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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| Nobody Gets a Balanced View of the News Anymore! |
| 2012-01-21 |
| Posted yesterday, this was on the front page of today's WaPo, below the fold, titled "All the News that Fits Your Views". Oh, the irony! Once upon a time -- oh, about two presidential elections ago -- Dianne Belsom would get up in the morning and read the paper, taking in news stories about candidates and campaigns. Some stuff she agreed with, some she didn't. This morning, Belsom wakes, makes coffee and settles in at her desktop to fire up Facebook. There on her news feed are more than 100 stories that some of her 460 Over the next three hours, Belsom bops around the Web checking out the latest campaign news. Her sources are big and small, from nearby Greenville to faraway California, but they have one thing in common: With rare exceptions, the news and commentary sites Belsom visits share her worldview, which she describes as "conservative, tea party, Christian." Just like lefties reading the Washington Post. She reads about why Ron Paul is out of step with conservatism at Commentary magazine's site and Breitbart.tv. She takes in arguments about why Mitt Romney is too moderate at newsmax.com and Vision to America. And she nods firmly as she looks at comments from fellow Newt Gingrich supporters at teapartynation.com and the Washington Times site. Crumbum reads the other D.C. paper! With just hours remaining before South Carolina's Republican primary, it's clear to campaign strategists and voters alike that the revolution in how Americans get their news has dramatically altered the political process. There's more campaign news and commentary out there than ever before, but more and more citizens are tucking themselves inside information silos where they see mainly what they already agree with. Which is contrary to the master plan of indoctrinating everyone that the Washington Post is right-wing and the New York Times is middle of the road. The result, according to voters, campaign strategists and a raft of studies that track users' news choices, is an electorate in which conservatives and liberals often have not only their own opinions but also their own sets of facts, making it harder than ever to approach common ground. The audience is so polarized that even when consumers look for more entertaining sorts of news, such as travel or sports stories, they tend to choose sources that match their political leanings -- conservatives to Fox News and liberals to National Public Radio, for example -- according to a study by professors at Stanford and UCLA that dubbed this phenomenon "selective exposure". Which never happened before. Everybody read everything in the good old dead-tree media, never skipped over anything they didn't agree with. No? One of several folks featured - Akers is also a news junkie, but his constant screening of the latest bulletins takes place in a narrower space. On his Tweet Deck, a program that presents Akers with a rolling stream of messages and links from friends, colleagues, and reporters and pundits he likes, he sees an America that leans left, a place where same-sex marriage is a natural right and the government is not necessarily a force for evil. "I'll occasionally look at Fox, but I get so irritated, the way even in their news they make conservative comments," he says. I wonder if he can imagine why I will not watch MSNBC? But Akers was never so deep in his information bubble as to block out alternative ideas. Although he was a Hillary Clinton delegate at the last Democratic convention, he has been disappointed enough by Obama -- "He's become such a divisive figure" -- to have fallen for Jon Huntsman, the Republican who Akers thought would be tough on spending but moderate on social issues. Now that Huntsman has dropped out, Akers is weighing whether to risk expulsion from the county Democratic hierarchy if he votes in the GOP primary -- in South Carolina, all voters may take part in any party's primary -- or stick with his own party. A former Clinton delegate thinking of going Pub? He has been surprised to find himself interested in Romney as a moderate who might not be that different from Obama and might be more competent. And as his Democratic friends send him links to YouTube videos in which Ron Paul calls for steep cuts in military spending and supports legalizing same-sex marriage, Akers is intrigued. By Thursday afternoon, he's wavering between Romney and reluctantly sticking with Obama. Good Lord! They're so close! How can anyone choose? Akers hurries home to his snazzy condo, a fourth floor walk-up in a renovated building that was once a college dorm. He feeds the dogs and checks the latest tweets. He loves how the new world of social media keeps every day feeling urgent and alive, yet he sometimes wonders when he will just stop and breathe. "The whole breaking news thing is so exciting, the chance to be right on the edge of everything," he says. "But everything's subjective, and you kind of have to figure out for yourself who's right and what's true. It can be hard." |
| Posted by:Bobby |
| #2 "Queer and Balanced", Oh, Really? FOX News recently hired Sally Kohl, a tall butch dyke who never blinks. Yesterday, in a Megyn Kelly interview segment, Sal was positioned between Megyn and Monica Crowley (yow-zuh!). Kohl was trying to appear professional, but was obviously swooning. Kohl has been on George Soros' payroll for years. |
| Posted by: Bugs Glomoque3110 2012-01-21 22:41 |
| #1 I do much the same thing. But when I go to Hot Air I get a collection of stories from all sides - I think they publish the liberal stuff just to illustrate how stupid they are, but they publish them. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2012-01-21 21:04 |