The margins are pretty narrow and I am very concerned about turnout and voter supression. I noticed last night on MSNBC that everybody is beginning to focus on voter supression...almost in panic mode, I think. A good friend of mine watches PBS and thinks its reporting is more balanced that the other news outlets.

I'll feel a little bit better if BO does well in the first debate but I don't think I will fully exhale until Nov 7.

NPRR
national public republican radio. they're terrible and it does seem, getting worse.

i don't watch tv, but i'm guessing from what i read (i read a lot, mostly starting at DU but not limited to DU at all), MSNBC has some shows that lean left and everyone else is representing the rich and ruthless right.

i should add that i do watch rachel, the daily show, melissa harris perry and others at times on my computer. rachel almost every day.

that it has definitely "gone right" -- not Fox News Right, for sure, but it doesn't have

that liberal "tilt" that it was once widely considered to posses. I called it "reality", but

the more conservative definitely thought it Left of Center.

I'm not sure there is anything truly "neutral" and some would argue there never was, as it's impossible

to BE truly neutral. I had sociology profs in college who espoused that theory and would open the course

by "announcing/admitting" their biases.

Not kidding about those questions - my friends and I discuss this all the time. I think as we get older, esp. if we get more politically aware - we end up needing to question these things. I remember Walter Cronkite - admired him. Many did - and we resonated with what he said. But....was it the CBS news flavor? His own? Did we resonate with it because it fit into our belief system - or was it the "truth"?

I think this is why we really no longer watch news on TV - very much of it, anyway. We try to read as much as we can find, then work as hard as we can to identify what seems factual, and what just seems to fit with how we view the world.

Pretty hard questions for an early Wednesday morning...but important, I think.

....and something else just came to me - greed, power, hubris has certainly gotten only worse in recent times, so my assumption is that "the news" is going to be spun in the best interest of the corporate owners. I can't remember the last time that "news shows" - even Diane Rehm - had a balance of viewpoints, left and right. For at least 10 years, it seems the right side view is always overrepresented - and often there is no true left representation at all. And it is never made clear - so the public is deceived.

I used to think there was the TRUTH and NOT THE TRUTH.

Now, sometimes I am not so sure. I have friends, really good friends, who are conservative. I love them in all ways except politically. We have had delicate discussions about our different beliefs. They sound so reasonable and say the same thing about me, but neither of us is able to shift out of our basic identification. They recognize that my approach to issues is reasonable, but it does not resonate with them. I can see the same thing when I listen to them.

Don't get me wrong...I have plenty of friends who are just batshit conservative and they impress me as just plain crazy. But there are a few who aren't crazy and those are the ones that really make me wonder about truth and where our self-identifications come from.

Even the statistics and facts that I quote all the time with my conservative friends are open to interpretation and manipulation. Am I as guilty as they of tweaking things to fit my world view?

Yeah, deep stuff for a mid week morning!

It actually has significant impact on scientific discoveries - most of the truly great breakthroughs are made by those who are willing to go to the edge and beyond and suffer possibly great harm in doing so - ie Galileo with his breakthrough on the structure of the solar system.

it is so clear to me that the liberal paradigm is so utterly and completely different from the conservative one - and the belief in being right, and it being "the truth", is just as strong in each. Baffling, isn't it!

To talk a bit about some of the other things you said: Sure, some on the left might insulate themselves, but you're missing a fundamental fact about the different ways progressives and conservatives think. They simply look at the world through different lenses, and it's far easier in a conservative mindset to shut out the other side. Progressives by nature are more inviting, more accepting, more open-minded; thus, more inclined to be aware of the other side's "ideas." Just because we don't want to hear those "ideas," doesn't mean we're insulated.

The problem in today's politics in the United States is that the conservatives do not have ideas. Maybe that sounds like a wholly partisan thing to say, and maybe that's supposed to signal that I've insulated myself from the other side. I don't think I have. I live in the south, in a Navy town, where a majority of the population is Republican. My grandfather is a solid Fox News-watching republican, and my Aunt and Uncle are both republicans who voted for GWB, and one of my sisters is religious and sorta kinda republican, certainly not liberal. I'm very aware of republican ideas because I'm pretty much surrounded by them.

And what have I witnessed? My grandfather has three bogeymen that are ruining America: the unions, the blacks, and the liberals. My Aunt and Uncle didn't like GWB, but they didn't vote for Gore because Clinton got a blowjob. My sister doesn't want to talk politics, so of course you get nothing substantial from her in terms of politics.

What's the common thread running through those stories? Not a one of those people votes republican because of anything meaningful. Grandad doesn't like black people. Aunt and Uncle didn't like a BJ. Sister won't talk politics.

You can't have a discussion with people who either don't want to have a discussion because you'll disagree with them and they can't stand that, or if you do get into a discussion nothing substantial comes out of it because most republican voters don't vote republican because it's good for them (more often than not, they're just voting against democrats and democratic ideals). They don't wanna hear what we have to say, so how can we listen to what they have to say?

The answer is simple: we can't. They have nothing to say.

But even more odd to me is that they seem to want to return to a time that I am quite sure only existed in their minds!

great post

seems to have been the start.. the growth of the conservative media appears to have been a natural consequence.. the corporatization of the news further isolated the coverage..i have wondered about being in a liberal bubble, the difference between us and them is that we are not adverse to facts... this is more than a mattter of integrity..

witness what happens when the right wing bubble bursts.. Ryan was the fair haired boy of the conservatives, they believed him... now when the facts are checked he looks like th emperor naked.. the right wing talking points work within the bubble but when they have to step out into reality they are screwed... what makes the Right wing bubble sustainable is that most of the time there is so much white noise that we don't answer, it then becomes fact to the true beleivers... this year Bill Clinton pulled back the curtain, and there have been constant gaffs since..

as far as factual news... your right even NPR has moved right.. actually i have found some pretty decent reporting on Al Jezzera english on a number of issues..

Both on public stations in my area