So, who else has read today's Page 1 story about alleged over-prescription of pain medication for workers who have suffered workplace injuries
( Read more... )
Or someplace like Huffington that isn't Huffington itself, because that's not a good venue for medical issues -- it's pushed too much medical woo to be credible. (I can't recall off the top of my head whether it's sunk into the pits of anti-vaccination activism, but my rough I-have-a-feeling memory says that it has.)
But really, I think ideally I do want the public editor/ombudsman at the Times, because while the issue of persecuting pain patients and their doctors over a moral panic is important, and I think a genuine evil -- and furthermore, as annoying as white-knighting can be, it also can be more effective for someone who hates morphine to kick and scream about this than for someone who needs it to do the yelling -- the more fundamental importance of the story is the way what's supposed to be a news organization is shaping a set of facts to an agenda here. The Times has done this before: it did it with Whitewater in the 90s, and with the Wen Ho Lee affair; it did it with Iraq; it's probably done this on a dozen fronts that I've missed because you can't read everything. Thus my concern: when it does this stuff, it matters. Maybe it shouldn't, but it does.
And it may be easier for the institution to examine the problem in this context, where it's not explicitly political, than to try to get it looked at in the context of an issue that splits on left/right lines, particularly in a big election year. God knows people get emotional about The War On Drugs, but it's nothing as compared to how they get about Democrats Versus Republicans.
. . . damn. I'm talking myself into writing the letter, aren't I? And I'm supposed to be figuring out where I can plant my strawberries.
But really, I think ideally I do want the public editor/ombudsman at the Times, because while the issue of persecuting pain patients and their doctors over a moral panic is important, and I think a genuine evil -- and furthermore, as annoying as white-knighting can be, it also can be more effective for someone who hates morphine to kick and scream about this than for someone who needs it to do the yelling -- the more fundamental importance of the story is the way what's supposed to be a news organization is shaping a set of facts to an agenda here. The Times has done this before: it did it with Whitewater in the 90s, and with the Wen Ho Lee affair; it did it with Iraq; it's probably done this on a dozen fronts that I've missed because you can't read everything. Thus my concern: when it does this stuff, it matters. Maybe it shouldn't, but it does.
And it may be easier for the institution to examine the problem in this context, where it's not explicitly political, than to try to get it looked at in the context of an issue that splits on left/right lines, particularly in a big election year. God knows people get emotional about The War On Drugs, but it's nothing as compared to how they get about Democrats Versus Republicans.
. . . damn. I'm talking myself into writing the letter, aren't I? And I'm supposed to be figuring out where I can plant my strawberries.
Reply
Leave a comment