I don't believe the lazy media

Twice in the last week, I heard really poor news reporting. Both stories had to do with health care policy: CBS Evening News reporting on NIH cancer funding, and NPR on the President's proposed health insurance changes. Both stories were almost willfully one-sided.

CBS was reporting on cuts in cancer research funding over the last two years. The entire story was people affected by or opposed to funding cuts (including our friend, Dr Ben, the only reason I was watching this report in the first place). There was no response or explanation offered from NIH as to why cuts might be appropriate or necessary. (Never mind that, if you believe the unit-less bar chart that was shown for a few seconds, the cuts over the past two years are quite small compared to the rapid growth over the preceding six or so years. But without seeing actual numbers, I wouldn't want to push that too hard.)

NPR was better, but only in the details. They, too, presented only the analysis indicating that the administration's proposal might reduce the money going into health insurance. One wonk observed that health care costs grew faster than inflation, as if this were some sort of unalterable fact, Planck's Constant for the economy. There was never a hint that the real growth of health care costs could be an effect, not a cause, never mind that slowing that growth might be a prime motivator for the proposed changes.

What's particularly irksome about these one-sided reports is that policy questions like these are inherently two-sided. They're all about trade-offs. It's not that someone has recommended reducing these particular expenditures (or trying to reduce them) without any notion that there might be effects. No, they are facing some sort of external constraint or trying to effect some positive change. To report them without even acknowledging so is, at best, unhelpful.

PS - For the record, Ben's lab should get all the funding they want.