The Tucson Weekly teaches the Arizona Daily Star how political reporting is done

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

How can we expect informed voters when the media fails to inform?

A classic example today is the Arizona Daily Star coverage of last night's CD8 Special Election debate on KUAT. Star reporter Brady McCombs focuses on the optics of the event rather than substance, falls back on his comfort zone of pure stenography (he said/he said) to create a false equivalency that both sides are lying – AND WHERE IS THE FACT CHECK accompanying article? Testy Barber, Kelly trade claims of lying during CD8 debate.

The Arizona Daily Star is almost totally useless.

Luckily we have a real political reporter, Jim Nintzel at the Tucson Weekly, who teaches the Arizona Daily Star today how political reporting is done. The Skinny | Tucson Weekly:

THE CD 8 AIR WAR ESCALATES

The stories about competing endorsements and shifting positions on Social Security and Medicare in the Congressional District 8 race have been overshadowed by the money pouring into Southern Arizona from Washington, D.C.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the House Majority PAC, a Democratic super-PAC, are spending at least $800,000 through Election Day; the National Republican Congressional Committee is spending at least $600,000, and the GOP ticket is getting a boost from the Citizens United, a right-wing super-PAC that announced this week that it would spend $100,000 on TV ads.

The Republicans are focusing on how Democrat Ron Barber won't support the complete repeal of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare; the Democrats are focusing on all the radical statements Jesse Kelly has made about privatizing Medicare and Social Security, and eliminating the minimum wage and corporate taxes, as well as his other Tea Party rhetoric.

The NRCC ads, as we explained in last week's Skinny, rely on a claim that has been repeatedly declared "false" by the Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-check operation PolitiFact. The Republicans have been pushing the talking point that Obamacare cuts Medicare by $500 billion.

As PolitiFact explains it, the federal government projects what programs such as Medicare and Social Security are going to cost in the future so that the government can anticipate what kind of demands will be placed on the budget.

The Affordable Care Act made a variety of policy changes to the Medicare program in order to reduce its costs over the next decade by $500 billion. That doesn't mean that Medicare has actually been cut; in fact, the federal government spent $499 billion on Medicare in 2009 and still plans to spend $929 billion in 2020, according to PolitiFact.

Daniel Scarpinato, an NRCC spokesman who has the job of helping Kelly win the special election, acknowledged that some kind of Medicare spending adjustment is necessary, because "we know that Medicare is heading toward bankruptcy if we don't find a way to protect and preserve it."

In an interview with the Weekly, Scarpinato also conceded that while Republicans want to repeal the Affordable Care Act, they have voted to include $500 billion in spending reductions in the House budget cooked up by Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan.

But as we mentioned last week, Scarpinato argues that the GOP reductions in future spending are different from the Democratic reductions in future spending.

"The Ryan budget finds long-term savings to extend the life of Medicare, and the Obamacare plan actually cuts Medicare to fund a new entitlement program," Scarpinato says.

Democrats argue that the Ryan budget actually uses the long-term savings to give tax breaks to America's wealthiest citizens, while taking away health-care coverage from the middle class.

The Ryan plan works to partially privatize Medicare, giving seniors vouchers that they could use to purchase private health insurance. But critics of the plan say that the vouchers don't keep pace with the growth of medical inflation, and a Congressional Budget Office analysis showed that seniors would have to pay more out of pocket for their medical expenses.

"It divides up the risk pool in a way that if you're older and facing surgery, long hospital stays or rehabilitation expenses, you're going to be paying a bigger percentage out of pocket, or you have to pay more for the more-expensive (insurance) plan," says Phillip Rotondi, the aforementioned senior political adviser for the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

While seniors would have the option of keeping traditional Medicare, Rotondi says that healthier people would opt to purchase private insurance, leaving the federal government on the hook to cover the health-care costs of older and sicker Americans.

Rotondi points out that the Affordable Care Act includes reforms that have lowered health-care costs for seniors, including more subsidies for prescription drugs and preventative care.

"I've seen nothing that would continue the improvements to Medicare if they repeal the act," Rotondi says.

Now is that so effin' hard, Brady? Or are your editors preventing you from writing this? If that's the case, it's time to let others know.