Attention Grabbers
Some posts (and maybe some people) are attention grabbers. A few days ago, a post appeared that garnered 43 recommends and dozens of comments. It was mildly interesting. It probably inspired a few readers to philosophize about societal values, but in truth, I didn't think it was very enlightening. It provided little substantive insight into matters that currently roil the political waters. In my view, it was more entertaining than informative. Is something of that nature really worth so much attention?
Who wrote this attention grabber? I did. I was bemused, I suppose, and pleased with all the attention, but I didn't delude myself into thinking the post deserved it. In the past two days, however, I have posted twice on a matter of transcendent importance for America's future - healthcare. In each case, I felt compelled to offer information that had been lacking from discussion here. I did so not only because healthcare is important, but because it is a topic on which the large majority of TPMers are seriously under-informed. I find this true of some hoping to learn, but even more of others who appear less interested in additional knowledge than in demonizing Sarah Palin's "death panels" or vilifying town hall rowdies, while at the same time castigating reform opponents for their unwillingness to find out the actual facts.
The two posts received 2-3 comments and 1-2 recommends, and each disappeared quickly from the TPM sidebar.
Why did these two posts command so little attention? I believe it is because they would have demanded from readers some actual attention - some focused, concentrated effort spent on digesting data in a way that left them far better informed, but which also compelled them to alter their perspective on this entire topic. No longer would they see the debate as a conflict between simple right answers and simple wrong ones, but rather as a complex and alarming set of challenges that elude simple solutions. Readers would not necessarily have found that I disagreed with their healthcare reform goals, but they would have realized that those goals fall far short of what reality demands. They would have become less eager to castigate some members of Congress who are struggling to come to terms with that reality in their search to negotiate reform legislation that will endure in the long term.
Both posts were similar. The link to the more recent one is
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/fredmoolten/2009/08/medicare-for-none.phpI do hope some will be willing to visit it. It is not I who deserves the attention, but the material that's to be found there. I've already tried twice to sell this stuff, and I'm now trying for a third time.
Is that acceptable, or is it too much badgering? I appreciate the thoughtful comments most of you offer, and I hope most of you will appreciate the depth of my conviction that we need to do healthcare reform right, and that doing it right means knowing the critical evidence rather than just the talking points. To a few others among you who have complained that I lecture too much, who would call me an attention-grabber (ain't so), and who would tell me I patronize you as though you were children rather than show you the respect you know you deserve, I would say that's fine as long as you spell my name right.
But if you don't click on the link and pay attention to what you find there - shame on you.
Fred, as I've said before, you have done more work on this subject than anyone here. Much of it is just beyond my ken to grasp, and sometimes what little I do get I don't agree with. Then I feel like a kid backing my scooter away from trying to understand more of your math and conclusions. Having said that, this is one of the subject areas I had determined early on that I didn't want a piece of; partly because it is so complex, and partly because my husband and I don't go to doctors. Those in our family who do have had endless problems with diagnoses and medications they have been given; we are alternative health people, by and large. Plus we have had Very Bad Luck with doctors.
The only reason I care at all about the issue is a fairness issue (health care is a human right, and I think free or very cheap should be the rule) and that it is crucial for the future economic viability of this nation. I wish I could tell you I will check out the links, but I won't. I only have so much time, and my brain only has so much RAM to spare. As far as lecturing, ya gotta do what ya gotta do.
I often feel like the Cafe doesn't care much for the most important issues to me: Constitutional Rights, theocracy (except sweetmolly) ) and investigations of the Bush regime, and yes, I know that seems to have been decided.
When I read the post by the man who said he used to be well-aquainted with the boards that decided care for what--Medicare?--and that they were fould and counter-productive, my brain just shut down. I am glad you are working this issue and the data so hard; I just can't go there with you. I want to say "sorry," but that would be absurd, I won't. But please note: I am really trying to use the GD Upper Case Letters. Just for extra-credit.
Oops, my bread dough is done proofing, so I don't have time to proof this now...bye for now.
August 12, 2009 5:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fred, I've bookmarked some of the links in your posts as well as some links left by commenters, and will get to reading them eventually. I am currently preoccupied with other matters and don't have the time to read as much as I would like to lately, and that situation looks like it will continue for at least the next few weeks or beyond. There was an influx of 'trollish recommenders' the last week or more, as we had been going along with a 30 rec post being a very popular one. Then we were seeing 50. 60, 70, and more recs and sometimes for absolute trollish posts, so I wouldn't even count your 43 rec post as having the impact you think it may have deserved. At any rate I will read your links.
August 12, 2009 8:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fred, you've done a great job enlightening TPM readers with your explanations of the intricacies of health care reform. Anyone who has read even some of your posts and comments has had to come away with more knowledge of the subject than they started with. Even then they still might not agree with you.
If someone wants single payer or nothing or public option or nothing, that might be emotional rhetoric applicable to the moment or it may be a deeply held conviction. That your argument didn't persuade them to believe otherwise doesn't point to a fault, but to reality.
As we've seen on both sides, some people can't be persuaded -- right now. I'm confident once the committees have hammered out a final bill and sit down with Obama to hash out provisions on which he insists, something worthwhile will emerge. I do not think he will try to sell the American public a watered down bill.
This really is a complex subject. Given the blogosphere is part entertainment, part education, and part news, it's not surprising people gravitate toward lighter fare at times. Or no fare. Sometimes it's good just to step away from the environment for a day or two.
You mentioned people castigating their legislators: The pointed letter I faxed to my senator disappeared shortly after I posted it. There were no expletives or upper case phrases, but something was obviously unacceptable. I've since deleted it entirely.
I have been mystified that he will not say one word about health care reform. If he just said he was undecided, I could accept that. But to have no public position whatsoever at this point gives the appearance he's ducking the issue. I think he deserved to be called on it. He could at least keep us informed as to how it's developing.
Minor epiphany: I just realized in my faxes and phone calls to him, I've stated what I want out of health care reform legislation, but never asked what his position was. What a huge oversight. That needs to be remedied.
Back to the original issue, given the dynamic nature of this forum, you just have to say your piece and move on. If others benefit, that's great. If not, no sweat. You tried. And don't forget the people in the bleachers who are content to read from the sidelines. That's another audience entirely.
I looked over the link in your post and saved it. It's good information. Thanks.
August 12, 2009 10:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fred, your posts are on target, and I just had a long conversation with my brother about some of the issues you raise.
One problem that seems to be arising in the debate is that a lot of Americans seem disinclined toward viewing the health care issue as an structural economic issue of any kind, one that requires hard choices and tradeoffs among competing values and finite resources, and calls for the repair of a broken system. Many seem to view it as an issue mainly of liberty interests in an effectively infinite resource that somehow operates outside the economic realm of labor, production and material limits. But health care is indeed a massive sector of our economy - one beset by tremendous inefficiencies, waste, and racing, unquenchable demand.
The dysfunction, I believe, is perpetuated by the US employer-provided health care system that removes economic decision-making and rationality from the people who receive health care, and leaves it all to some man behind the curtain. This is a recipe for bloat and inefficiency.
We have people getting tests and drugs they don't need; high-skilled monopolistic professionals providing care that can in many cases be provided by lower-level practitioners; expensive emergency care facilities and resources wasted on clinic work; and pounds of expensive curing that could be replaced by ounces of prevention and healthier living. Our society is throwing hard-earned fortunes away on excess and waste. Some who have good company plans have no immediate personal incentive to change the wasteful pattern, while others who have to provide for themselves are getting screwed. The broken structure of personal incentives is not producing either overall economic efficiency or equity.
If we had a system in which either (i) almost everyone was responsible for purchasing their own health care or (ii) there was a single payer system funded from tax revenues, then people currently in the company-provided health care system would see more of a direct connection between large structural decisions about the provision of health care, personal lifestyle decisions and their own pocketbooks. The employer-based system needs to be phased out.
August 13, 2009 12:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh and as for the broader issue of how to elevate the quality of TPM Cafe discussion, Fred, I have suggested that Josh ditch or drastically modify the recommendation system, appoint a few actual editors, and subject reader posts to editorial judgment and discretion in the same way as the posts on the left side of the page.
They have instead gone for a dumbed-down group grope approach that masquerades as some kind of noble editorial democracy, but really seems designed to attract more eyeballs and page loads to the advertising.
Yesterday and today I posted a long string of intentionally idiotic and annoying comments on one reader post, and nobody in management stepped in to stop me. But what is worse is that people can also do the same thing with regular posts, and if there are enough people in their clique of friends, their posts will be routinely indulged to the top of the list.
We also have needlessly repetitive, reactive rehashes of the partisan spats of the day. "Did you hear about the stupid thing Palin said today?" "Did you see that teabagger on Fox?" "Did you see how the outrageous MSM didn't correctly cover that issue that I can't say anything about myself?"
When I see what once-promising sites like TPM Cafe and Huffington Post have become, it almost makes me weep. They have degenerated into hay piles of indiscriminately mediocre content, with a few hidden needles of quality, that are no better, and in many cases significantly worse, than the old media forms they once aimed to surpass.
August 13, 2009 1:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
You are a beautiful incarnation of god, Dan K, and I mean that.
But really why did you choose that rightwing nutter Farrar to hijack? Why didn't you go after one of the regulars to make the point?
August 13, 2009 1:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
If I mixed that stuff in with the comments on one of the regulars' posts, my comments would have been too similar to the regular ones, and nobody would have noticed them.
August 13, 2009 7:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dan, I'm sympathetic to your sentiments. But I wouldn't want Editorial censorship of the rather chaotic Café reader-community even given the rather uneven quality of what goes up the recommended list, and given the sometimes inane banter and mushy groping that occur on threads. This isn't an online think-tank policy conference, and shouldn't strive to be.
What I would like to see is editorial decisions about what ends up on the TPM front page from the reader-posts. A lot of excellent pieces get lost in the café anarchy, and I'd add that some - among which I'd include yours - deserve more than a twenty-four hour life span. Much too often what ends up on the front page is downright embarrassing to see, and encourages people to write more in the same vein. By the same token, a little quality control from Josh would help encourage better pieces and raise the overall quality of cafe-talk, imo.
August 13, 2009 7:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
What need is the ability to unRecommemend posts. That would ensure the dogs get sent back to the bottom of the pile.
August 13, 2009 10:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Nah, I could see that ending up in rec'ing wars, enabling troll invasions, etc. But I would like a better advertisement for the Reader section than what we're often getting on the front-page...
August 13, 2009 10:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
I disagree. You still only get one recommendation or demotion per article. It would allow better self-policing. I would love to see the same sort of thing for comments. Something more in line with how the NY Time handles its comments on article.
August 13, 2009 10:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dan, you are golden in my book!
I agree with your critiques. And it makes me very, very sad to see that, in effect, just about all of the blogs sell out. Though emptywheel is a singular exception. I think TPM is after the big bucks. Many things are so transparent: Josh's plugging of kindle and twitter and face book, for example. And clearly they're after "traffic" - whether via blogs written or spammed or via trolls. It's all about the money. Yes, I agree there is content, here and elsewhere, but mostly it's a big free-for-all, another kind of media circus. The only way to get purity is do what what emptywheel has done. And for that, I've supported her - both financially and in terms of laudatory blogs. I can't keep up with her, but I applaud her and the group that has assembled around her. But there are moderators. And that, along with editors, is missing from TPM reader blogs - or any of them really.
There is simply too much to read. Life is short. I spend less time on the web, less time here. And I'm off now... to do other things.
Fred, this does not solve the problem you mention. But I applaud what you're trying to do. Here's my experience. If you put in a huge amount of work, you can put a lot of info out there. Eventually, it may get noticed enough - so that you become a sitting duck for trolls. But you keep going anyway, because you must and there are things you need to write - and you remind yourself that trolls can rant in the comments - but your blog remains pristine and untouched by them. And eventually you may run out of things you personally need to write - and if you're honest - you let go of your soapbox and find other things to do. Good luck sorting this out. Do the best you can. You're casting your bread on the waters. You're doing what you feel you must. And bless you for that!
PEACE TO ALL!
August 13, 2009 9:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Keep going. Eventually all this will come together.
Just remember that this issue is a weird mix of the theoretical and personal. I noted the heated exchange between you and CVille on my thread today and then saw a post from her about how after she had cancer she paid 13k per year in premiums and deductibles before her "insurance" kicked in a dime. No wonder she isn't very big on debating issues without an obvious statement of wanting something better than THAT.
August 13, 2009 12:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hi Fred,
As one of the 2 who recommended your excellent post that you cite, I wanted to share my thoughts.
I read your post, i clicked your concord colition link that you have mentioned in numerous comments. I thought about commenting about how much I appreciated your crusade but I didn't. That is because I am heartbroken about health care reform. If you have chanced upon any of my previous back and forths (e.g. Lalo's blue pill blog), you would know that I too strongly feel that structural healthcare reform is required. This, at the very least, requires moving away from both the "fee for service" system and the historic accident of the tie to employers. Dan k has some great comments above, and I will comment more in a future post of yours.
However I would like to offer two additional thoughts:
1. I, like a lot of people round here, work. We get tired. this leads directly to number 2.
2. You are needlessly wordy
In each case, I felt compelled to offer information that REALLY- you felt compelled? gee thanks
I do hope some will be willing to visit it. It is not I who deserves the attention, but the material that's to be found there. umm how many qualifiers do you need in a sentence
I believe it is because they would have demanded from readers some actual attention - some focused, concentrated effort spent on digesting data in a way that left them far better informed, but which also compelled them to alter their perspective on this entire topic how many words are in that sentence?
garnered 43 recommends and dozens of comments....It was mildly interesting. gosh if we rec your shit, then we must be stupid. is that what you are saying here?
I am not writing this to try and pick your posts apart. I am very impressed by both the quality of your thinking and the thoughtfulness of your comments.
However, they are looooong, and they don't need to be. Have you ever read On writing well? Well I never finished it either, but Zissner's main thesis was that good writing is succinct.
August 13, 2009 1:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good writing IS succinct. Especially for blogs, in my experience. I always tried to be as succinct as I could. And to break my writing into more than one blog - if the topic needed more paragraphs. A good title is important. And it does pay - for the most part - to revise and revise. I often found that I'd go through things again, trying to pare down sentences or see what I could cut entirely. But ultimately we're all writing for a variety of reasons. And we need to be true to ourselves - regardless of the outcome.
August 13, 2009 9:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hi Saladin - Your points are well taken. I appreciate the value of brevity, and I'll try to tighten up future posts. Part of the excess has been a desire to defend against a perception that if I made an unqualified assertion without adding a personal touch, readers would reject it as dogmatic. If I've gone too far in that direction, I'll try to find a new balance.
August 13, 2009 10:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Fred, you make smart points. Smart points stand on their own merits.
Keep up the crusade!
August 13, 2009 1:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Some days (like today) it just depends on the traffic on this site. Don't feel bad... it may be that your posts just got squashed into a pile and nobody got a chance to read them before they got pushed out. At the moment there are just too many people at it all at once. Maybe try it again when things slow down.
I rarely agree with you, Fred, no matter how many factoids you throw out there, but I realize that its got to be frusting to spend a great deal of time writing something that gets tossed overboard by the system. Don't take it personally.
I'll rec this... but don't think it will do much good as its probaly already out of the queue (sorry).
August 13, 2009 4:32 PM | Reply | Permalink