Is Mass-News Media Healthy?

There is no doubt in my mind that the maturity and progress of democracy of a country can be singularly and easily measured by the objectivity, quality and independence of its News Media. It is for that very reason and the performance of its media, U.S. has long been considered by many around the world the beacon of democracy. Yet with the divisive elections and last 8 years of Bush government’s persistently poor judgment and what we know now, one can’t stop wondering how well has the news-media done their jobs (and for the matter what should we expect from them)? This becomes more acute as one feels the fatigue and overload after being bombarded for months by extensive coverage of Democratic Party presidential primaries. One must ponder how much and what have been imprinted in our heads are substance and insights, as opposed to mere perceptions created by each outlet and political camp. At the same time, as the media sometimes argue that they just report and reflect what the mass consider important or think, what and how did each of us contribute in influencing media’s choice of coverage? Did these coupling re-enforces each other and offer opportunities to some to influence and manipulate the outcomes? Did we from time to time make the mistake about which Barack Obama's March speech on Race & Politics warned "... to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality"?

I do have good reasons to worry about all these. In 1972, Professors Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw introduced the Agenda-setting theory with their ground-breaking study of 1968 presidential election. They showed scientifically that mass media can set the public agenda priority or in another word, what people should think about (the theory has been validated numerous times since and applied to fields like Marketing and Advertising). They also hypothesized that people would attend only to news and views that didn't threaten their established beliefs. More alarmingly it appears that the effects may be more powerful than stated originally: the mass media may also tell people how to think about an agenda through framing, aggregation, and “connecting the dots”. That is not that far from suggesting what the conclusions ought to be.

There are many ways News-media set the agenda for the mass. The revered 156+ years old New York Times has the frequently-quoted motto: “All The News are more fit than others or more “newsworthy” given the fixed space of the paper (or fixed amount of time in the case of TV broadcasters)? More seriously, who checks the authenticity and accuracy of the reports and the overall balance and how well is it done? The recent documentary Bush's War by PBS includes a story of VP Dick Cheney’s intensive lobbying of the invasion of Iraq through many TV interviews back in 2002. In those interviews, Cheney repeatedly cited the NY Times reporter Judith Miller’s front page article that reported Iraq was seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Only later we learned that Miller’s source was none but Cheney’s Chief of Staff! Isn’t that scary?

The most recent State of the News Media 2008 report on American Journalism by the Project for Excellence in Journalism contains extensive and objective reviews of the landscape, supported with detailed statistics and analysis. It is interesting to know some trivia such as that each night, in average, there are about 30 millions people watch Network and Cable TV News (note there are about 100+millions households in U.S.). One also learns or finds confirmation from the report that, for instance, commercial Network News (ABC, NBC and CBS) are still far more broad in its coverage compared to Cable News (MSNBC, Fox News, and CNN and CNN Headline News). One also finds that, perhaps not surprisingly, more Democrats tuned into CNN and MSNBC while more Republicans tuned into Fox News (that was by design). Obviously one tends to get more doses of news and commentaries that confirm to their inclinations and beliefs by tuning into their favorite stations! When and where would one get the alternate views then? Is this a subtle form of brain washing? I found it terrifying when I turned into a program and got disgusted by the speakers before they opened their mouth!

The report also noted that format of news programs does matter: correspondent packages made up 82% of the time on the nightly Network News, compared to 30% in Cable News that “… appears to be more on creating the impression that things are being reported as they happen. Producing programs in a live, unedited and essentially extemporaneous model is also cheaper…” The legit concern is the higher likelihood of misrepresentations and bias due to lack of due diligence such as reviews/editing and fact checks in the midst of such “reality shows” (in some, that has actually being recognized as a new “opportunity” and turned into a new segment). Worse yet, in-depth expositions requiring much harder and time-consuming efforts and skills are few that does not help correcting our problems of decreasing attention span.

Economics matters too, just like any business. Of course no media, especially the commercial ones, can survive without a decent balance sheet. The question one needs to ask is thus how is the news coverage influenced by the ownership and financial considerations (recall Fox News was created to present a “balanced” view to otherwise the “liberal left”?) This is particularly disconcerting when a large portions of the media are owned by few large corporations (ABC is owned by Walt Disney, NBC and MSNBC by General Electric, Fox News by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, and CNN by Time Warner, to name a few). One famous example of the influence by financial consideration can be seen in the hit Hollywood movie The Insider which depicts how and why CBS blocked the airing of a 60 minutes episode in 1994 on tobacco industry’s efforts in increasing nicotine addiction and public lies.

Fortunately there are other viable business models and entities of News Media as well. In U.S., PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) and NPR (National Public Radio) are successful and highly respected private nonprofit organizations where 40-47% of its funding comes from federal, state and local governments with the rest from private donations. In U.K., there is BBC, the largest broadcasting corporation on earth, which is a state-owned public corporation and quasi-autonomous with a clear mission of "to inform, educate and entertain". But the most exciting recent development has to be those enabled by the Internet inclusive of the social networking. With the rise of N-GEN (Net Generation), one can expect further shift and fundamental change of behavior and interactions of the mass and the media. The so-called Participatory or Citizen Journalism through e.g. blogs are breaking the monopoly and elitism. Commercially, the pioneering OhmyNews of South Korea, founded in 2000 by few young entrepreneurs, has a motto “every citizen is a reporter” and accepts subjective reporting inclusive of opinions from the mass (of course, editors of the paper do decide which articles to use and how prominent the space or position it would have. Further, there are still needs for regular full-time staffs that dedicated to establishing access and reporting significant higher level government or business events that normal people would not have access to!).

Such nuance of journalism and use of Internet technologies indeed offered us the great hope that freedom of speech and the press would never be muffled by few and we can all play an active role in insuring its health. Of course, worst to the worst, when everything fails, we still got Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show and Stephen Colbert’s The Colbert Report!

Talk to you soon!

CHANGE proved irresistible in 2008 Taiwan Presidential Election

2008 Taiwan (Republic of China) presidential election was held on Saturday, March 22. KMT (Kuo-Ming, i.e., the Nationalist Party) candidate Ma Ying-Jeou won a land-slide victory, 58.45% vs. 41.55%, over the DPP (Democratic Progressive Party) candidate Hsieh Chang-Ting. The total number of votes cast was over 13 millions that translates to about 75% of over 17 millions eligible voters. This is the 4th direct election of president by popular votes in the island since 1996. KMT won back the presidency from DPP after Chen Shui-Bian (A-Bian)’s two problematic terms in a semi-presidential government system (for a brief discussion of it, see my Jan 17 blog).

Not dissimilar to U.S. political landscape, the two leading parties KMT and DPP do each own about 35% staunch supporters who appear to vote by party line no matter what and who. Over the decade, there are also the notion of “blue counties” and “green counties” from past voting records. What was surprising to almost all by this election is the size of the victory: out of the 25 counties/cities including the largest cities Taipei (capital) and Kaohsiung, DPP’s Hsieh won only 5 “green counties” with slim and single digit margins except for a ~12% margin at the president A-Bian’s home county. One can easily deduce that the 30% independent centrists swing voters had come to a conclusion after 8 years and spoken overwhelmingly in 3 to 1 their disappointments and disapprovals with the DPP’s government.

I am excited and encouraged to hear this news and election result. It is not so much about who I thought would be a better choice for the president. It is the first confirmation and confidence to the people of Taiwan who should be proud of their active and rational participation in Taiwan’s democratic movement. They have send a loud and clear message to those who are aspired to politics and public service and to the political parties that are aspired to represent and serve the people: one must place the interest and welfare of the people first and one will be replaced if one does not perform.

There are countless spins and analyses before and after the elections in whole spectrum. At the end of the day though, what people (universally) want are simple and obvious: a secure, stable and prosperous environment; a transparent, open, and just process; fellow citizens who respect each other; and to have equal opportunity to participate in the system and achieve their goals.

For KMT and its allies, it is time to go back to real and hard work. Demonstrate your commitment to change and earn your keep: take the lead and fix the constitutions and judicial system, implement effective economic policies, and most importantly take the responsibilities and do your job! Remember: you don’t have any excuses any more – you have control of both the executive and legislative branches. By the way, in case you forgot, the next election for the mayors and county executives is 18 months away.

For DPP and its allies, this is the best thing that can happen to you. It is time to move on and grow up - you won’t last by standing on your opponents’ failures and baggage. Leave the past narrow-minded divisive ideology behind. Create a broader and inclusive vision. Rebuild your core values. Attract talents and nurture future leaders to earn your place in government and history again.

Talk to you soon!

Dust in the Wind

The rock band Kansas’ guitarist Kerry Livgren wrote the 1977 single hit song Dust in the Wind after reading a book of Native American poetry. The line in the book that caught his attention was, according to a story, "For All We Are Is Dust In The Wind." While you can listen to it by clicking to the link above, the lyrics of the song along with my Chinese translation are included here for your enjoyment. Although I could not locate the original poem, I can imagine what might have inspired the poet as she/he contemplated the meanings of life and glory.

閉起雙眼片刻, I close my eyes,
瞬間即逝. only for a moment, and the moment's gone
往日夢幻如真,
All my dreams,
過眼便煙消雲散. pass before my eyes, a curiosity

風前塵埃,
Dust in the wind,
宛如風前之塵埃.
all they are is dust in the wind

老歌重唱,
Same old song,
有如滴水於大海.
just a drop of water in an endless sea
寧願粉身碎骨,
All we do,
只是不願面對.
crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see

風前塵埃,
Dust in the wind, 宛如風前之塵埃.

all they are is dust in the wind

何必勉強,
Don't hang on,
只有天地永不敗.
nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky
時光飛逝,
It slips away,
縱有萬金也難買.
and all your money won't another minute buy

風前塵埃,
Dust in the wind, 宛如風前之塵埃.

all they are is dust in the wind
風前塵埃,
Dust in the wind, 萬物皆如風前之塵埃.

Everything is dust in the wind

800 years earlier, Monk Saigyo (1118-1190 A.D.), one of the most famous poets in the Japanese history wrote many somber and melancholic poems. He was born to a noble family, served the emperor as a warrior, but chose to become a monk at age 22. Ms. Shi Su-Qin 施叔青,a well-known contemporary Chinese writer, used one of Monk Saigyo’s poems to set the stage and the title for her recently published Chinese novel entitled 風前塵埃 or literally “Dust in the Wind”. The novel is the part 2 of her Taiwan Trilogy and tells stories during the period of Japanese Colonization. The poem was introduced as the badly wounded Japanese Governor reflects on, back to the governor’s mansion from the bloody victory over the indigenous people of eastern Taiwan. Below is the Chinese translation in her book alone with my English translation of the poem.

在超脫世俗的心裡, In mind above the earthly
悲哀突然湧上心頭, Sadness rose suddenly,
只因水鳥從沼澤飛起,
As fowls left the swamp,
在秋天的夕暮. Against the autumn sunset.
諸行無常,盛者必衰,
Life is frail, the rising will fall, 驕縱蠻橫者,來日無多.

And arrogant and ruthless are dated.
正如春夜之夢幻,
As dreams in Spring nights,
勇猛強悍者終必滅亡,
The braves and stalwarts will perish,
宛如風前之塵埃.
For all we are is dust in the wind

For all we are is dust in the wind, we shall live fully our lives and leave our marks.

Talk to you soon!

Next Constitutional Amendment: Right to Reasonable & Quality Health Care

Health Care has emerged as one of the top issues in this year’s presidential election and taken up some bandwidth of the airwaves and candidates. At end of the day though, I predict it will end up being “the NEXT most important issue” as before and no material reform will take place anytime soon. What is disturbing is that while the symptoms of the sickness of our health care system have been so visible and real for so long, this most wealthy and dominant nation seems paralyzed and helplessly watching the problem continue spiraling out of control despite decades of efforts by many. It got so bad that film maker Michael Moore could produce a box office hit with dramatic heart-felt stories and extreme contrasts of different countries’ systems in his recent documentary movie Sicko. Of course, Michael Moore did not offer any real solutions.

Like many others, I found myself increasingly concerned about this issue and being an optimistic cynic, I decided to take a look if there are some hopeful signs of solutions on the horizon. As I plowed through numerous study reports, domestic and international historical and projected data, wide ranging and conflicting opinions, debates, recommendations and proposals, I began to realize this problem is like Gordian Knot that one can easily be trapped and confused forever in attempting to address it with different approaches under varying and often vague assumptions. The solution to Gordian Knot is of course well-known: take a bold move and do not be confused and distracted by the appearance of complexity.

So let us start from the very basics and first agree on a common goal and set of assumptions and facts. I would submit that as decent human beings of a civil society, we must commit to each other that every life must be treated with dignity and should receive needed and appropriate preventative and remedial health cares, be it short or long term. Thus my definition of the illusive term of Universal Health Care would be: Regardless of one’s gender, race, age, religion, occupation, income, residence, legal status, etc., one shall have the right to reasonable and quality health care. By reasonable and quality care, I mean a consensual judgment and expectation by well-trained medical professionals, based on science, technology and quality of life considerations, of needed proper health education and treatments. Of course, with rights, there come with obligation and responsibility that includes becoming more knowledgeable about our own bodies and keeping ourselves healthy through e.g., proper diets (yes, health system is directly connected with our food system) and physical/mental activities. We don’t need to elaborate these further.

Once we agree on this goal, we can inoculate ourselves from those who try to divide us and pit one against another - the old vs. the young, the sick vs. the healthy, the insured vs. un-insured, the rich vs. the poor, the workers vs. unemployed, and the legal vs. unauthorized immigrants. We can begin to debate what is the best way to finance and sustain a grand enterprise that takes us to that awesome goal. I am convinced that the financial obligation of universal health care must be met completely and unequivocally through individual and business taxes. It must not be left to individuals and business to cherry pick when and how much they want to participate based on their own immediate benefits and try to shift the burdens to other. In return, individual will no longer have the fear for lack of care when they need it the most and when they are vulnerable. At the same time, business can be assured of well-cared work forces in the society and concentrate on their real business without being dragged down by adversarial relations with employees and unfair health care cost.

One might wonder if such fundamental change of the finance will increase the total expenses of the health care or re-distribute the cost to different groups. I don’t think so and here is the reason. The government official statistics tells us that the total U.S. health care expenditures was $2.1 trillion in 2006 or equivalently, $7,026 per capita or 16% of our Gross Domestic Product (note while it is the highest of all nations in absolute dollars and in % of expenditure, we need to be careful in interpreting this data as it does not necessarily suggest by itself something is really wrong – a separate topic by itself). Out of this $2.1 trillion, about $970 Billion or 46 % was due to public health care programs such as Medicare (for elderly) and Medicaid (for low income families) which are already funded through taxes.

Further, in terms of coverage of population under some forms of insurance, a 2007 U.S. Census Bureau report tells us that out of the 300 millions of people public health insurance programs cover about 80 million of us. There are about 180 million people are in employment-related insurance plans including 50 millions of them are under self-insured employer plans (yes, you may not be aware of the fact that most workers and their families of larger companies and organizations are NOT insured by private insurance policies!). Employers have always considered some (or all) of employee health care cost as a part of cost of doing business. I am asking the business to pay the same amount as tax instead to a “Universal Health Care Fund” that will finance the delivery of the cares and services. Then there are estimated 40-50 millions of uninsured people whose expenses when unpaid, have always been covered by the governments at all levels with good wills of our tax dollars. Thus, I don’t think anyone needs to pay more than what they are already paying. In fact I am expecting the overall longer term cost would go down because cares through emergency room is the most expensive form of health care delivery and because efficiency can be realized with well-designed balancing forces and competition. One thing we must bear in mind however: Universal health insurance coverage is NOT equal to universal health care and should not be the goal. In fact, there are about 16 millions of insured people (so-called under-insured) who do not have adequate coverage and protected. Worse yet, since most of the 180 millions of people and their families are covered under employment-related insurance plans, many of us fear for changes or loss of jobs that carries potentially devastating consequences.

The next key issue is to design a system consistent with our economic principles such that quality and level of health cares would be positively and strongly correlated with the amount of resources we are willing to put in. There are so many smart people who have studied this issue and can help create a competitive private or mixed public and private system that supports the universal health care goal. For example, in a 2006 article, well-respected Professor Michael Porter of Harvard Business School has articulated what is wrong with our current system and has proposed a value-based competition system based on results (yes, he means results, not process). Note that he also emphasized that for such a competitive system to work, it must be mandatory and universal to begin with which I agree completely.

I can imagine, starting with these sound principles, we will end up having competitive health care delivery and services of hospitals, clinics, doctors and nurses that are sustainable because they deliver quality care more effectively that (available) money can buy; we will have profitable world leading pharmaceutical and medical technologies companies that invest on research and development and shrive on producing price competitive new drugs/instruments/tools as well as cost-reduced mature products and tools; we will have medical schools and research institutes that earn their reputation and endowments by advancing the knowledge in medical sciences, attracting and nurturing the best practitioners and researchers with strong skills, ethics, morals and social responsibilities. We will have efficient and coordinated payment systems by service providers that compete on price, quality and efficiency and build on experience and expertise of serving those 100 million of Medicare, Medicaid and self-insured employer program participants.

Eastern religions and philosophies have long considered Birth, Aging, Illness, and Death significant phases of our lives. If we can handle these issues with a sound health care system that free us from fear and anxiety, I think we would be close to be living in a paradise!

Talk to you soon!