The Flaw of Believing the Human Interest Angle

The Flaw of Believing the Human Interest Angle

Powerline has a post (many, actually) about everything wrong with Obama's health plans. I remind you that I continue not to be a part of that discussion, tho I am finding it to be one of the best political shows in town. I don't know who's right and who's wrong, who's fibbing and who's fibbing more.

The reason I note this particular post is that while poking fun at Obama, the author uncovers one of the most fundamental flaws of journalism and political discussion of our age (and that's saying a lot, given the number of contenders).

Still, the push for health care "reform" is in one important way, as your title states, a recklessness borne of arrogance -- or if not arrogance exactly, then of the echo-chamber quality of a liberalism that can no longer hear the outside world or, increasingly, itself. This is again related to the way Obama campaigned and has governed. The fact that big majorities are satisfied with the health care system in general and their care in particular just does not register with him. What registers are the Queen for a Day stories -- the cancer-stricken granny whose insurance company cuts her off three days before chemotherapy was to have begun, etc.
Putting a single human face on policy choices that will affect 300,000,000 people paints a powerful picture. But in short order it succumbs to the defects of its "virtues." The public is not yet so dumbed-down that it's going to cashier a system it knows and likes in favor of the Government Sponsored Unknown, and still less is it going to do such a thing on the basis of a handful of anecdotal horror stories -- stories that it senses are deeply dishonest for attempting to convey as routine something people know is anything but.

Set aside the Obama-specifics, which may or may not be an accurate depiction, and concentrate on what he calls the Queen of the Day stories. My experience has been that many people who work in journalism believe that complex issues can and should be boiled down to the specific human faces upon which they impact. Forget all the complicated stuff and look at this one lady, or this suffering young girl, or the heartrending story of these poor folks. Context, perspective, accuracy, even simple old-fashion veracity, these are all set aside in the rush to show the human face of the abstractions.

The result is pretty much what you'd expect when you systematically replace intellectual rigor with tear-jerking spectacle.

taken from Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations