When Late Is No Better Than Never

The special interest feast that is Medicare legislation gets its day in the media sun today after the House overwhelming passed a bill whose primary aim is to keep physician payments level instead of forcing them to absorb scheduled cuts. The bill also eliminated a proposed competitive bidding program for medical durable equipment that could have saved the agency billions of dollars annually.

That giveaway drew condemnation from the New York Times' editorial page and economics columnist David Leonhardt. Alas, where was the paper of record when some good folks up on Capitol Hill were trying to role back this rip-off of the senior citizen health care program?

The Hill broke the story in early May; I blogged about it here. A little attention from the MSM (mainstream media) over the last month-and-a-half would have helped. The Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and USA Today, my other morning reads, failed to even mention the story, while local papers like the Cleveland Plain Dealer rushed in to report the "success" of local companies who overcharge the system.

Major news outlets need to rethink their roles in an era when news has become an ubiquitous commodity and the Internet has made immediacy the coin of the realm. Editorials and columns are here today, gone tomorrow, and are largely irrelevant when they come after the fact. The media's ability to conduct extended investigations are fast disappearing (when was the last time you saw a five-part series in a daily paper?).

The only way for newspapers (or news websites and blogs that employ full-time journalists) to be relevant in the Internet era is to take up causes. Bring back crusading journalism! If there is an obvious injustice out there, especially one involving special interests ripping off the public purse, the way to counter their power is to hammer away day after day at the issue. What good does it do to let us know the day after the vote that Congress sanctioned another giveaway? And if you're a local paper, take on those special interests, even if they're from your home district. A few local jobs are not worth the larger costs to society.