Part I
Since the night of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the rules concerning media have changed. Before this watershed event, a person could get a decent understanding of what is going on each week by consuming three pairs of news products: (1) a liberal and also a conservative nightly news program or Sunday morning weekly show, (2) a regular liberal and also conservative newspaper or magazine, and (3) at least one or two non-typical news sources that include different perspectives (e.g. The Economist, providing a British view outside U.S. Republican/Democrat thinking; Foreign Affairs, a peer-reviewed journal presenting scholarly perspectives on major world trends and issues; and/or a business or cultural publication that addresses news but mainly emphasizes how current events impact the economy and society, such as Fortune, Forbes, The Atlantic, Harper’s, or Vital Speeches of the Day. A number of publications fit this third description, including my favorite, The Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.)
Today, sadly, this formula won’t help most citizens understand what is actually happening in our nation. The mainstream media has become almost exclusively partisan, and conservative news outlets, even those striving to be objective, seem to spend most of their resources and energy rebutting mainstream stories. This intense, and often angry, debate between Left and Right media has been good for certain corporations, but not very friendly to truth. The media is mostly agenda now, with far less journalism than in earlier decades.
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