NPR + Kaiser Health News = "All Aren't Happy With Health Insurance For All"
I took a break from ripping on the Young Cons Anthem on youtube to read some NPR. All of a sudden I see this headline:
All Aren't Happy With Health Insurance For All
by Karen Brown
OK, fine, I think this is a counterpoint piece to Universal Health Care, because NPR is afraid of appearing biased by reporting on reality. A typical insurance industry / GOP news plant. But then I noticed that this content was provided to NPR (!) directly from a group called Kaiser Health News. They provide this disclosure at the end:
Karen Brown is a reporter for member station WFCR in Amherst, Mass. This story was produced through a collaboration between NPR and Kaiser Health News. KHN is an editorially independent news service and is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization. Neither KFF nor KHN is affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
WTF?! I'm calling bull$hit. That's like starting a MacDonald's Foundation to Cure Obesity or the FoxNews Trust to Fight Illiteracy.
In what universe is this appropriate work by NPR? If they don't have the budget to provide new reporting and original content, remain silent. Silence should always win against corporate infiltration.
I'm not saying Massachusetts' plan isn't totally screwed up (Universal Single Payer on a national level is the only solution), but this seems to be a think tank bamboozlement.
I'm 100% open to be proven wrong. Is Kaiser Health News legitimate?
I share your skepticism. I did read several of the articles, and they seemed pretty objective to me (except that they talk about Baucus as though he is doing the right thing). I do know that some foundations carry the name of health care providers (the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation -- Johnson & Johnson) and are totally separate and beyond any taint.
I don't know about the Kaiser Foundation. Let's keep our powder dry and continue to monitor what they say. We'll know pretty soon whose side they're on.
Thanks for posting this.
May 31, 2009 5:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
From wiki: Kaiser Family Foundation has been divested of shares in the Kaiser industries since 1985. On the other hand the Kaiser heirs are still heavily involved with the foundation, and I assume they have not divested their shares in the family industries. Further wiki states: "Unlike grant-making foundations, KFF develops and runs its own research and communications programs, often in partnership with outside organizations". So they're not giving money to independent researchers, but producing it in-house.
I'm goin' with Wade on this one. ("I'm calling bull$hit".)
May 31, 2009 8:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, reporting is necessarily about biting the hands that feed. If they're directly feeding the reporter, it's got to be hard to criticize.
Even powerful dudes like Letterman & Howard Stern have gotten into trouble for criticizing ownership.
May 31, 2009 8:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Lehrer News Hour on PBS has a regular health-care issues reporter whose work is at least partly financed on an ongoing basis by KFF. That has struck me as suspect, as well. Seems like an obviously bad idea--like all those Senators and Congresspeople who are entirely uninfluenced by the civic-minded insurers and drug companies contributing to their campaign funds.
May 31, 2009 7:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hi,
I'm an editor with Kaiser Health News and, yes, we are legitimate. We're an editorially independent part of the Kaiser Family Foundation, which as you know is a nonpartisan research organization (whose work is oft-cited by journalists). We're staffed by professional journalists who last worked at organizations like the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, CQ, NPR and the Baltimore Sun. Our advisory board is rich in journalistic experience and integrity. The list of members is on the site, kaiserhealthnews.org, which formally debuted Monday June 1. The Washington Post, NPR and McClatchy ran some of our stories yesterday on their sites. In our soft-launch phase the Post, Philadelphia Inquirer and other papers ran several KHN articles. Our goal is to produce rigorously reported stories about health care policy issues. Judge us by our work, and tell us what you like and don't like.
Feel free to contact KHN through the site or me, jfairhall@kff.org.
June 2, 2009 10:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
JohnFairhall: Thanks for writing. I will go read more at kff.org. Specifically, I really want to know how you're covering the fact that the public option / single-payer folks aren't allowed at the negotiating table.
Thanks again, and we can definitely keep this discussion going. The TPM audience is pretty special, so we hope you come back and discuss your reporting here.
June 3, 2009 1:21 AM | Reply | Permalink