Yet, ignoring calls from FAIR (Action Alert, 6/22/09) and advocacy groups such as Health Care Now!, the special did not include a single question from an advocate of single-payer national health insurance—despite the fact that the single-payer option polls well with the public (New York Times/CBS, 1/11-15/09) and is seen by many experts as the best way of expanding coverage to the uninsured while also controlling costs.

In the wake of well-publicized flak ABC received from the Republican Party over the special, the Republicans' position that Obama's plan amounted to a "government takeover of healthcare" was reflected in the questions selected by ABC.

ABC's Charles Gibson asked Obama directly to respond to Republican criticism. Meanwhile, one of ABC's hand-selected questioners said he was concerned with "the big brother fear," asking, "How far is government going to go in reference to my personal life and healthcare treatments?" Another questioner, identified as an M.D., said he was "concerned" with "the government taking over healthcare."

The insurance industry's perspective was also well-represented in the forum, with ABC medical editor Timothy Johnson citing "critics" who say Obama's plan "would eventually put private insurers out of business." ABC also featured a question to Obama from the CEO of the major insurance company Aetna, as well as the head of the Lewin Group--which is owned by another major health insurance company, the United Healthcare Group.

(Four medical practitioners, the president of the American Medical Association, two family members of patients, a former government health official, two human resources managers and a small business owner were also selected by ABC to ask questions to the president.)

David Westin, president of ABC, had defended ABC's selection of guests for the forum, saying, "We will include a variety of perspectives coming from private individuals asking the president questions and taking issue with him, as they see fit." Just days before the forum, Sawyer stated on CNN (Reliable Sources, 6/22/09) that it was going to be "a room full of widely diverse ideas in which people who actually experience the reality of front-line healthcare are going to get a chance to pose their challenging questions to the president."

Yet the issue of single-payer was never raised by either the ABC interviewers or ABC's hand-selected guests, despite the fact that it is popular, and favored by 59 percent of physicians, according to recent peer-reviewed survey (Annals of Internal Medicine, 4/1/08). And despite the fact that even Obama's own doctor has criticized the government's plan in favor of a single-payer system.

In the entire ABC healthcare special, the single-payer option was only once mentioned, and dismissively, by Obama himself, in response to Republican charges that his healthcare proposal is a "Trojan horse" for "socialized medicine."

Yet, tellingly, for the corporate media's most influential media critic--Washington Post columnist Howard Kurtz-– the main concern vis a vis the ABC forum was not the silencing of a popular reform proposal. Rather, it was the question of whether health insurance companies and other industry perspectives would be sufficiently represented in the forum.

In a segment on the ABC healthcare forum on CNN’s Reliable Sources, Kurtz stated to Sawyer:

You have the ultimate guest for this special, the president. Why not also include guests from the insurance industry, the hospital industry, the drug companies who also have a stake in this health care battle?

It would be a surprise to many Americans that they do not, in Kurtz's view, have a stake in healthcare reform.

But then again, corporate media's longstanding blackout on the single-payer option shows that corporate journalists have long seen the views of citizens as unimportant to the healthcare debate.

ABC's World News With Charles Gibson, March 17:

CHARLES GIBSON: Let me turn to Betsy Stark. There is an awful lot of, I guess you could call it AIG bashing going on. But as a lot of people pointed out today, there's a real danger in this, because everybody in this country has a vested interest in AIG succeeding, because we, the taxpayer, essentially own the company, right?

BETSY STARK (ABC NEWS): That's right, Charlie. American taxpayers own 80 percent of AIG now, and their best hope for recovering some of the tens of billions of dollars that they've sunk into the company is for the government to sell off AIG's many good businesses. But if the AIG name continues to get dragged through the mud, it's only going to run down the value of those businesses and make it harder for taxpayers to get the very best price, so the outrage is understandable, but it comes at a real-world cost.

ABC's World News With Charles Gibson, March 18:

CHARLES GIBSON: And one more thing, you and I talked last night about the fact that all of us, the taxpayers actually own AIG. And as this controversy goes on, we may be driving down the value of the company we own. You've talked to insurance people, I know, all day long. What do they say about that?

BETSY STARK (ABC NEWS): You know, the irony is that taxpayers could be cutting off their noses to spite their faces. Their anger is justifiable, these people say, but they have got to keep sight of the fact that they are talking about $165 million in bonuses, and they have got a $170 billion investment to protect. That's what they own.

CHARLES GIBSON: All right, that's what we all, in effect, own. Betsy Stark, thanks very much.

If one really took this argument seriously--don't criticize things owned by the public--then wouldn't all sorts of things be off limits?

ABC's World News anchor Charles Gibson at one point considered being a sports reporter.

However, he ultimately realized the job was more difficult than it looked.

"I began to realize that sports journalism was so difficult because if you cover a team, you have to stay in the good graces of that team," Gibson tells Michael Kay in the YES Network's CenterStage airing Thursday at 10 p.m.

"So, do you pull your punches?" says Gibson. "Do you not write about the fact that so-and-so is a drunk? Or that so-and-so may be on the juice?"

Good thing that kind of thing doesn't go on in the big leagues of corporate journalism.

Every year we have taken an extensive look at where things stand. Polling Iraqis and sending reporters across the country, both at times dangerous undertakings. But this year, extraordinary change, real optimism. 59 percent of Iraqis now say they feel very safe in their communities. And 65 percent say things are going well in their own lives. Both numbers up dramatically.

Reporter Terry McCarthy also cited the poll: "84 percent of Iraqis now say their neighborhood is safe, almost double the level in 2007." But neither Gibson nor McCarthy mentioned some of the poll's other striking findings, which were outlined by Editor & Publisher's Greg Mitchell (3/17/09):

Last year, 70 percent of Iraqis in the same survey said we were doing a bad job there. This year that dropped all the way to...69 percent. And that includes the always more favorable views of the Kurds.

That means 90 percent of Sunnis are negative (remember, they are supposed to be "awakening" towards us), and two out of three Shiites agree--largely unchanged from 2008....

Fifty-six percent now say the U.S. was wrong to invade, actually up (despite the cooling of violence) since last year's 50 percent.

Mitchell quoted an ABC News online piece (3/16/09) that gave a more balanced account of the poll than that night's broadcast:

Just 27 percent [of Iraqis] are confident in U.S. forces (albeit nearly double its low). Just 30 percent say U.S. and coalition forces have done a good job carrying out their responsibilities in Iraq. Still fewer, 18 percent, have a positive opinion of the United States overall. Barely over a third think the election of Barack Obama will help their country.

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