A Thesis entitled News Reporting During the Healthcare Reform Debate By David J. Kubacki Submitted to the Graduate Faculty as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Liberal Studies Degree ___________________________________ Dr. James Benjamin, Committee Chair ___________________________________ Dr. Patricia R. Komuniecki, Dean College of Graduate Studies The University of Toledo May 2012 Copyright 2012, David J. Kubacki This document is copyrighted material. Under copyright law, no parts of this document may be reproduced without the expressed permission of the author. An Abstract of News Reporting During the Healthcare Reform Debate by David J. Kubacki Submitted to the Graduate Faculty as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Liberal Studies Degree The University of Toledo May 2012 The study seeks to answer whether or not there was imbalance in news reporting in the three newspapers with the largest circulation in the country during the healthcare reform debate: USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. The results of this study show that a majority of the 986 articles reviewed were found to be neutral in terms of news reporting. In the remaining articles, however, articles in the USA Today and The New York Times were found to lean slightly toward the pro-reform/liberal perspective, while articles in The Wall Street Journal leaned slightly toward the anti-reform/conservative perspective. For my wife, Jillian, and parents, Ralph and Cathy. Who would have thought I would be going to school for a graduate degree? Acknowledgements This thesis would not have been possible without the support of my wife, Jillian. Had you not completed your graduate degree before me I don’t know that I would have ever worked towards finishing mine. You make me a better person every day. To Dr. James Benjamin, I can’t thank you enough for your willingness to be my thesis advisor. From the beginning, I had no idea what I was getting myself into and I appreciate you keeping me on-schedule. I am grateful for how much I have learned as a result of reading your comments noted on my never-ending submissions. I would also like to give special thanks to the other two members of my committee, Dr. Paul Fritz and Dr. Sumitra Srinivasan. Thank you for your insight and willingness to be a part of this thesis. Finally, I would like to thank several other important people in my life. To my brother, Dan and my sister, Amy: it is nice to know that two of us furthered our education; we all know which one didn’t. To Jeff, Jess and Wyatt: just because you need to be in this thesis with no explanation why. To my cat, Carebear, who was less than helpful while I tried to work anywhere in my house. To Alex Miller: thanks for writing The Revival. It is still no DJ Tanner. Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................................. iii Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................................. v Table of Contents ................................................................................................................................ vi List of Tables ...................................................................................................................................... vii List of Figures .................................................................................................................................... viii 1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 1 2 Review of Literature and Thesis Question .................................................................................... 6 3 Methodology .................................................................................................................................... 14 3.1 Reliability ......................................................................................................................... 18 3.2 Analysis ............................................................................................................................ 19 4 Results ............................................................................................................................................... 20 5 Discussion ........................................................................................................................................ 26 References 29 Appendix A A-1: Example of neutral article, USA Today ..................................................................... 33 A-2: Example of pro-reform article, USA Today ............................................................. 37 A-3: Example of anti-reform article, USA Today ............................................................. 39 A-4: Example of neutral article, The Wall Street Journal .................................................... 42 A-5: Example of pro-reform article, The Wall Street Journal ............................................ 44 vi A-6: Example of anti-reform article, The Wall Street Journal ............................................ 46 A-7: Example of neutral article, The New York Times ...................................................... 49 A-8: Example of pro-reform article, The New York Times ............................................... 52 A-9: Example of anti-reform article, The New York Times............................................... 54 vii List of Tables 4.1: Four factors measuring imbalance, newspapers combined .................................................. 21 4.2: Imbalance distribution for USA Today .................................................................................... 22 4.3: Imbalance distribution for The Wall Street Journal ................................................................... 23 4.4: Imbalance distribution for The New York Times ...................................................................... 24 4.5: Combined imbalance distribution for three newspapers ...................................................... 24 viii List of Figures A-1: Example of neutral article, USA Today................................................................................... 33 A-2: Example of pro-reform article, USA Today ........................................................................... 37 A-3: Example of anti-reform article, USA Today........................................................................... 39 A-4: Example of neutral article, The Wall Street Journal ................................................................. 42 A-5: Example of pro-reform article, The Wall Street Journal .......................................................... 44 A-6: Example of anti-reform article, The Wall Street Journal ......................................................... 46 A-7: Example of neutral article, The New York Times .................................................................... 49 A-8: Example of pro-reform article, The New York Times............................................................. 52 A-9: Example of anti-reform article, The New York Times ............................................................ 54 ix Chapter 1 Introduction In the time leading up to the 2008 presidential election, it quickly became apparent that healthcare reform would be on the policy agenda for the upcoming presidential term. Radio, television, and print advertisements highlighting policy stances flooded media outlets leading up to the election (Robertson, 2008). Candidates hoped to garner support for their policies and keep the topic of healthcare reform on the American public's mind. According to an October 2008 Gallup poll, 41 percent of Americans considered healthcare an extremely important election issue (Saad, 2008). Moreover, this poll demonstrated that from the very beginning, the importance of the topic of healthcare reform was divided along party lines. For the Democrats, healthcare ranked second of importance but it didn't appear in the top five issues for Republicans or Independents (Saad, 2008). On January 20, 2009 Barack Obama assumed his role as the 44th President of the United States and was given the opportunity to see his vision for healthcare reform realized. There were many elements of healthcare reform that divided Democrats and Republicans from the very beginning. Specifically, issues such as the requirement to have coverage, the requirement to offer coverage, the cost of implementing the reform, the 1 availability of a public option, coverage for abortion, and the changes in public programs such as Medicare were among the most contentious and debated (Holan, 2009; “Focus on health reform,” 2010). Proponents of healthcare reform sought to require most U.S. citizens and legal residents to have health insurance. Specifically, the plan was to “create state-based American Health Benefit Exchanges through premium and cost-sharing credits available to individuals/families with income between 133-400 percent of the federal poverty level and create separate Exchanges through which small business can purchase coverage” (“Focus on health reform”, 2010, p.1). Second, healthcare reform would expand requirements for employers to offer coverage for employees. Specifically, the reform proposed new requirements for employers with more than 50 employees to provide