I subscribe to the Washington Post, so you don't have to! No, actually I subscribe because it is my local paper. Sigh. Anyway, in this morning's paper there was an article headlined "Health law's 'losers' lash out" by Ariana Eunjung Cha and Lena H. Sun. The article described people who were allegedly facing worse, more expensive coverage under the Affodable Care Act. Now, this is not to defend the catastrophic rollout or to allege that there will be no losers under Obamacare (although I do believe that in the not so long run we will all be better off). No, what this is about is my dismay at the sloppy reporting that I see in all of these Oooh, Scary, Obamacare Horror Stories. So, I fired off this e-mail to the journamilists responsible - my attempt at snark. A feeble attempt I am sure but, sheesh, I was so annoyed......
Dear Reporters,
Received an incomplete paper this morning - must have been a printing error or something. Because in my paper this morning (I am old school I get hard copy still) there was some text missing from your article on "sticker shock." The paragraph where you describe how you and your reporting team independently verified and confirmed the information given to you by the Prestins, Ms Persico and others about how Obamacare will negatively impact them was missing. Surely you must have done such due diligence especially given how so many other reporters have been slightly burned by Obamacare horror stories that turn out not to be so horrible after all (e.g., Diane Barrette the woman featured in a CBS story and then on FOX News).
I know it is the printers who are responsible for getting your story fully into print and not yours. So I will, of course, get in touch with circulation and ask for a new copy of today's paper which will hopefully contain the missing text. But just wanted to let you know because I can imagine it must be frustrating to see all your hard investigative work and research go to waste because the printers didn't do their job.
Sincerely,
