Health care news coverage faulted

There is growing criticism of news coverage of congressional events involving health care around the nation.

One congressional aide said that “certainly has been the case with health care coverage here in Las Vegas. [U.S. Rep. Shelley] Berkley held a two-hour long discussion, none of which was covered. But the five minutes she spent speaking to event crashers in [the] hallway was all that was covered.”

In the Washington Post, columnist E.J. Dionne cited instances in North Carolina, Ohio and Maryland to argue, “There is an overwhelming case that the electronic media went out of their way to cover the noise and ignored the calmer (and from television’s point of view ‘boring’) encounters between elected representatives and their constituents. … The only citizens who commanded widespread media coverage last month were the right-wingers. And I bet you thought the media were ‘liberal.’ ”

There is often criticism of the media for focusing on heat instead of light, but it normally comes from Republicans.