Makin' 'em look Stupak

By Andrew Baker

Who would have ever thought Bart Stupak would cause such a national commotion? The Democrat from Michigan was the one who proposed the amendment to the health care reform bill that, as Politico.com puts it "restrict[s] the sale of insurance policies covering abortion through the proposed national health insurance exchange." Here's the link for the rest of that story. Stupak's amendment is extremely significant with regards to the healthcare debate because it brings to light an issue Democrats have wanted to keep on the back burner and out of the public mind throughout this whole process. Politico's coverage will tell you all about that in the link above. Another reason it's significant for me, especially as a Democrat, is it really shows how far apart people in the party are on some of these important issues. To provide more prospective on this you can check out The Huffington Post's coverage here. I think this article does a real good job of demonstrating my point on the difference between "Barbara Boxer Democrats" and "Max Baucus Democrats".

Critique time:

What they got right

• I wanted to cite these two stories together because I think "new media" like Politico and The Huff do a great job of breaking news and following developing stories like this one was on Saturday.
• Politico does a very good job of giving context and background to the story. They add great depth to the issue.

Where they missed the mark

• I mentioned above that Politico does a good job of providing context. Let me qualify my statement: context is only a good thing insofar as it doesn't swallow up the larger story. Towards the end of the piece I began to wonder if I was reading the same story because the focus completely shifts to the president.
• Theres no easy way to say this, so I'll just go ahead and put it out there: The Huffington Post's opinion pieces are so numerous and so biased I had a hard time finding a real news story amongst all the one-sided commentary.

When all is said and done, the internet is a fabulous tool for breaking news quickly. That is if you can wade through all the bloviation and bias.

(photo credit: insidecatholic.com)