Kalev Leetaru maps it:
[W]hat we are able to see in the crisp mathematical precision of the computerized graphs and maps above is just how vast and intense the negative coverage really is. As a result, we can move beyond anecdotes like “It’s getting a lot of coverage” to precise statements like “More than 80 percent of all television news shows are talking about it.”
We can also gaze through the eyes of the news media and literally map the deep pessimism towards the law as it spreads across the nation. This by itself is a key finding: just how much the media has been covering Obamacare and, in particular, how key the GOP’s tying of Obamacare to the government shutdown was in bringing it to the forefront.
Chait tries to calm the media down:
Lost in the Keep Your Plan imbroglio, it appears that healthcare.gov has already reached a point of functionality. It can currently handle 20–25,000 simultaneous users. That may or may not qualify as a full Hanukkah Miracle fixed website by the end of the month, but it’s probably enough, at the very least, to let the law muddle through.
All sorts of things will happen to Obamacare in the next few months. At least some of those things will be bad, because any large enough enterprise, public or private, has bad things happen. One thing that can be predicted is that more and more people will start signing up for Obamacare between now and the end of March, which means the constituency for the law will steadily grow. There will still be a constituency against the law, and possibly future failures will enlarge it, too.
But at some point, having state exchanges where people buy private insurance, with rules preventing abusive practices, will simply be part of the backdrop of health insurance.
Waldman adds:
I realize that there’s an impulse as a reporter or a pundit to cast everything in the most dramatic terms possible. “Things are neither perfect nor disastrous” is a much less interesting assertion to make than “Everything has changed! Earth-shattering developments are afoot!” But that happens to be the truth.
Earlier Dish on media coverage of Obamacare here.
The Dish 