Here is my suggestion for improving political discourse in this country: Turn off the TV. TV news has always been a necessarily shallow proposition, because the amount of time devoted to each story doesn't allow for depth or nuance, and many "news" shows prioritize glitz over substance. That's why you find local news channels in, say, Arizona showing a helicopter crash in Massachusetts: great video! With the effect that viewers get the impression that helicopters crash all the time. But the 24/7 news cycle has made it worse. CNN, Fox, MSNBC all have to fill 24 hours of programming. And that means that each day's worth of news is stretched very thin indeed, and leavened with all sorts of empty time filled with talking heads spouting speculation and misinformation. It doesn't matter what channel we're talking about: 98% of each day's programming is empty fluff. Because it is empty fluff, TV news channels constantly have to hype stuff in order to attract viewers. So you get things like Fox's "War on Christmas" meme, where they try to push outrage over a made-up "issue" in order to attract eyeballs. Then throw in the "opinion" shows. They are simply spigots for propaganda and misinformation, and after years on this forum I've concluded that most viewers don't understand the difference between news and opinion. Similarly, I would suggest anyone who gets significant political news from YouTube videos needs to stop. Videos are too easy to make manipulative, with selective editing and voiceovers. They are often rife with logical failures and simple ignorance. All media have their own problems, but at least written stories allow for depth and nuance, and often link to their sources. You can skim them quickly, allowing you to compare multiple versions of a story much more easily than comparing video. So turn off the TV and get a big chunk of your life back. Specifically: 1. Get your news from written sources, even if it's the written version of a CNN or Fox story. 2. Use aggregators like Memeorandum to get a wide variety of takes on the news of the day. 3. Read past the headline and understand that most stories are not black and white: reality is complex and nuanced. 4. Beware of stories that sell a simple narrative. 5. Do not rely on openly biased sources, like right/left wing blogs. Quoting Think Progress or Gateway Pundit as an authoritative source is an automatic fail. Who's with me?!
