Debunking Sarah Palin: Mainstream news coverage of 'death panels'

On 7 August 2009, Sarah Palin posted two words to her Facebook page that would come to define a summer of discord around health care reform. This study examines how traditional media reported on the 'death panels' claim that was immediately debunked by several fact-checking organizations. Our content analysis of over 700 newspaper and television stories shows that, to a significant degree, journalists stepped outside the bounds of procedural objectivity to label the 'death panels' claim as false, often without attribution. Many stories, however, simultaneously covered the claim in typical 'he said/she said' fashion, thus perhaps extending some legitimacy to the claim. Our study illustrates the challenges to fact-based public deliberation in the contemporary media environment, and suggests that competing practices of objectivity undercut the ability of mainstream media to help the public separate truth from fiction.