A recent CBS/New York Times poll showed that even after all the sound and fury of August, 46 percent of Americans said they didn't know enough about health-care reform to support or oppose it.
That's a huge number. But I doubt there are many Prospect readers among them. Because if you're a regular reader of TAP, you read Mark Schmitt's explanation of the public option months ago. Tim Fernholz explained how reform would help ease the deficit, Dana Goldstein reported on the right's attempt to use abortion and immigration to derail reform legislation, and I explored how reform might reduce the shocking racial disparities of our health-care system. While other news organizations were chasing town hall disruptions like sugar-addled cats running after balls of yarn, we were telling you what health-care reform would actually do.
That's what we do here at the Prospect. We do more than just tell stories; we explain how policy might affect you. We're not about "he said, she said." We don't do "some say." We just tell you what's really up, what's really happening -- whether it's Gershom Gorenberg reporting from Jerusalem or Michelle Goldberg writing about women's rights at home and abroad.
When I left journalism school, I was despondent about the Pentagon pundits scandal and what it said about the state of American journalism. I came to the Prospect because I wanted to work someplace where fairness to the facts was more important than fairness to any party, and I couldn't feel better about being here.
But there is one way in which we're similar to other news organizations -- we're having the same financial problems everyone else is having. Because we're a nonprofit, we depend on reader support, and we need your help to keep giving you the kind of journalism that cuts through the nonsense permeating so much of our national conversation on public policy.
Please, donate today.
-- A. Serwer
