IN THE NEWS: At the Newseum

We spent the morning at the Newseum for an excellent briefing on the press and the politics of health care reform. It was hosted by Harvard's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy. More on that later, but while waiting for the event to begin, we took a quick survey of the morning's front pages from across the nation to get a sense of how yesterday's action in the Senate Finance Committee played in the rest of the country.

The defeat of the public option amendments made front page news in 21 of the 50 state papers on display. Six more covered the topic with teasers or blurbs inside the paper. Most ran with the Associated Press but coverage by Shailagh Murray and Lori Montgomery for The Washington Post  also got picked up by several state papers.

More interesting were the headlines and images framing the issue and often, the same story. They ranged from The New York Times' straightforward "Senators Reject Pair of Public Option Proposals" to USA Today's more colorful "Senate panel votes place 'public option' on respirator."

Maysville, Kentucky's The Ledger Independent, went big, with a looming banner of Senator Rockefeller holding his amendment across the top of today's edition. The accompanying article featured a bottle of  "U.S. Gov. Grade" snake oil. "Reconciliation" is emblazoned on the side, apparently a "cure-all for health care reform," as well as, to our surprise, a "hair growing tonic."  Helena, Montana's Independent Record features a more understated headshot of Chairman Max Baucus with its story, while the Portland Press Herald goes with a tasteful photo of Senator Olympia Snowe.

Our favorite title, however, comes from the Lynchburg, Virginia's The News & Advance which proclaims "Single-Payer Plan Fails in Committee," over David Espo's AP piece -- which never once mentions the words "single payer."  It's enough to make us write a letter to the editor, but we'll save our thoughts on this and the days' panel for a more substantive piece on the role of the media in health reform. In other news, a Tsunami hit the Samoa Islands, texting while driving is bad, and there's a moose on the loose in Gettysburg, South Dakota.