Americans largely fault the media for increasing polarization

It’s not the media. It’s the people. Generally it takes one extra click to find out “the rest of the story”. Most people won’t do that.

Democracy isn't built for ignorant and lazy people. Time will tell if this experiment holds up to human nature of tribalism.

 

We aren’t very introspective. We blame media. We blame politicians. But we choose the media we consume and vote for the politicians. In general people tend to blame everything they don’t select. They are OK with their chose media, but everything else is biased. They like their congressman but hate congress.

 

The point of contention was the closing of a mine. Answer me this: do you think the governments’ position is they are closing this mine for some environmental reason, or are they closing it because there are “too many jobs”?

If there is a non full of shit way you can show the Interior dept position is actually the latter, have at it. Otherwise it’s just parroting Hawley’s bs grandstanding without thought.

 

This is good stuff!

 

I think you are underestimating how much they overestimate their influence.

 

Is that what the headline said?

 

I was responding to your post in which you suggested that they (the "liberal" mainstream media) have a strategy of attacking DeSantis so that Trump who is supposedly the weaker general election candidate ends up with the Republican nomination. My point was that as far as Republican primary voters are concerned the liberal MSM is really irrelevant. As much as I personally despise Trump he is a much better politician than DeSantis and if the MSM has any effect at all on Republican voters it's boosting Trump's candidacy by attacking him and while that is definitely an effect it is by no means a strategy.

 

Anyone thinking the media isn't pushing conflict on both sides must be delusional. Look at this increase for the liberal NYT's and Washington Post from 2010 until now. Crazy. And Fox does it on the other side for sure. Part of the reason I moved towards the middle.
Between 2011 and 2019, the New York Times and the Washington Post increased their usage of the words "racist," "racists," and "racism" by over 700% and nearly 1,000%, respectively. They are using you as is the right wing hack news organizations. Very difficult to find unbiased news. Look at the increase in Dems thinking racism is a problem in the US from 2011 to 2017. Crazy numbers.



Woke Terms & Media Racism Statistics

 

It's just as easy to be honest as it is to be dishonest. Unfortunately, it's more profitable being dishonest

 

That may be true in a larger city, but in Gainesville since I live here is a very liberal city, never truly gives honest political news, it always has a leftist spin. The Gainesville sun truly is horrible

 

ok I should clarify I didn’t mean the actual evening news. I meant more or less keeping up with current events locally is more important than nationally to your daily life. Yet despite that I never see more than a handful of people at city and county commission meetings and most people don’t know what’s coming down the pike until it runs them over.

 

Vast majority of people would rather be entertained, thus the profiteering opportunity.

 

That’s what I’m seeing too, which is an interpretation that seems to leave us with two unenviable options: 1) Go against the desire of the people, which seems an ironic way to defend democracy, or 2) Accept that most people will consume entertaining and simple news over more factual and nuanced reporting.

 

Does anyone think race relations are worse since 2013? Of course not. Everyone is being manipulated by all media to cause division, all for profits.

 

What makes you think the findings here weren't manipulated by media 2001-2013?

 

I don’t there’s much of the media trying to divide

 

That's your argument? LOL. Take a lap.

 

LOL. Really? You think the media is trying to bring us together? How do you explain the vast increase in racial terms used by the media in the last decade+? You think everyone got more racist?

 

This is not surprising, but also wrong. People cannot admit that THEY are at fault, and always need somone else to pass responsibility on to. Media companies exist to make money. They "sell" whatever their target audience is buying. They did not make the political, racial, religious, economic, etc...divides, people's own biases and bigotries have created those. Media companies simple exploit them for profit by "selling" endless example of confirmation bias that "the other side is evil", while the average person is too stupid to realize that they are being "fed" what they really want to hear.

It is stunning how little personal accoutability there is left in this world.