Politico wants conservatives to stop reading alternatives to Politico
Update — Studies of media and internet consumption contradict Politico narrative of conservative cocoon.
You know how much I dislike Politico, going way back.
Politico practices a particularly pernicious anti-Republican, anti-conservative, and anti-Tea Party brand of reporting … the relentless attempt to marginalize under the guise of news. Politico is no better than The Washington Post (from which its founders came) or The New York Times, but because it is not legacy media, it is not viewed with the same caution.
One of today’s lead articles by co-founder Jonathan Martin, The GOP’s media cocoon, is classic.
Declare the GOP to live in a media cocoon based on the statements mostly by three people (writers Ross Douthat of The NY Times and Ben Domenech, and a failed GOP candidate who lost the Senate race to Rand Paul) — hence, this is a “news” story — without considering the reality that almost the entire media is a liberal cocoon to which conservative outlets are a breath of fresh air. The few dissenting voices are buried deep in the article — so Politico is fair!
We are bombarded with liberal media all day long — yet to seek out alternatives means we are in a cocoon?
We read NY Times stories every day, except we often don’t realize it because they are reprints in local newspapers. We read Politico all day long, except we don’t realize it because it appears under a Yahoo or other news banner. We have no choice but to listen to CBS and other mainstream media, because our local news stations use their news feeds. We live in a world of a social agenda entertainment industry.
And yes, we watch MSNBC, just look at the Twitter feeds of conservatives and you will understand that we hang on almost every Chris Matthews rant.
The notion of a cocoon unique to conservatives is nonsense, and without any evidence.
What about all the liberals who refuse to watch Fox News, and Media Matters which is organized for the very purpose of destroying Fox News. For every example of a conservative cocoon I could give you 10 examples of liberal cocoons.
We were in such a cocoon that we selected Mitt Romney as nominee, the favorite of the supposedly non-cocoon Republicans, who then was destroyed by the liberal media during the general election.
According to Politico, conservatives uniquely filter out all alternative sources, but where is the proof such filtering is worse than with liberals?
But if the Fox News-talk radio-Drudge Report axis is the most powerful force in the conservative cocoon, technology has rendered even those outlets as merely the most popular destinations in the choose-your-own-adventure news world in which consumers are more empowered than ever.
Facebook and Twitter feeds along with email in-boxes have taken the place of the old newspaper front page, except that the consumer is now entirely in charge of what he or she sees each day and can largely shut out dissenting voices. It’s the great irony of the Internet era: People have more access than ever to an array of viewpoints, but also the technological ability to screen out anything that doesn’t reinforce their views.
“The Internet amplifies talk radio and cable news, and provides distribution for other sources like Newsmax,” said Trey Grayson, 40, the former Kentucky secretary of state and the current head of Harvard’s Institute of Politics. “Then your friends, who usually agree with you, disseminate the same stories on Facebook and Twitter. And you assume that everyone agrees with you!”
This is complete and utter BS, but it is BS with a purpose…. to undermine the alternatives to the Politicos of the world.
Conservatives are under constant attack by the media to marginalize us. That we seek out alternatives is understandable, but it doesn’t mean we are in a cocoon. We understand alternative views all too well.
Update: Excellent study by a Ph.d student linked by @JustKarl shows that the Politico narrative is baseless (emphasis mine):
The unimodal distributions centered around zero, indicate that Democrats and Republicans have similar news consumption patterns. Only a small unrepresentative subset of the public is sorting themselves into ideologically like-minded enclaves.
To summarize, most individuals do not refuse to hear the other side. In fact, most people consume predominately non-partisan local TV newscasts, while tuning out news from partisan sources altogether. Of those who do turn to partisan sources, most Republicans and Democrats have virtually indistinguishable news diets. Contrary to recent claims, there is little evidence that the electorate is self-sorting into “ideologically like-minded information cocoons” at the level being described by scholars and political commentators.
And another link from @JustKarl to a study destoying the argument that there is more conservative internet filtering, as summarized by David Brooks:
Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse M. Shapiro, both of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, have measured ideological segregation on the Internet. They took methodologies that have been used to identify racial segregation, and they tracked how people of different political views move around the Web.
The methodology is complicated, but can be summarized through a geographic metaphor. Think of the Fox News site as Casper, Wyo. If you visited and shook hands with the people reading the site, you’d be very likely to be shaking hands with a conservative. The New York Times site, they suggest, is like Manhattan. If you shook hands with other readers, you’d probably be shaking hands with liberals.
The study measures the people who visit sites, not the content inside.
According to the study, a person who visited only Fox News would have more overlap with conservatives than 99 percent of Internet news users. A person who only went to The Times’s site would have more liberal overlap than 95 percent of users.
But the core finding is that most Internet users do not stay within their communities. Most people spend a lot of time on a few giant sites with politically integrated audiences, like Yahoo News.
But even when they leave these integrated sites, they often go into areas where most visitors are not like themselves. People who spend a lot of time on Glenn Beck’s Web site are more likely to visit The New York Times’s Web site than average Internet users. People who spend time on the most liberal sites are more likely to go to foxnews.com than average Internet users. Even white supremacists and neo-Nazis travel far and wide across the Web.
It is so easy to click over to another site that people travel widely. And they’re not even following links most of the time; they have their own traveling patterns.
Gentzkow and Shapiro found that the Internet is actually more ideologically integrated than old-fashioned forms of face-to-face association — like meeting people at work, at church or through community groups. You’re more likely to overlap with political opponents online than in your own neighborhood.
This study suggests that Internet users are a bunch of ideological Jack Kerouacs. They’re not burrowing down into comforting nests. They’re cruising far and wide looking for adventure, information, combat and arousal.
The above updates prove what is wrong with Politico. It finds an anti-conservative narrative it wants to push, finds a small number of conservative voices to back it up, and then presents it as proven.
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Comments
Liberals are toleranet of the view of others, yet always surprised that there are other views.
Sorry for the typos, let’s try again:
Liberals who celebrate tolerance of other views always seem amazed that there actually are other views. [George F. Will paraphrasing William F. Buckley, Jr.]
P.S. – First Penn State, now Sesame Street/Children’s Television Workshop.
Standard partisan tactic from either side – once you win you work to minimize and marginalize the other side. Why, we may only be one election away from total irrelevance of the ______ party (fill in the blank depending on which side you are on).
This time, however, the partisan media – especially those who claim to be in the news business and not just opinion blogs like Kos – seem to be working very hard to divide the GOP. And there is a concerted effort to take power away from the radio/Internet sources. Witness The Hill blasting Drudge for…..wait for it…..the tried and true worn out trope ——RACISM!!!! The GOP is doing a good job itself on a pseudo-existential struggle. After all, the fangs are out for Bill Kristol and his statement about taxes in the past few days.
As I’ve said before, this is a tactic by Democrats and their media sycophants to drag the Republican Party further left. They attempt to do it every time they win. And they’ve been tremendously successful at it over the past 80 years.
But it is not exclusive to Democrats. I remember when Republicans won all three houses under Bush the Republicans tried to pull the Democrat Party further right – by telling them to accept the Iraq War and tax cuts were here to stay. I distinctly remember Howard Dean took the threat seriously enough that he said if the Democrat Party had a future, it had to figure out a way to appeal to rednecks in the South driving around in pickup trucks with Confederate flag decals. Of course I remember the quote because it struck me as bizarre that he thinks the way for Democrats to win the south is to insult them by calling them rednecks and racists.
what’s politico, is that a brand of toilet paper??
Speaking as a former liberal, I’ve found conservative sites to be much more tolerant of opposing views than lefty radical rabid sites.
And speaking as a former liberal, I’m much more tolerant of other views now.
When I was under the liberal spell, I was incredibly intolerant, just the way I had been programmed by the left. De-programming myself was a many year process of concerted self-reflection and study.
The left is a cult especially suited for the weak minded. I’m grateful to have escaped it.
Unfortunately, it will probably take another Great Depression or World War for reality to wake up enough leftists who are induced to proudly vote against their own self-interests.
History certainly does seem to repeat itself.
yep, in complete agreement. And frankly these people aren’t “liberals” as in “classical liberals”, they are more intolerant punks.
Progressives are as far from classical liberalism as from conservative principles. Progressives believe the ‘collective’ can ONLY be served through government and government MUST set every rule or regulation or even cultural norm in cases of hard card ideological adherence. Classical liberals still have tremendous respect for the individual, for one contrast.
Any time I hear someone talk about the federal government in a way that suggests that there is no other solution or way, I know I’m dealing with a progressive even if they carry an R.
Great point, now if we could get the Right to be more tolerant, respectful and contempt-free of our brothers and sisters experimenting with leftist orthodoxy. We have to elevate our game — strident talk and snarky putdowns aren’t winning us nearly enough votes. Let’s embrace a GK Chesterton vs GB Shaw charism about our disputes, even if the other side is not inclined to reciprocate.
I always just LOVE it when Collectivists offer helpful advice to the Conservative movement!
And then I do the opposite…
“your friends, who usually agree with you …”
This probably sounds reasonable to liberals who are used to everyone around them believing the same things but it’s not the way life is for many conservatives. I live in New York. If I only became friends with people who agreed with me politically, the loneliness would force me to move to another state.
So much for the cocoon hypothesis.
As this post demonstrates, a great part of conservative blogs is the exposure of bias in liberal media. Democrats dominate , yet they complain that there is a challenge to their “authority”.
The NY Times lies, misleads, obscures, promotes. They (and big media) have prosecuted conservatives in their kangaroo court of public opinion, and self appointed their own staff as our public defenders. Big Media prefers making the argument for both sides, and are angered by conservatives getting more assertive defenders, who also expose the liberal criminals.
Festering leftist media spreads the pandemic, conservative alternatives are the cure. In true Obama fashion, they aim to destroy the competition.
I dropped politico about six months ago. Nothing to be found there that deals with issues objectively.
The Hill is not much better…
I find The Hill isn’t as biased from top down (doesn’t stink as bad at the top???). From their editors to some senior staff, they have often been reasonably balanced for the most part. It’s not to say the are perfect, but they just aren’t as biased and manipulative as Politico, which even stopped trying it seems. Trying = trying to be balanced and trying to hide bias.
This is a joke. Problem with most of us conservatives are we are too damned nice, why don’t all Republicans boycott all MSM outlets? Force them to either be FAIR or get boycotted.
Also it’s time to get nasty with Democrats. And that means on a personal and business level. De-friend and Di-vorce. Know anyone who voted for Obama, scream in their faces, then break up with them.
Let’s boycott blue state America. Don’t buy any products made in Obama voting states. Don’t spend tourist dollars to Obama states including Florida. Definitely do not give money for hurricane relief or other national disasters in Obama-voting states.
Time to get brutally nasty and vicious with Democrat friends, neighbors, lovers and business associates. Tell them all to ‘F’ off today!
This is no time to be “safe.” This is a time to now get down in the gutter. Di-vorce and De-friend every Democrat in your life. It’s a nationwide movement catching on. Join today!
I, too, have stopped playing nice. I get in their faces, blame them for the woes of the economy. I’ve been de-friended by family members on FB. I don’t care anymore….the liberals have made it personal. I’d love to punch a few in their smug-assed mouths.
The only reason for me to even have a FB account to enable reading Sarah Palin’s FB page. Other than that, it is unused.
But my sister, who is big into FB, un-friended every family member, including her oldest daughter, who voted for Obama after telling them off.
So… that sword cuts in both directions, left and right.
I stopped being “nice” in 2008. #WAR
Liberals in the liberal bubble have their own law of physics:
Up = Down and Down = Up.
That they can’t break the 50% approval barrier must be frustrating… “If only they believed what we tell them they would all be liberals and play economic ball with us.”
Poor babies… Mr. Personality Obama is term-limited and the country is headed into economic dark territory of liberal making. The liberal inflicted pain is looming large and we are not going to stop that pain, rather we will let the liberal chips fall where they may. This is what is disintegrating that upside down liberal law of physics.
Obama and his liberal clan will be unable to dodge the responsibility for what is coming.
The “angry liberal white guys” are obviously freaking out as they look into the future and see that big f-in liberal problem. They can force an economic horse to poisoned water but beating it with a liberal race-card club cant make it drink that stuff.
We are the host; they are the parasite. Parasites can’t survive on their own and a host can’t make it as a parasite.
http://weeklystandard.com/blogs/election-over-news-flows-freely_662360.html
Funny how that works.
What is even more “funny” is how the news media (with a very few exceptions) simply colluded with the Obami in embargoing so much news pre-election.
It is rightly said that Reagan went over the heads of the media to the people, and that is true to an extent. The media were not what they are now, however. This is unprecedented in America.
Rush Limbaugh nailed it. He has referred to Politico as the Politburo. In other words, propaganda made to look like real journalism.
By the way, isn’t that what propaganda machines do in their attempt to “stifle” the opposition? Marxist regimes in the vein of Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela partake in the same type of underhanded tactics. Adolf Hitler did the same thing to the German people in the 1930’s. On a side note, liberal pundit Andrew Sullivan has made it a priority of his to try and shut down Fox News!
Liberals hate opposing views much like Barack Obama hates America in my opinion. Democrats would be more than happy if their views were the only ones allowed in print and the media. Liberals don’t like views that are contrary to their dictatorial liberal bent and mindset. They certainly don’t like conservatives or their limited government and low tax proposals.
Let’s face it folks. Democrats are extreme propagandists and obviously most of them are also socialists. Therefore they should seriously consider changing their name from the Democratic Party to the Democratzi Party. It seems much more fitting to me.
In liberalism’s quest for “power” and “control” they seek to ‘banish’ all opposing points of view. If conservatives and everyone else who loves America doesn’t fight back, Democrats will be more than happy to seize “control” of America and in fact Barack Obama could arguably be called America’s first Dictator. Obama has already bypassed Congress more times than you can shake a stick at. He is extremely partisan and even more so, power hungry, and as a certified narcissist, Obama has done everything during his presidency for his own personal gain, in his misguided endeavor to turn America into an extension of Socialist Europe. And websites like Politico are more than happy to drink Obama’s kool aid and to carry Obama’s message of partisan, self-serving interests, to the ends of the earth if necessary. And they don’t want you to get your news from any other source but theirs. That in itself speaks volumes.
The first story I read this morning was the Jonathan Martin piece in Politico slamming “conservative media”. The second story I read was Michael Hastings at Buzzfeed who picked apart the mainstream media for how they covered General Petraeus. An excerpt:
“Most of the stories written about him [Petraeus] fall under what we hacks in the media like to call “a blow job.” Vanity Fair. The New Yorker. The New York Times. The Washington Post. Time. Newsweek. In total, all the profiles, stage-managed and controlled by the Pentagon’s multimillion dollar public relations apparatus, built up an unrealistic and superhuman myth around the general that, in the end, did not do Petraeus or the public any favors.
The first story written by Martin informs me the “conservative media” can’t be trusted and the second story written by Hastings informs me that the mainstream media can’t be trusted.
How ironic.
BTW, Jonathan Martin used to write for National Review – the “conservative” publication that employs Ramesh Ponnuru who I believe is mostly responsible for the Newt as Marvin the Martian hit piece. I base that on an interview Ponnuru gave to to Larry Kudlow on CNBC around the time the hit piece was publised
I had to stop reading when he scoffed at the very idea that Benghazi could be as much of a scandal as Watergate. I asked him on Twitter to name the people who were killed in Watergate. So far no reply.
But WE’RE the ones in a bubble…
Politico’s myopic point of view would be a cocoon if there ever was one. I’ve got better things to do than to watch fly larvae.
Actually Im getting tired of Republicans forcing themselves into a self inflicted defensive posture following the election.
Were doing it again. The same sort of trap has been set and in we go.
Were allowing liberals to define us. And with every response we dig ourselves into a hole.
Just as Republicans over reacted to catholic issues with Obamacare that resulted in the War On Women meme? Were doing about the same thing with demographic issues (bait) and are getting defensive.
WWho cares what the left thinks about how Republicans need to improve?
Its not your business. Its our collective business.
Let the left worry about Jesse Jackson Jr and the recently resigned CIA Director rather than attempt to coach Republicans on immigration issues etc.
Let the left worry over the 9 million vanishing Obama voters and leave us to our own issues.
You know? If we are so smart as Republicans? Why on Gods Green Earth are we letting Obama get away with the claim that us Oil Production estimates that show strong gains are a result of his Energy Policy? Look at the pitch at CNN Money.
We gonna let Obama “adopt” another issue?
Rather than waste time defending Romney and the election…maybe putting a valid response together that shows Obama has nothing to do with increased oil drilling is a better use of time.
Or do the democrats simply steal another issue from us because were too polite. Think the Civil Rights issue and others.
Where are the Republican spokespeople educating the public that despite his claims9Obama)…the oil situation has nothing to do with him.
Our biggest failure? A failed messaging apparatus
Before Ronald Reagan became Governor Reagan, he had been going around the United States giving the GE speeches on America… what it was, and what we should make it.
He was rarely angry, always uplifting, and learned how to speak to a Nation.
Who is willing to go on record like that today? Ask any politician with dreams of higher office, and if they tell you that this would give the opposition too much ammunition to use against them you will find the Cowardice that will prevent any Conservative from breaking through the Liberal Cocoon spun around the Public’s mind.
Pick your basic values. Make a habit of spreading them to the public. Even if you don’t make higher office, you’ve served a higher purpose.
Yes. We live in a cocoon.
And proudly.
In a world in which the Law of Unintended Consequences runs amok and Knowledge of History, Economics, Federalism, etc. are mere flickering flames, we live in a cocoon of reality that is willing to call the terrorists what they really are – islamo-fascists, that recognizes that wealth is created and destroyed, not merely redistributed, that one man’s gain is not another man’s loss (zero sum-ers), that voluntary exchanges usually produce wealth, that Live and Let Live means both of those things, that a capitalistic system of profit and loss means both of those things, that slaughtering pigs during the Great Depression and Cash for Clunkers does not actually enlarge society’s aggregate wealth, that the only constant is change (not the status quo), that its takes millions of wind turbines spread over hundreds of thousands of acres to replace one average-size 650 megawatt coal-fired power plant (which won’t even get replaced because the wind blows only 1/3rd of the time and an unpredictable 1/3rd at that).
A cocoon that recognizes how far the Left has moved from the days of Henry Scoop Jackson and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, of American Exceptionalism, of individualism, responsibility, and self-reliance.
A cocoon that recognizes that you get more of what you reward and subsidize and less of what you punish, tax and regulate.
A cocoon that knows that the world is a wonderful place, but one that still very much needs the United States of America leading the way on economics, trade, representative government with the rule of law as a model to be praised, and on international security, deterrence, peace-keeping, and disaster response.
A cocoon that knows how great the disparity is between the prizes that the Nobel Prize Committee AWARDS and the patents, intellectual property, and innovation that the marketplace REWARDS.
A cocoon that knows that “beggar thy neighbor” protectionism is folly, that public employee unions are really government by government itself as a special interest group, that Gordon’s Law is real, that Herbert Stein was correct when he said that things that are unsustainable tend to stop, and that includes our debts, kick the can down the road employee and entitlement benefits, and our abusing the dollar.
A cocoon that might not know the definition of “iatragic government” but knows it when it sees it.
A cocoon that knows that most government programs suffer from “mission creep” and never go away, and that a government that is big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you have.
That liberty and equality are the twin goals of man, but always in tension with each other, and that if you aim for equality, you are likely to get neither liberty nor equality. That equality is impossible, because there will always be someone who is better looking, more popular, more athletic, more intelligent or lives longer than someone else.
A cocoon that questions “fact” and “figures” such as 3 million homeless, 500,000 missing children, and 30 million Americans are Hungry (at a time when obesity is prevalent among the lower class).
A cocoon that says, “hey, wait a minute, even if you are atheist, you have to admit that an intact family is the fundamental building block of society,” that even though five factors that have nothing to do with teacher’s unions still explain most of academic achievement but that teacher’s unions are still fucking up their share of the job, that there is income and social mobility both UP and DOWN (three generations from shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves), that very few people stay in a minimum wage job more than 12 to 24 months, that the Democrat Party has been a plantation (but not one run for profit) in which blacks are enslaved at least since LBJ, that Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, John Kennedy, and FDR would CRY if they saw what their party has done to those they wished to help.
A cocoon that knows the difference between racism, bigotry, prejudice and stereotyping, and that blacks are every bit as capable of this as any other “group” of people. A cocoon that scratches its head at the Racial Spoils system that was exploited by Elizabeth Warren, Harvard Law School, and University of Pennsylvania Law School – even if the girl who grew up in that Oklahoma were 3% Indian, or even 100% Indian. That most liberals are every bit as zip code segregated by race as the conservatives that they stereotype as racist.
A cocoon that knows that there are no hyphenated Americans.
A cocoon that knows that “Conservatives” care about the poor and think that the best way to fight the War on Poverty is to Get a Fucking Job and that most of the people in permanent poverty in America have either not completed high school, had children out of wedlock at too young an age, have substance abuse problems, or are simply unwilling to work and that the Poverty Line in America is well inside the Middle Class in Europe in terms of living space, private transportation, large and small appliances, computer access, internet and cell phone communication, and TV, DVD, video game players and other home entertainment devices.
A cocoon that knows that the Health Care Problem in this country is not one of inadequate Health Care, either in quality, quantity, and (for the most part) availability, but how we have distorted the market and paying for it. That there is a difference between health care insurance and a pre-paid health-care plan that distorts consumer behavior.
A cocoon that knows that Walmart, CVS, and Walgreen’s could probably deliver medicine, devices, annual screenings, and treatment for minor illnesses and injuries better than, say, the Veterans Administration.
A cocoon that ponders whether British orthodonture has something to do with high marginal tax rates and what the National Health Service does and does not cover, and wonders why laser eye surgery, tattoos, and piercings seem to get cheaper and more available even though they are not covered by most or any “insurance” plans.
A cocoon that has a healthy skepticism about a law that was pushed by a president, a Speaker, and a Senate Majority that had to use chicanery and sleight of hand to get it passed and then starts issuing waivers before the law even takes effect.
A cocoon that recognizes that it is not a Tax Expenditure when we get a tax credit or take a tax deduction, but actually our money to keep because it was our money to begin with.
A cocoon that knows that other than, maybe, the war against Mexico in the 1840s and the Spanish American War at the end of the 1800s, there has never been a war that was caused by America being too strong militarily and that Israel and the Palestinians are not moral equivalents, that one-third of the world’s populations seems to be involved with 90% of the shooting conflicts and almost 100% of terrorism.
A cocoon that realizes that European appeasement and head in the sand indifference to a nuclear Iran is going to work out about as well as the Munich Agreement – about the only European folly that makes the unsustainable European Welfare State and unsustainable Euro currency seem brilliant.
That Identity Politics pushed by the Democrat Party and Public Teacher’s Unions are just as big a threat to America as al Qaeda.
That Jackass Journalist was right: Conservatives and Republicans do live in a cocoon, but in a world gone mad, it happens to be a cocoon of cold-eyed reality.
Now, how do we frame and communicate these ideas to friends and foes, so that the cocoon becomes a butterfly and is not one smaller space surrounded by a larger space? Where is Ronald Reagan? Can we enlist the help of Frank Luntz? Can we find someone who can explain economic concepts as well as the late Milton Friedman? Explain socialism as well as Margaret Thatcher? Explain the external threats we face as well as Winston Churchill? Who can explain American History and “conservatism” as well as George Will? Who can gently rib, and sometime skewer, liberalism as well as P. J. O’Rourke and Ronald Reagan?
Or, is it already too late?
A cocoon that laughs knowingly at the thought of Millenials without a job living in their childhood bedroom adorned with a post of President Barack Obama and that cries for the Millenials who voted for McCain and Romney.
A cocoon that wonders if all sex scandals are treated the same or whether only some sex scandals involving high-ranking officials are deemed to be a “national security risk?”
A cocoon that knows that we do not think or ask these things out of anger, intolerance, or hatred, but knows that even bringing them up will provoke a fury of indignation from “tolerant and happy liberals.”
And don’t forget this:
“Confirmed: Conservatives understand liberal positions better than liberals understand conservative positions.”
“But Haidt’s research went one step further, asking self-indentified conservatives to answer those questionnaires as if they were liberals and for liberals to do the opposite. What Haidt found is that conservatives understand liberals’ moral values better than liberals understand where conservatives are coming from. Worse yet, liberals don’t know what they don’t know; they don’t understand how limited their knowledge of conservative values is. If anyone is close-minded here it’s not conservatives.”
Link:
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/04/13/confirmed-conservatives-understand-liberal-positions-better-than-liberals-understand-conservative-positions/
Yes!
Sounds like the Dunning-Kreuger effect named after a Cornell University study of competence, incompetence and perceptions of same:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
“According to Politico, conservatives uniquely filter out all alternative sources, but where is the proof such filtering is worse than with liberals?”
Exactly! If you really wish to experience the News Ideology cocoon, you need look no further than the Leftist site Politico. Early on before the nomination of Obuma in 2008 I noticed a Leftist slant to all Politico Posts. After Obuma’s nomination Politico got even more slanted. After Obuma was elected all pretense of balance was abandoned and everything became 100% Leftist trash puked up as News.
Burger King wants humans to stop eating alternatives to Burger King.
http://www.american.com/archive/2012/april/liberals-or-conservatives-who2019s-really-close-minded
“To be “close-minded” is, according to the dictionary, to be “intolerant of the beliefs and opinions of others; stubbornly unreceptive to new ideas.” To be conservative and close-minded, according to popular portrayal, is a redundancy—a package deal that liberals can and do take for granted.
But University of Virginia Professor Jonathan Haidt’s new book The Righteous Mind doesn’t simply suggest that conservatives may not be as close-minded as they are portrayed. It proves that the opposite is the case, that conservatives understand their ideological opposite numbers far better than do liberals.
Haidt’s research asks individuals to answer questionnaires regarding their core moral beliefs—what sorts of values they consider sacred, which they would compromise on, and how much it would take to get them to make those compromises. By themselves, these exercises are interesting.
But Haidt’s research went one step further, asking self-indentified conservatives to answer those questionnaires as if they were liberals and for liberals to do the opposite. What Haidt found is that conservatives understand liberals’ moral values better than liberals understand where conservatives are coming from. Worse yet, liberals don’t know what they don’t know; they don’t understand how limited their knowledge of conservative values is. If anyone is close-minded here it’s not conservatives.
Haidt has a theory regarding why this is the case, based on the idea that conservatives speak a broader and more encompassing language of six moral values while liberals embrace three of the six in a narrow set of core values. I see nothing wrong with this explanation.”
We need to take on the MSM & organize before the 2014 elections or else we may see the GOP congress dwindle.
We should of had protests the last couple of years against the MSM on a coordinated/regular basis. It was tried twice my friends & fizzled never to raise it’s head again. The 1st time was a natl. picketing & protest called OPERATION: CAN YOU HEAR US NOW?, that rallied folks from Calif. to CNN Atlanta to right here to the media capitol of the world NYC. It had an anonymous by choice organizer (I always suspected Breitbart), look it up…and we picketed all of the MSM on a rainy NY day; and folks came from the tri-state braving the cold & elements and then poof…it disappeared. This was shortly after the big DC Tea Party Rally.
The second try was by Brent Bozell who a couple years ago rallied us from the tri-state area to picket the NY Times and NBC/PSMNBC. He hired these trucks w/ huge signs to drive around the TV stations and MSM. We gathered again, and those participating were pumped up & had such fun (you should of heard the ditty made up on the spot about Ralph Maddow); a senior citizen friend of mine came over from NJ and he never held a picket sign (I have many xs), and he too wanted to do it again and again. But, that one, (in the photos linked) turned out to be a fundraising photo-op for MRC, so hence Brent will be known as Brent Bozo-ell. Poof after this Brent disappeared too.
Fellow conservatives, we need to get out there and protest against the MSM in your individual states. Look at how effective Van Jones was in having over a hundred advertisers leave Glenn Beck, and his likely loosing his show on Fox, and Beck’s being pulled from radio stations i.e. you can’t hear him any longer in NY-NJ-Conn.
IF the above two protests were built upon we maybe could of forced the MSM to be less pro Obummer, cover Benghazi, Fast & Furious, etc.
We need someone, or some group to give this anti-MSM potential serious consideration.
Let’s not be afraid to use some of the tactics of the left.
http://joebly.com/tea.htm
[…] get away from left wing media, it’s everywhere. William Jacobson wasted no time in smacking down such a stupid, self-serving assertion.Declare the GOP to live in a media cocoon based on the statements mostly by three people (writers […]
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