Brendan Nyhan

One of the most frustrating aspects of the media’s coverage of politics is the way they treat deceptive factual claims. As I’ve often pointed out, these claims are often reported in a “he said,” “she said” format that provides readers with no indication that the statement in question is misleading or false. And even when reporters do characterize these statements accurately, it rarely creates a lasting precedent within their news organization. Instead, these outlets typically suffer a sort of factual amnesia in which subsequent reports tend to revert to “he said,” “she said” coverage.

Coverage of the “death panels” and euthanasia myths is a case in point. As I noted last year during the initial debate over the claim, both ABC News and the New York Times reverted to describing the facts of the matter as being in dispute after previously describing the claim as false. We saw the same pattern this past week after news broke that the Obama administration planned to fund voluntary discussion of end-of-life options between Medicare patients and their doctors (a provision that was mischaracterized as “euthanasia” or a “death panel” during the debate over the House health care reform bill last year). The New York Times, which previously called the “death panel” claim “false,” managed only to call the claim “unsubstantiated” in an aside in the 22nd paragraph of its story on the regulation. And the Associated Press, which also previously described the claim as false, provided no indication that the claim was even in dispute.

The irony is that the media have elaborate policies about mundane consistency issues like how to spell various proper names, but getting the facts straight on one of the most important myths in contemporary American politics is apparently too difficult for anyone to bother.

Update 12/28 12:09 PM: To clarify per Rob’s comment below, Sarah Palin’s initial Facebook post coining the term “death panel” did not cite the end-of-life counseling provision and focused instead on (the imagined consequences of) rationing. However, Palin herself cited the end-of-life counseling provision as additional support for her claim only a few days after the initial statement. The two ideas quickly became intertwined in the public debate as opponents of health care reform suggested that seniors would be pressured to end their life sooner or have their treatment withdrawn (e.g. Chuck Grassley saying we shouldn’t “pull the plug on Grandma”) — see my article on health care misinformation for more. As such, I think it’s justified to use “death panels” as a shorthand for the way in which the end-of-life provision was mischaracterized.

Here’s what I just wrote on Politico Arena about the effect of Haley Barbour’s comments in the Weekly Standard about the issue of race in his hometown:

It was always hard to take Barbour’s presidential aspirations seriously, but this incident would seem to rule him out entirely. The controversy over the Weekly Standard article may be a two-day story, but it creates a pretext for deeper coverage of his questionable history with race. That dynamic hurt George Allen after the macaca incident, and it is likely to do the same to Barbour. Even playing the victim card will only take him so far.

In addition to the link above on Barbour’s past history with race, see also here.

One of the questions I’m most interested in is whether misperceptions about health care reform, which plagued the debate (PDF) over President Obama’s proposal, will decline as the law is implemented. I’m not optimistic. Given the continued flow of criticism from the right and the extent to which people rely on their prior beliefs in interpreting new information, it seems likely that false claims about the law will be a continuing problem for years to come.

However, things may be even worse than I thought. One factor I hadn’t anticipated is the potential incentive for insurers and other stakeholders to appeal to anti-reform sentiments using potentially misleading language. For instance, Kaiser Permanente recently distributed a flyer to members in California (PDF) which ominously warns that “health care choices may be limited” starting in 2014 and that anyone who changes plans “may need to choose a government-mandated plan”:

While Kaiser does not make any false claims about the changes that will result from the law in 2014, members who have negative preconceptions about the law may read that language as suggesting that the government will restrict their choice of health care. In fact, many of the most important benefits provided by the law take effect in 2014. As a result, a number of people will have more choice over health care and better benefits starting that year (though of course others may find that their plans and benefits change in less advantageous ways).