President Barack Obama has bungled HealthCare.gov so badly that he’s told senior aides to not even try to win positive coverage from the national press. Instead, they’re going local. In the past month, Obama and his Cabinet have hit nine of the top 10 cities with the highest concentration of the uninsured, while senior administration officials have held almost daily reporter conference calls in nearly a dozen states to challenge Republican governors who refuse to expand Medicaid.

Ah, Politico. Here's how they turn the story of Obamacare's increasing success in the states into what Politico does best Of course, President Obama could also be targeting the cities with the most uninsured because those are the people the law is intended to help, and that using local news to disseminate information might be the best way to reach people in those cities because of a variety of reasons. Like they need to know how to access the information or assistance that is specific to where they live. Or because working with the local news instead of outlets like Politico is more effective because the majority of the population of the country doesn't even know Politico exists (sob).

But there's also this—local news is actually doing a damned good job of reporting where things are working, because maybe local news cares about what's important to their readers and viewers. For example, in Kentucky: "Kentucky's program, Kynect, has enrolled 56,422 Kentuckians as of Nov. 22 [...] [A]n additional 22,000 have entered personal information through the website and have found they are eligible for subsidized insurance but have yet to pick a plan."

From Indiana: "There are exciting changes ahead for a local health center that for years has been providing health services to the poor in the Wabash Valley. A recent infusion of federal dollars will allow The Wabash Valley Health Center, commonly known as St. Ann Medical and Dental Services, to continue to provide health care, expand its services and reach more people in the Valley."

Here's an editorial from Kansas, a state refusing Medicaid expansion: "Continuing to deny Medicaid expansion may hold a misguided political appeal, but it will do a grave and shameful disservice to Kansans and Kansas hospitals."

In Kentucky, in Indiana, in Kansas, that's the news that people in those states want and need. If outreach from President Obama in those states helps focus attention on that, what's bad about it?