Having expected there might be some delays in voting yesterday at the Republican State Convention in San Francisco, where I served as a delegate, I made the wise decision to stay overnight in town so I would not have to be rushed or miss a flight after the voting took place Sunday morning.
So this morning, I rose to read the San Francisco Chronicle and its front page news section above the fold story "Medi-Cal in Crosshairs" by so-called reporter Tom Chorneau of the Sacramento Bureau. The long article, with color pictures, described the "plight" of a hemophiliac who, under a proposed plan by Governor Schwarzenegger must file eligibility forms quarterly instead of annually or semiannually to continue his treatments. He is afraid the new forms "might get lost in the mail." The article depicts a man injecting himself with plasma while his mother, in a purple t-shirt, tensely watches the procedure. It includes a picture of the Governor and his contact number for readers to "Get Involved." It continues to page 10 and includes contact phone numbers and email addresses for the Governor, The Speaker, the Senate President Pro Tem, and the Republican Leaders. It includes a box on 10th page that states "How to Get Involved," and states "To comment on the governor’s proposal to require Medi-Cal enrollees to file more paperwork, contact;" and then lists the legislative leader’s offices and contacts with the Governor’s.
I have not been in contact with anyone in the Governor’s office, nor have I done any research on the proposal. Nevertheless, I do have a brain, and I can state for sure that there are a lot of serious problems with this Chronicle article. First, the article does not in any way, shape or form provide facts on both sides of the story. Failure to provide facts supporting both sides of the story reflects poorly on any newspaper, which according to journalistic ethics guidelines followed even by the New York Times, that can be accessed on their website, are to report the news on the news pages, and editorialize on the editorial pages. The article does not report the news, it reports only one side of the news.
Secondly, the article is clearly grass-roots advocacy for a legislative position opposing the governor, that makes use of the news section rather than the editorial pages to do this work. Because unknowing readers rely on reporters to report all of the news in a balanced manner in news sections, this article is a fraud on readers of the Chronicle. If this story was an advertisement in the Chronicle paid for by, for example, the Service Employees International Union, the SEIU would have to file a form with the state declaring it as a lobbying expense. I have a very strong suspicion that this article was the result of contacts between the SEIU and the reporter in a concerted effort by the SEIU, and the complicity of the reporter, to defeat the governor’s rather modest proposal. But the reporter should be reporting the news, not trying to assist a lobbying organization by doing its dirty work.
Let me explain the first point above in more detail. The Governor’s proposal is clearly aimed at attacking and eliminating fraud in the Medi-Cal system. The reasoning behind requiring a Medi-Cal recipient to file more timely and current eligibility papers is almost a no-brainer. People’s financial circumstances often change. They can also get better, and have no need for continued expensive therapies. Requiring filing of more current information captures a truer picture of the need for state assistance, and helps preserve assistance funds for those who truly need it. In the only real tip-of-the hat to this fact, Chorneau writes "Administration officials expect the rule will result in 122,000 people being dropped from the roles next year, saving the state $92 million."
But nowhere in the article does Chorneau use the underlying words about the reason for the Governor’s proposal that a fair article would include. The words are: FRAUD and WASTE. The Governor’s proposal will not only root out people who don’t need or qualify for Medi-Cal services (waste), it will also root out those who continue on the roles fraudulently.
Let me repeat that. The Governor wants to help reduce Medi-Cal fraud and waste. There are about 122,000 people on the Medi-Cal roles that shouldn’t be. To do this, he is simply proposing that forms be filed quarterly by state aid recipients to justify their support from the state and help reduce fraud in the system. The Governor’s proposal does not include cuts, it just requires more frequent eligibility reporting. And nowhere in Chorneau’s article do the words "fraud" or "waste" appear to explain the policy. Chorneau also control’s the story to limit the potential for these words entering it by not interviewing a clearly identified stakeholder or lobbying group opposing fraud and waste in Government, such as Lew Uhler of the National Tax Limitation Committee in Sacramento, HJTA, the California Taxpayers Assn., the State Chamber of Commerce, or other such groups that could provide the necessary news balance to the article.
OK, now let’s move to the second point I make above about the "grass-roots" lobbying nature of the article. By not balancing the words "fraud" or "waste" (or words to that effect, such as "people who don’t qualify for benefits," thus presenting the reason for the Governor’s proposal ) against "file more eligibility paperwork" (which may be the result of the proposal), and doing it in a manner that only depicts the plight of a hemophiliac (someone we all may have sympathy with) and not also reporting an example of Medi-Cal fraud (something many reading the article might also want to know about) and doing it using words which we nonprofit organization lawyers, and the Internal Revenue Service, term a "call to action" in the box on page 10 (i.e., see paragraph 2 above), the story is not only unbalanced, it is flat out advocacy for a legislative positon. It is one-sided. It violates newsroom journalistic ethics. It belongs on the editorial page, not the news section. It is evidence that the Chronicle and the reporter are second rate.
Here is something more. I took a good look at the picture on the first page, of the hemophiliac taking his medicine. His mother is standing behind him. I looked twice at the printed message on the mother’s purple t-shirt. I made out an "S", then an "E", then there is a crease in the shirt with the next, third letter obscured. Then the last letter is a "U." If that third letter under the crease on the mother’s t-shirt in the picture above the fold of the paper is an "I", then the shirt says "SEIU." Service Employees International Union. The largest union lobbying organization registered in the state of California and the primary opponent of the Governor’s Medi-Cal fraud reform legislation. And likely the outfit that spoon-feed Chorneau his story, and a very poor one at that.