Quote of the Day: In Shocking Development, Media Org Gets Suckered By Darrell Issa Once Again

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From ABC News:

This post has been updated to include an expanded response from CMS and a statement from the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee.

OK, I admit that doesn’t seem like much of a quote. But Steve Benen provides the backstory: ABC ran a story today about “two high findings of risk” in the Obamacare website. This came via a leak from Darrell Issa, who is practically infamous for leaking partial transcripts of hearings that are wildly misleading. But ABC ran with it anyway. So here’s what CMS said when they got a chance to respond:

In one case, what was initially flagged as a high finding was proven to be false,” the agency said in a statement. “In the other case, we identified a piece of software code that needed to be fixed and that fix is now in place. Since that time, the feature has been fully mitigated and verified by an independent security assessment, per standard practice.”

The administration maintains that no components of the website were allowed to go live after Oct. 1 with “open [unresolved] high findings.”

….The ranking Democrat on the committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., has accused Issa of a “reckless pattern of leaking partial and misleading information” about the website operations.

“The very same witness interviewed by the Committee also said there have been absolutely no security breaches of the website and that she is satisfied with the current security testing,” Cummings said in a statement responding to the release of Fryer’s testimony. “This effort to leak cherry-picked information is part of a deliberate campaign to scare the American people and deny them the quality affordable health insurance to which they are entitled under the law.”

Naturally, Cummings’ statement was relegated to the very last paragraph of the piece. But that’s basically the whole story. One bug turned out to be trivial and the other has been fixed and never caused any problems. This is exactly what’s supposed to happen with bugs. For all practical purposes, the update undermines the entire story.

When will reporters learn not to trust Issa? Judging by current practice, never.

UPDATE: It turns out this is even worse than I thought. Michael Hiltzik has the full story here.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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