There's been no shortage of hyperbolic hyperventilating from pundits, on both the left and the right, over the health care legislation winding its way through Congress. But today's New York Times features an example of some much-needed reporting - not editorializing - on people hit hard by health care costs.

In Nashville, Tenn., far from the power centers where the opinion-mongers operate, reporter Kevin Sack chronicles how an increasing number of people seem to be ending up bankrupt, driven into penury not by lost jobs but by overwhelming medical bills.

Sack does what any enterprising reporter would: He starts his story at the city's "old stone bankruptcy court" where he encounters Jodie and Charlie Mullins. The couple were gettting by on his police officer's salary and had health insurance, but when Jodie developed serious health problems they discovered the policy covered just 80 percent of their costs.

Mr. Mullins tells Sack: "I always promised myself that if I ever got in trouble, I'd work two jobs to get out of it. But it gets to the point where two or three or four jobs wouldn't take care of it. The bills just were out of sight."

Sack doesn't beat readers over the head with the politics of the issue. He admits that statistics on how many people are driven into bankruptcy by medical bills "are elusive," and that a Harvard study on the issue has been criticized as biased.

But he also writes that "there is a general sense among bankruptcy lawyers and court officials, in Nashville as elsewhere, that the share of personal bankruptcies caused by illness is growing."

"This has really become the insurance system for the country," Susan R. Limor, a bankruptcy trustee, tells Sack.

After all the breathless editorializing on cable news channels, Sack's clean, simple prose is a breath of fresh air. And for aspiring journalists, his piece is instructive. Want to find compelling human stories to tell? Start at your local courthouse. Talk to people in bankruptcy court, or housing court, or divorce court. Get average folks to share their stories, and from those tales you may glean larger trends transforming the city, the state or the country.

And leave out the hysteria. We've always got the talking heads on TV for that.

Read more about how to find stories worth writing about.

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Fox News can't seem to tell the difference between file footage and live shots lately.

On Wednesday Fox News host Gregg Jarrett told viewers Sarah Palin's book signing in Grand Rapids, Michigan had a huge turnout. But the video used in the segment was from a 2008 McCain/Palin campaign rally.

Fox senior vice-president of news Michael Clemente issued a statement calling the incident a "production error." On Thursday Fox issued an on-air apology as well.

Fox executives are reportedly considering disciplinary action against those responsible for the gaffe.

Just last week, the "Daily Show's" Jon Stewart ripped Fox's Sean Hannity for running video of a big tea party protest in Washington last fall while discussing a much-smaller rally outside the Capitol this month.

"When that clip started, it was a clear fall day in Washington, D.C.," Stewart said on his show. "All of a sudden the tress turn green again, it's cloudy, and it looks like thousands and thousands of more people arrived...It seems Sean Hannity used footage of a bigger crowd from a totally different event to make last week's GOP health care rally appear more heavily attended."

Hannity later apologized.

Read more about controversy at the cable news networks.

Photo courtesy Getty Images

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Is Newsweek's cover photo of Sarah Palin sexist?

The photo, seen here, was taken for Runner's World magazine in August. Its use in Newsweek has raised the ire of the one-time GOP veep candidate, who writes on Facebook:

"When it comes to Sarah Palin, this 'news' magazine has relished focusing on the irrelevant rather than the relevant. The Runner's World magazine one-page profile for which this photo was taken was all about health and fitness - a subject to which I am devoted and which is critically important to this nation. The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist and oh-so-expected by now."

The Newsweek headline accompanying the photo, "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Sarah?", is a play on a "Sound of Music" song about frivolity. And the articles inside are critical of Palin, whose book "Going Rogue" has shot to the top of bestseller lists.

Meanwhile there's word that Newsweek may have violated copyright by using the Runner's World shot.

Daily Finance reports that the photog who shot the pic violated his contract by reselling it to Newsweek. The shot was embargoed until August 2010, the site says.

What do you think? Is this photo okay for the Runner's World cover, but sexist in the context of the way it's used in Newsweek?

In the photo above, Palin changes into her running shoes for an autism awareness walk in Purchase, New York, in June.

Photo by Michael Nagle/Getty Images

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You can churn out the greatest article ever written, but if it doesn't have an attention-grabbing headline to get people to read it, what's the point? Whether you're at a newspaper or blogging from home, a great headline (or "hed") will always get more eyeballs scanning your copy. Here are some tips.

Be Accurate. This is most important. A headline should entice readers but it shouldn't oversell or distort what the story is about. Always stay true to the spirit and meaning of the story.

Get the full story here...

Photo by Tony Rogers

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