GOP won the messaging wars over Health Care reform - with Media help - Greg Sargent WaPo

(emphases in [font color="red"]red[/font] are my own)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/gop-wins-message-war-over-health-care--with-big-assist-from-media/2012/06/20/gJQA6KSxqV_blog.html

06/20/2012

A number of people are pointing to this big Pew poll today to argue that it shows that Republicans won the message war over health care reform. I don’t think there’s any doubt that this is true. But one of the reasons Pew cites for this victory seems particularly interesting:



Pew finds that the press coverage was also more more preoccupied with the political strategies employed by both sides than it was with the policy specifics of the law itself.

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There’s no denying that Dems did get outplayed in the “message war.” Their talking points simply had no chance against the diabolically perfect “government takeover” of health care line, which is probably a key reason why Republican language did dominate press coverage. [font color="red"]But it also happens to be true that falsehoods about the law went widely unrebutted in the media.[/font] When Politifact pronounced the “government takeover” line its Lie of the Year at the end of 2010, it also took a look at whether media figures rebutted it with any frequency. Politifact’s conclusion:



One of the results of this messaging win? Only 18 percent of Americans have a very clear sense of what’s in the law. Victory!