Religious Freedom vs New Health Care Mandate

So, we all know that with the new Health Care Reform implementation, employees of religion-affiliated institutions will be required to have access to birth control coverage. The strict Catholics who do not support the use of contraceptives or any sort of birth control are in an uproar about this because they feel that "their religious freedoms are being violated," blah blah blah. Not that I'm not sensitive to their specific beliefs, but I have been more interested in tracking how the various news outlets have chosen to add their spin to what could be an objective story. I just never thought the news outlets would be so blatant with their slanting and framing of the story.

The Washington Post's coverage of the issue is clearly leftist-- supporting Obama's decision, bringing quantitative polls into the picture that show public support of this, publishing the support of specific convents and other Catholic institutions, and essentially presenting Obama as the fair and compromising Messiah.

Of course, blogs posts from outlets on the other side of the aisle are clearly right-leaning-- opposing Obama's decision, bringing in quantitative data and qualitative interviews with Bishops that show dissent, and essentially presenting Obama as a socialist devil bent on world destruction, one religious freedom at a time.

In class we have been discussing how bias may just be perception. I tend to believe the opposite. Every news outlet is biased in some way and their coverage of stories is no different. I will admit though, it seems that liberal news outlets are a little more balanced in their reporting of all of the facts, but the influence from bias on both sides can be very influential on the public.

We discussed examples in class about the framing of news coverage. One that illustrates a story about an adolescent male in poverty might evoke public feelings of detachment while one that illustrates the same story, but of a county's poverty-stricken population might evoke feelings of concern and an urgency to aid. Similarly, the conservative blog frames the story as though there is great dissent from all Catholics and that President Obama is being insensitive to their religious freedoms by citing that some of the convents viewed his compromise as "insulting." The liberal blog from the Washington Post frames the story so that the Catholic men and women are the victims to the insensitive male Bishops who are doing more to control with their top-down approach to govern the Catholic women's bodies. It illustrates that 57 percent of Catholics support the legislation and presents Obama as being very considerate in his consciousness clauses of the bill.

While the majority of the public remains ignorant of politics and key political events, they could easily read these articles and be significantly influenced-- this is the main point of our discussions thus far in class. Should the media be more objective in their reporting? Should the public rise to the occasion and become the informed and responsible citizens the Framers never thought they could be? I would argue a little of both. The public has an obligation to be informed, but like Jefferson stated, if they don't, it is the job of the institutions to educate them. Are they really doing a sufficient job in presenting balanced media coverage? I highly doubt it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/15/us/obama-shift-on-contraception-splits-catholics.html?_r=1&ref=contraception

http://foxnewsinsider.com/2012/02/16/religious-freedom-vs-new-health-care-mandate-dnc-chair-debbie-wasserman-schultz-and-catholic-league’s-bill-donohue-debate/#more-83510

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sarah-oleary/catholic-bishops-contraception_b_1268683.html