He has spawned a discussion of U.S. health care policy issues better than most individual journalists or collective news organizations have done. Sure, Michael Moore’s “SICKO” documentary may be, as Philip M. Boffey of the New York Times writes, “unashamedly one-sided, superficial, overstated and occasionally suspect in its details.” But as many observers, including Boffey, conclude, “on the big picture…Moore is right.”

Yesterday’s appearance by Moore on CNN’s “The Situation Room” with Wolf Blitzer provides little glimpses into some news organizations’ attitudes about health policy news coverage.

(CNN’s transcript of the program is available online, and a video clip of the segment is on Michael Moore’s website.)

First, Blitzer introduced Moore by urging his guest to “give us a couple of headlines.”
Moore jumped on that opening by retorting, “I don’t talk in sound bites.” And health policy can’t be dealt with in headlines or sound bites either, as too often happens, too often in the horse-race style of political campaign coverage.

Next, Moore questioned the integrity of CNN’s health/medical news that is sponsored by “fill in the blank” pharmaceutical industry sponsors. Such industry sponsorship of CNN’s health and medical news has been in place since the launch of the network in 1980. The wall that’s supposed to exist between commercial interests and independent editorial judgment has not always been as formidable as one should expect. (See my essays from 1992 and from 2005.)

To CNN and to other American news organizations, the attention given “SICKO” should be a wakeup call. American consumers don’t find health policy issues too boring, too dry, too hard to grasp. They are anxious for a chance to learn about and discuss these issues. They want more than headlines. Health policy topics could be the fodder for front-page and first-block coverage in print and broadcast every day – if journalists responded to their agenda-setting responsibilities.

Moore’s style and approach can be criticized, but at least he has us talking.