ABC's Kate Snow, who early on Monday [1]
couldn't find time to show any Republican opposition to a controversial
provision in the health care plan relating to end-of-life care, reversed course
on World News and briefly highlighted a GOP voice. Congressman Thaddeus McCotter
appeared and asserted, "And there should never be any doubt as to whether your
end-of-life decisions are influenced by its effect on the United States
Treasury."
Snow was filing a piece for Monday's World News about a section in the House
health care bill that reimburse doctors for discussing end-of-life care with
their patients every five years. And although the segment was billed as a "fact
check" to debunk incorrect claims, this report at least looked into something
that her earlier piece on Good Morning America didn't, Republican opposition.
On Monday, this analyst asked [2] Snow about the subject on
her Twitter page [3]. She justified the
absence: "We often cut down pieces to fit time allotted. But always aim to
include all pov's. On end of life v impt [sic] to fact check too."
On World News, anchor Charles Gibson began the segment by pronouncing, "A
lot of people are clearly upset with what they think, or have been told, or
think that they've been told, is in the thousand or so pages of proposed
legislation." He suggested that this fact check series would become a
semi-regular feature to look into misinformation about health care.
Certainly, there is much liberal misinformation about the health care bill,
such as the claim by some journalists that the legislation doesn't cover abortions [4].
It does. Hopefully, ABC will look into these issues as well.
-Scott Whitlock is a news analyst for the Media Research Center.