I was going to wait until all of this was settled to say this, but the Lowery-esque starbursts are over-fucking-whelming: I've found Ezra indispensable over the past few months. Gasbags who run off at the lip about how bloggers don't report, and how bloggers are ruining journalism, need to sit the fuck down, shut the fuck up, read this dude and take notes on how to not suck at your job.For the real liberals, the public option was already a compromise from single-payer. For the slightly less radical folks, the public option that's barred from partnering with Medicare to maximize the government's buying power was a compromise down from a Medicare-like insurance plan. For the folks even less radical than that, the public option that states can "opt out" of is a compromise from the straight public option. Access to the public option will be a political question settled at the state level. It is not a settled matter of national policy.
In many ways, this is a fundamentally conservative approach to a liberal policy experiment. It's only offered to individuals eligible for the insurance exchanges, which is a small minority of the population. The majority of Americans who rely on employer-based insurance would not be allowed to choose the exchanges. From there, it is only one of many options on the exchange, and only in states that choose to have it. In other words, it has been designed to preserve the status quo and be decided on the state level. Philosophically, these are major compromises liberals have made on this plan. They should get credit for that.
I don't ever want to brag about not reading--but I've basically stopped reading newspaper stories in this case, for Ezra's blog. (Along with Jonathan Cohn, by the way.) I'm sure part of that is because we're on the same side. But the other part is that I just find him his writing clearer, his reporting just as good, and his insights much sharper than anything else I've seen.
"Oh teh intenetz are eating my jobzzz!!!" Please. Put the bottle down, and step slowly away from the weak-sauce.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Ezra's writing and research are top-notch. He's actually paying attention, which is better than about 90% of the other commenters out there. Probably closer to 100% when you get to health care.
In many ways, what Ezra's doing is quite old-fashioned. Tons of research and clear, concise, descriptive writing. My high school senior English teacher would recognize it very well and might even give it a B+ (he was pretty stingy with the A's). Too bad today's "journalists" won't acknowledge it for what it is...
Today's journalists will acknowledge it plenty. It's the hacks who will have a problem with it.
TNC,
Unfortunately, I know many a fine journalist who is out of work or now earns way less thanks to the internet revolution. More than a few of them are friends and former colleagues of mine. I'm not saying the internet is a bad thing. Hell, I love the internet. Plus, technology evolves and industries -- and people -- must evolve with it. But there is the suggestion in your post that the only journalists whose livelihoods bloggers threaten are incompetent hacks whom the paper-based model has carried for far too long anyway. Nothing could be further from the truth.
First of all, there is plenty of good and bad journalism on paper, and online. All of us in this business know that.
Second, for the good journalists working at newspapers (like the one I left just before I moved to Australia, where low-level management had to take a pay cut, editorial staff has been cut 50% and employees are forced to take furlough days) it's not as easy as just running off, firing up your own blog and raking it in. 40-something parents who have worked their way up from pitiful smalltown operations to big-city newspapers and finally got that 30-year mortgage and a decent car for a change because they at last earned a decent wage and thought they had some measure of financial security now must try to find a second career and keep food on the table while hoping the axe doesn't fall. Sucking at the job and ludite sensibilities have little to do with it.
I do understand that you, as a serious blogger and active prosumer within the blogosphere, must take plenty of misguided crap from jerks at newspapers but they're not likely to read your blog anyway. On the other hand, good journalists of all stripes, who appreciate insightful commentary are likely to make their way onto this site and I would hope that someone who is in the same industry would be able to show them a bit more compassion and direct the anger where it belongs.
Actually, he didn't say that.
Of course there are good journalists out of work but the writing has been on the wall for quite some time. I think TNC is asking--and I am too--that these people step up their game and stop complaining.
@Jamilah,
he suggested -- which is what I said -- that "these people" are all incompetent, which is just as absurd as someone who works at a newspaper suggesting that all "those people" who blog are incompetent. There are tons of extremely talented, highly skilled print journalists who have no need to "step up their game" as far as their reporting skills who are in a real predicament right now because the timing has them in a bind. Everyone isn't some 22-year-old who can throw caution to the wind. There are good people, dedicated journalists, who are in trouble and not because they're whiny losers.
I think an important point that needs to be made is that the internet is eating newspaper jobs, but the culprit is online advertising, particularly Craigslist. Metro newspapers used to have near-monopolies on classifieds and other forms of advertising streams that have disappeared, and their revenue is falling, fast. If TNC and Ezra and every other blogger stopped publishing and everyone reading them subscribed to their local newspaper, journalism jobs would keep on disappearing because you no longer have to pay the local daily whatever they ask for to place an ad for a rental apartment or used car or what-have-you. If every newspaper writer upped their game to Ezra's level, effective immediately, it might not save their jobs because revenues from content never paid the main chunk of their salary, it was all subsidized by ad money that isn't coming back.
Yes, there's a lot of great writing on the web, but the economic model isn't there to support the number of journalists who have lost and will continue to lose jobs as newspapers try to cut costs to keep up with plummeting revenues. And yes, attacks by print journalists, especially the established hacks who are clearly out-classed by online reporters and writers and who probably won't be the ones getting laid off, are infuriating. But good writers are taking pay cuts and losing their jobs, and compassion is definitely merited.
Thanks to Craigs List, my daughter just found the apartment of her dreams, at a price she can afford and she hasn't read a newspaper in years. Newspapers have lost both of my college educated adult children and I haven't had a print subscription to anything in almost two years. While still profitable (tho' margins are way down from the 30% nirvana) newspapers are bleeding circulation.
I may feel compassion for the blacksmiths, but I'm still going to buy a Model T.
exactly. Everyone has to deal with new technology changing the way their job is done, and it's hard on a lot of people. But nobody was promised a job for life when they became a journalist, and nobody's stopping out of work journalists from doing something else. I'm not upset with them for complaining about it, but it does bother me when people talk about the demise of democracy because their jobs are threatened, especially since for the vast majority of Americans, the quality and variety of print news has gotten vastly better with the internet. Most cities don't have more than one or two newspapers in circulation and never did; now I have hundreds of choices about what to read, dozens of which I do choose between on a daily basis.
Ezra is a top-notch journalist, and has been indispensable for me in trying to understand health care reform. He makes his biases clear, but does not let that get in the way of his reporting. I hope the WP understands what a treasure they have in him!
"They should get credit for that."
Credit from whom?
I'm a reporter. I used to work for a wire service and then a newspaper, and I've been writing for an online publication for 10 years. (I write about mortgages.) I think you're right, TNC, that newspapers can't blame the Internet and bloggers for newspapers' troubles. The situation is more subtle than that.
Look at what Ezra does. He has expertise on a topic, and he has freedom to use that expertise in his writing. He can report *and* opine in the same space. He is allowed to call bullshit for what it is.
TNC, when you write, "I'm sure part of that is because we're on the same side," you're right, but not because you and Ezra both are reality-minded liberals. Ezra is on your side in the sense that he is on the ordinary reader's side. He isn't siding with corporations or rich people or his sources.
Print newspapers have the technical capability of allowing expert reporters to point out when people are wrong or are lying. But newspaper culture doesn't allow it. Similarly, print newspapers are technically capable of allowing reporters to take the reader's side, to watch out for the reader's interests, instead of deferring to corporations, politicians and sources. But newspaper culture doesn't allow that, either.
Online reporting has a different culture. This culture isn't inherent to the medium; it's just the way things have shaken out. I don't know why. But it's this difference in culture that drives readers to online publications. Readers know that online publications are where they can find knowledgable writers who write *for* their audience, not *at* their audience.
This culture isn't inherent to the medium; it's just the way things have shaken out. I don't know why. But it's this difference in culture that drives readers to online publications.
(raises hand) I know why.
My wife published the computing newspaper for her large American city, back in 1985-85. They managed to hang on for 18 months using a Mac Plus for layout. Then she had to take the laser-printed layouts to the printer in the valley 2 hours away and come back 3 days later to pick up the 11x17 paper itself.
It wasn't feasible to use the printing press closer to downtown, partly because the previous owner of the paper had run out on a bill and partly because of the rates their union required for all services. (Her competitors said she was 'cheating' the system by cutting out the costs of a professional typesetter, but they just didn't have the cash flow to support that expense every month.)
The print bill alone, even at the cheaper alternative in the sticks where the workers were not union, had put the previous owner out of business. It did the same for my wife's team in a couple of years.
The costs of running a press are enormous. It is a feature, not a bug, that print journalism is accountable first to the financial interests of its advertisers, and only later to readers or the public interest.
The culture of 'write smart and you'll get page views' is in fact inherent to this medium, and it's an enormous change in how the public can be informed. The enhancement 'write smart and you'll get a conversation in which everyone becomes more informed' is a revolution as well.
There is another huge benefit to the low cost of entry to electronic publishing: You don't have to give up your day job to give it a shot. Anyone can post a diary at Daily Kos. An individual who is passionate about something can research a topic using the vast, free resources of Teh Intertoobs pretty much any time of day or night, analyze what they find, and write it up for free timely publication. Such a person can't match the output of professionals like Ezra (at least not while keeping up the quality), but he or she can make a significant contribution to the debate. And (I'm thinking of Nate Silver here) some might show a fresh approach to a subject via 'proof of concept' blog posts that end up changing the whole conversation.
Literacy and the printing press started the process of democratizing information and ideas. In his book 46 Pages, Scott Liell describes Thomas Paine and his rival pamphleteers engaging in what amounted to slow motion blogging during the lead-up to the American Revolution. That tradition of citizen journalism and opinion seems to have faded with the growth of professional journalism and then corporate media over the next two centuries. But now it's back.
"Print newspapers have the technical capability of allowing expert reporters to point out when people are wrong or are lying. But newspaper culture doesn't allow it. Similarly, print newspapers are technically capable of allowing reporters to take the reader's side, to watch out for the reader's interests, instead of deferring to corporations, politicians and sources. But newspaper culture doesn't allow that, either."
Holden, I'm not sure where you worked but reader advocacy and going after public corruption (i.e., telling when people are lying) were the bread and butter of the very large daily I worked at for years. I'm not sure exactly what culture you're talking about.
Reader advocacy and pursuing public corruption *were* your paper's bread and butter? Are those things *still* the paper's bread and butter? If so, that daily probably is still doing OK.
I worked for the AP and the Toledo Blade, and I never felt like I had the freedom to write, "Gov. Clements was wrong Wednesday when he said..." or "Mayor Finkbeiner lied yesterday when he said..."
Pursuing public corruption is sexy. It's hunting elephants. But reporters should hunt more squirrels and fewer elephants. Write more articles about the guy in the bad neighborhood who can't get the water department to return his calls, and fewer stories about large-scale corruption in the water department.
It's a matter of taste, I guess. Corruption stories, like crime stories, just don't float my boat. I simply don't care, even though I suppose I should. I care more when politicians lie, or policymakers spin to deflect their indifference to problems, than when a group of people are conspiring together in a big corruption scandal.
I realize that there's a fuzzy line between corruption and lying by a public official. We're talking about matters of degree.
I guess here's where I draw a line: If you're a reporter who's writing about public corruption, do you focus more on the ill-gotten gains, or on the ordinary people who were deprived of something? Which gives you more pleasure: Taking down the CEO or helping the little guy?
The point that stands out to me is how the proposed reforms to health coverage, and to environmental issues with cap and trade, are very conservative.
On journalism: A good point I've seen made a few times recently is that local blogs are the go-to place for figuring out how you want to vote on local issues. Local papers have settled into "so and so says X is good." But CNN, as gloriously eviscerated by Jon Stewart last week, does exactly the same thing despite a raft of diligent typists behind the two befuddled anchors.
On Ezra, I agree with Martha's point that what he's doing is very old-fashioned journalism.
Ezra has always been great, but I have to admit that it makes me queazy reading his blog with that
WaPo masthead over it. I know it gives him a broader audience and probably a more secure living, and I'm reasonably confident he'll maintain his integrity, but I got a little pain in my stomach when he wrote the words "my colleague Charles Krauthammer" recently. The WaPo is where DC journalism goes to die.
I agree that his reporting on the policy has been fairly good, but if he's been your sole source, you're missing a lot of the picture--even just from the left-side perspective. On the politics, he's often been an entirely too credulous mouthpiece for certain voices in the administration who would have embraced Baucus' piece of shit Finance Bill as a solution and gone right over the cliff. I still find it breathtaking that anyone thought the Dems could have gone to the electorate with a policy that mandates that they purchase an insurance policy from Big Insurance--they would have been eaten alive, and no, they would not have been saved by Olympia Snowe's vote.
Turns out the congressional Dems looked into the abyss and came to their senses, and now the White House, Ezra, and sundry others are scrambling on board. But Ezra spent months explaining why the public option and wasn't necessary and probably wasn't possible (oops, turns out not so), laying the apologetic groundwork for the admnistration's failure to provide any meaningful push, and missing the boat on the progressive organizing to force the White House's and Reid's hands. He's catching up now, but if you want to have any sort of complete understanding, you would do well to balance him with something like Firedoglake or Open Left--who have really put their shoulders into this issue, as well, and deserve a lot of credit for reporting an alternate view of the politics and possibilities that, in the end, carried the day. And also keep an eye on the tri-caucus in the House, who deserve the real credit for any decent outcome here.
I think you're right that Ezra's reporting on the politics has tended to reflect his more establishment sources' POV - and I'm wondering if this is actually an "institutional" function of his having moved to the WaPo. I hate to think that, but I think it's probably true. The independent progressive blogosphere has been more "realistic" in assessing just how bad Baucus bill actually was, how great the dangers it held for Dems and in exposing the totally bullshit notion that Our Lady of Maine could provide meaningful "bi-partisanship." I would be all for courting Snowe if it were the only way to get a reform bill passed, but the notion that there was some Holy Grail vested in the vote of a marginal GOP eccentric from an oddball Northeastern state was laughable - and frankly was being pushed by folks with an interest in the weakest possible bill. The Dems who called the Blue Dogs' bluff on this and proved that progressives can play the same game are the real heroes of what looks to be a modest reform success. Without a public option in play from Day One, this bill was potentially disastrous - politically and fiscally.
I also have to add that seeing the Conventional Wisdom of the Sunday Bobbleheads and Beltway Bloviators turned on its head nearly overnight regarding the public option was very, very sweet. Even that idiot Mark Halprin was pushing the newfound "wisdom" of Dems going for the public option on the Morning Joke today. It was kind of scary how quickly he was able to spit up the old Kool Aid and concoct a new brew. While I liked what he was saying, it had an "I never knew about the camps" quality to it.
"We are the people we've been waiting for." Not just him or them (aka Congress,) WE.
We are the BLOG, resistance is futile, newspapers will be assimilated ... ;)
A robust corps of investigative reporters is an essential component of democracy, and it won’t be provided by the private sector.
Substantial public support, a la BBC and NPR, is necessary.
The thing I've been liking about the "opt-out" public option is that it puts - as Sullivan notes this morning - some very volatile politics on the ground in the states that can only hurt the GOP. Especially the ideological nutso GOP that actually exists in most states. The more one contemplates it, the more it appears like a ruthless strategy by the Dems to screw with Republicans at the state level.
I agree. (And it's a feature.) If the deep red states, which already have some of the worst health outcomes around, don't want a public option they can opt out. In a few years, when it's wildly popular everywhere else, state Dems have an issue to run on. I really do believe the opt-out public option is the way to get the whole country in over the next decade.
So TNC, does this mean that Ezra and Jon Cohn are soon to be added to your blogroll?
I don't care whether the reform is liberal or conservative. I just want one that actually works to find an honest answer to the fundamental problem of cost control.
Yep. Until people in red states can find it within themselves to vote responsibly (as an aggregate), such compromises are likely the best we're going to be able to do.
At least they won't hold the rest of the country, who wants civilization, back any longer.
Opt-out is far from idea, but damn right I'll take it. Folks in red states may wish to take the issue up with their representation, and with their neighbors.
Irony: I thought they WANTED "states' rights"?
It wasn't conservatives "holding back the rest of the country." If a given state wants to play games with the medical insurance system, nothing is stopping them.
For example, if MA wanted to force people to buy unwanted health insurance, they could do so. And they did.
Perhaps this is a reason for a smaller federal government. As for opt-out, that's a red herring. When taxes go up, everyone will be paying.
I hate to break this to you, but taxes are going to go up regardless. Have you seen the national debt numbers? It's like a college loan -- okay a medical school loan -- and it's gonna have to get paid off (after the country gets a metaphorical job in the form of economic recovery). Shouldn't everyone get healthcare out of the deal? What do they say in economics? That's right: "Ain't no such thing as a free lunch." Taxes pay for services, they're not just levied to get on people's nerves. But then, I'm not afraid of 'turning into Europe.' I've been. It's mostly pretty nice. And their healthcare outcomes are better than ours. And vastly cheaper too.
And I'm just wondering, who has "unwanted health insurance"? MA's program is wildly popular in the state despite it's flaws (and it does have those). This besides the fact that everyone "wants" health insurance when they get sick. And even if some individuals don't that fact is, should they walk through the hospital doors, like you say, "everyone will end up paying," anyway. I mean, we do now. At least with a healthcare reform bill we get near universal coverage and, if the Dems don't royally screw it up, much needed cost control.
Taxes will go up more with a public option -- that's just basic arithmetic. The money needs to come from somewhere. Opt-out is ridiculous, simply because states can't opt out of paying for Obamacare even if they opt out of receiving it.
As for European health outcomes, do you have any evidence whatsoever that health care systems are the cause of this? Or for that matter, do you have any evidence that variations in first world health care systems have any statistically significant effect on health outcomes whatsoever?
Regarding unwanted health insurance, no one has it outside of MA. Anyone who purchased health insurance obviously did it because they wanted it. In case you weren't paying attention, Obama wants to force people to buy insurance they don't want. I'll have to replace my cheap high-deductible no frills plan with something considerably more expensive.
Regardless, this is all tangential to my main point: sherifffruitfly is wildly wrong when she claims red states are holding back the rest. That's nonsense -- any state can play any games with health care, provided they are willing to suffer the consequences (as MA is).
You're so right. Ezra's been indispensable since he was at The American Prospect, but I think his change of venue has made him even better - sharp, clear, well-researched. He's an ace reporter, no doubt.
I don't think folks appreciate how the opt-out is supposed to work: in order to opt out, a state has to match or exceed the generosity of the federal plan.
Per FOX news (yeah, them): "The 'opt out' proposal would set up a national insurance plan with government seed money and be run by a private, not-for-profit board. Under the proposal, states would have to prove they can provide comparable coverage in order to exit out of the federal plan."
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/10/26/reid-offers-details-public-plan-health-care/
I suspect that it is blue states, not red ones, that may opt out - in order to pursue more robust coverage. But realistically, I doubt even they will bother. "Opt-out" will be an impractical and therefore unexercised option, like the states' option to not implement a drinking age of 21, and their option to not cap speed limits at 65mph (or, back in the day, 55mph).
Holy cow! I don't quite want to take Fox's word for this, so I'll go look for more sources. Pending that, this astonishing descrption strikes me as completely the kind of thing that happens late in legislation when there are pros doing the work.
FOX describes it this way today: "Reid's proposal would create a national insurance plan that state legislatures can vote to opt out of if they can demonstrate an alternative."
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/10/27/lieberman-announces-opposition-health-care-government-plan/
Indeed--totally indespensible and the one reason to open the Washington Post's website. My one complaint about Ezra's reporting is that the experts he relies on are typically credentialed experts, rather than experiential experts.
For instance, when he reports on drug companies (an area where I have the knowledge to see gaps in reporting), he'll reference experts who haven't ever worked inside the industry, but have studied it. That sort of expertise is valuable, but limited when it's not paired with on-the-ground type knowledge. I get the feeling that he's hesitant to reference people from inside the industry, for fear that they aren't reliable, but in truth, a lot of folks who work in pharma know what's really broken.
Like I said, I know the pharmaceutical industry well enough to see what sort of gaps this leaves in his reporting. I don't know other areas well enough to say, but I'm assuming that it's along the same lines. I expect that as he gains confidence and experience, he'll seek out more (potentially) adversarial sources along the lines of what he's done with some of the Republican members of congress he's interviewed.
@brucds,
No doubt Ezra is doing a good job, and WaPo gives him the freedom to do it (which I would say is a plus for WaPo). But like our boy TNC here, who has the branding of Atlantic Monthly behind him, Ezra has the branding of that WaPo masthead to establish his readership with. That is a big difference from an independent writer publishing his own content on a website hardly anyone will read.
Truth is, most bloggers DO suck. Most of them regurgitate the same crap that the major news outlets try to force feed us. There are a few individuals out there doing it right. We found two (maybe one and a half), so I guess we're lucky. But without the Atlantic or WaPo, neither of these fine writers would have anywhere near the readership they do.