February 28, 2014
The Wife allows the Hearst Times Union to attack affordable healthcare and make a fool out of her
I’ll start with the facts. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, The Wife and I are enjoying more health insurance coverage this year than we did last year. And this year we are paying less money for that expanded coverage, a lower monthly premium.
Those are the facts. But if you happened to have read the news story about The Wife (Lynne Jackson) that appeared on the front page of the paper edition of the Hearst Times Union on February 2nd, an article featured prominently online, then you would think that she is a victim whining about a heartless government that is destroying this nation by offering affordable healthcare. To put it plainly, the Times Union managers and the content provider who wrote the article misreported the facts to suit the corporate ideology dictated by their owners at Hearst.
The dead tree front page edition of the Times Union sported the headline, “A Solo Journey Through Network, one woman’s experience shows setbacks, frustration with online market.” That was yellow enough. But online the headline was, “Albany Woman’s Misadventures With Obamacare.” That online headline reveals the intent of the deceptive article.
The Wife In Her Home Office Showing Paperwork
To The Content Providers
This is why I refer to the Albany Times Union as “The Hearst Rag.” The ideological deceptions begin with these two headlines, which have absolutely nothing to do with the original story that The Wife told to the Hearst content provider. The content of the article demonstrates convincingly that the Hearst Times Union is not interested in reporting news, its main purpose is to disguise corporatist propaganda as information and feed it to an all too trusting public.
As if that wasn’t bad enough. The Hearst article immediately popped up on some rad righty websites devoted to “proving” that affordable health care is bad and that Obamacare “doesn’t work.” It sure looks to me like the ultimate purpose of manipulating my wife like that was to provide politically correct content for the rad righty echo chamber.
I really, really don’t like to see my wife manipulated and taken advantage of like that. Call me a macho jerk if it pleases you, but as her husband I have an obligation to defend her honor. If some snotty self-important buttheads urinate on my wife for laughs and for obnoxious ideological reasons, then you can be sure that I am not going to smile and let it pass.
Rex Smith, Longtime Manager (Editor) Of The Hearst times Union
The biggest falsehoods in the Hearst article were placed in the fifth paragraph, which is the part of a news article that the reader is most likely to focus upon and retain in the memory. Indeed, over the next few days when various people asked me about the article, they mostly referred to the false “facts” in that fifth paragraph:
A sole proprietor — she [Lynne Jackson, The Wife] runs her own computer consulting business and has no employees — she was not allowed to keep her previous insurance plan because it was a group contract. Language in the federal Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, prohibited her from continuing to get group rates for insurance through a business group, such as a chamber of commerce. She had to find a new plan, at pricier individual rates.