.
NBC Goes Easy on ObamaCare, Downplays Gov’t Coercion of Insurers
NBC’s Today softened any criticism of ObamaCare on Monday at the deadline to purchase health coverage for the new year. White House correspondent Peter Alexander framed long wait times on the Washington, D.C. health exchange as evidence of “a last-minute spike in demand.” And even though he reported that current enrollment numbers are “far shy” of what the administration hoped for, Alexander cited “experts” downplaying the importance of the numbers.
MSNBC’s Sharpton Slams ‘Stinginess’ of Republican ‘Grinches’
On the Monday, December 23, PoliticsNation on MSNBC, host Al Sharpton led the show by accusing Republicans of “stinginess” and of being “grinches” because of GOP opposition to a further extension of unemployment benefits. With the words “GOP Grinches Steal Christmas” on screen, Sharpton opened the show: “Tonight’s lead, Republican’s grinches launching fist full of coal. This week, as families gather at dinner tables around the country, many are facing extreme economic anxiety that could have been prevented, is due to Republicans’ stinginess on key economic issues. More than one million Americans face losing their unemployment benefits in just five days.”
MSNBC’s Hayes Derides FNC ‘Obsession’ with ‘Knockout Game’ That Targets Whites
On Monday’s All In with Chris Hayes, host Hayes for a second time griped over Fox News giving attention to reports of primarily black teens playing a “knockout game” in which they target white victims for violence, suggesting that the game does not really exist. As he awarded his choice for the “over-covered” and “under-covered” news stories for the year, Hayes began: “Over-covered is the Fox News/Drudge obsession with the so-called ‘Knockout Game,’ which this is a flavor of what that, and this has been on Fox all the time.”