Wednesday, June 19, 2013. Last Update: Wed 2:50 PM EST

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Articles by Trudy Lieberman | Email the Author

The Kind of Medicare Story We’d Rather Not See

SmartMoney runs a lackluster listicle

Anyone reading SmartMoney’s take on Medicare would want to get granny off the program in New York minute. It was... More

A Rate-Regulation Case Study in Pennsylvania

When insurance rates are news—and when they are not

What’s so interesting about insurance rate regulation, and why is it worth reporting on? The topic has everything to do... More

The Coverage of Wyden-Ryan, Round One

Consensus building to privatize Medicare

Robert Pear’s New York Times piece “Support Builds for a Plan To Rein In Medicare Costs” seemed like a leak.... More

Pinning Down the President

Challenging Obama for overpromising on health care

In an interview with President Obama on 60 Minutes Sunday night, it was apparent Steve Kroft was taking his questioning... More

NPR and its Men-on-the-Street

Whom should we talk to?

It seemed that Mike H., a frequent visitor to CJR.org, had a point. He commented the other day on one... More

Morning Edition Connects With Regular People

But is anybody listening in Washington, DC?

The other day NPR did some solid man-on-the-street reporting, and found—as we have found in our ongoing Town Hall series—the... More

The Murky Politics of the Payroll Tax

The media begin to step in the muck

Each day the payroll tax saga gets more complicated, and the public no doubt gets more confused. Bloomberg reporter Brian... More

CJR Holds a Town Hall in Nebraska

Voices of the occupiers on Centennial Mall

George Packer’s superb New Yorker article about the Wall Street Occupiers is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand... More

Switching Sides on Social Security

Look who’s getting rid of the payroll tax

What to do about those FICA contributions, aka payroll taxes, now that the supercommittee has blown up? Last Christmas the... More

Romney’s Marie Antoinette Moment

What, let them have health care?

The lede of the Boston Globe’s campaign story a few days ago was explicit: Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney yesterday... More

A Shoutout to MarketWatch

For a report that examined the future of long-term care

Last week, MarketWatch did the kind of report we have been urging the media to do on a subject they’d... More

A Laurel to the AP

For its eye-opening story on Social Security

The AP’s recent story on proposed changes in the derivation of Social Security’s cost of living (COLA) formula is the... More

WaPo’s Misleading Social Security Piece

Article doesn’t come close to telling the whole story

By now we’re aware that The Washington Post supports serious changes in Social Security. In fact, the paper editorialized Friday... More

The “Government Takeover of Health Care” Is Baaaack!

Chris Christie waves the bloody shirt

A “government takeover of health care” is back. At least it is in the mind of New Jersey governor Chris... More

The Massachusetts Disconnect

Another health reform lesson from the Bay State

Much of the national press took a pass last week on another important “study says” story out of Massachusetts. This... More

AP Gives Half a Loaf on Long-Term Care

More reporting needed from the wire service

When the CLASS Act, a part of the health reform law that would have begun to establish a national program... More

The Human Faces behind the Social Security Rhetoric

Good work from CBS News

Finally, a mainstream media outlet has broken through the dominant narrative about Social Security and showed what the program means... More

Requiem for the CLASS Act

Long-term care program’s death sends signals the press isn’t receiving

On Friday, the stepchild of health reform died at the hands of the Obama administration, and the obits for the... More

Good Work from the Times on Rate Increases

Shedding light on insurance company secrets

Proving that not every story has to be a zillion words long or analyze a zillion data points to break... More

CJR’s Assignment Desk, Part I

Hospitals sell emergency room care

This summer, Phil Galewitz of Kaiser Health News wrote an intriguing piece published in The Washington Post about hospitals that... More

Missing Michael Hastings

One of the great reporters of his generation died Tuesday at 33. The stories he wrote, and the ones he didn’t live to write

Michael Hastings: my friend and his enemies

Hastings was fearless and shook things up - especially with his McChrystal expose. The haters in the media couldn’t forgive him

Snowden versus the dragons

Journalism is about finding flaws and magnifying them, and surely someone who would spill massive loads of state secrets must contain a few broken parts, right?

Call it the Politico rhetorical crutch

The inside-the-beltway publication’s go-to phrase

Rachel Maddow’s tribute to Michael Hastings

“Michael was angry … he was angry about things that weren’t right in the world. He was angry with war and with loss, and that drove his reporting.”

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