Provide names of other journalists involved.
Gabrielle Redford, Editor
List date(s) this work was published or aired.
Sep-12
Provide a brief synopsis of the story or stories, including any significant findings.
Rhetoric about the Affordable Care Act reached a zenith this year in the lead-up to the presidential election, leaving many voters confused about the act’s details and specifics. In this article the author asked health care policy experts to weigh in on the most persistent fallacies about the act and explained the facts in a straightforward and understandable way. Responses to common myths also helped explain the genesis of the myths so that readers could make sense of the specific distortion of facts in each case.
Explain types of documents, data or Internet resources used. Were FOI or public records act requests required? How did this affect the work?
In addition to combing the actual act for specific provisions and details, the author examined documents and releases from nonpartisan source websites, including the Congressional Budget Office, and interviewed several leading experts on health care policy.
Explain types of human sources used.
Top experts on health care policy and health care reform were interviewed.
Results:
After the article ran, the author was contacted by officials at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, requesting permission to use it in classes there. The specific course in which it will be used focuses on the manner in which public policy is made by legislative, executive and judicial branches of government. It focuses specifically on the enactment of the Affordable Care Act by the 111th Congress and aims to show how the Act nearly died before enactment because of the widespread misinformation about what it contained and its likely impact on Americans. The professor involved called the article “a nice, neat illustration of how far national debates over public policy can stray from the facts.” In addition, more than 3 million people have “liked” the article on Facebook, with many favorable comments about the article’s clearness.
Follow-up (if any). Have you run a correction or clarification on the report or has anyone come forward to challenge its accuracy? If so, please explain.
No corrections or clarifications have run.
Advice to other journalists planning a similar story or project.
In the charged atmosphere of a heated political campaign, distortions of fact about any policy issue can be hard to counteract. Instead of simply stating the facts about the policy being discussed, it can be helpful to readers to link the fallacies being broadcast to specific data that were used to create these myths.