This news analysis does a thorough job of covering what the authors term the "echo chamber." A conservative opinion piece (see link below) is picked up by Rush Limbaugh and the next day is in turn picked up by Fox and treated as fact (and even expounded upon), then Limbaugh takes credit for getting the story out there. in the meantime there is no apparent critical thinking going on to question whether or not the original opinion piece was accurate. The bio of the author of the original piece shows that she has done work for conservative think tanks and was discredited previously for faulty reporting on healthcare issues during the Clinton Administration's efforts to reform healthcare.

This article refutes the statements in many media organs that claim that HR1 (the House stimulus bill) would have the government essentially dictate medical treatments. It points out that provisions associated with facilitating establishing electronic medical records have been incorrectly cited as requiring the government to dictate treatment. While the quotation of virtually every mistatement make this tedious reading, putting the record straight is indeed good journalism.

The exhaustive quotes from the inexhaustible recklessly lying blowhards starts to wear after a while, but Media Matters shows the truth of what the bill says, and then traces the distortions and echoed lies throughout right wing media. The lack of fact checking by so-called journalists is disturbing. The WSJ is especially worthy of negative note, as it pretends to journalism.

This article boldly asserts that a "falsehood" has been promoted, initially by Betsy McCaughey and subsequently by other pundits. However, on careful reading of the article I cannot detect any such "falsehood." Rather I see interpretive differences that are well within the scope of legitimate debate. Very poor journalism, in my opinion, based on continuous repeating of an unfounded assertion.