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Sure, but how many people are looking up congressional voting records, examining budgets, and reading thousands of pages of court decisions and the text of prop
by briHass 4y ago
Sure, but how many people are looking up congressional voting records, examining budgets, and reading thousands of pages of court decisions and the text of proposed legislation to form honest, independent opinions? It sure seems like most people use the internet and tv/cable news to reenforce their red/blue preference by watching shows or reading articles/posts that focus on how horrible blue/red is. Even for prominent sources, the depth of discussion is typically extremely shallow, appealing mostly to emotions, and highly biased towards the 'team' supported by the organization publishing it.
In the voting booth, almost nobody will actually consider the candidates based on their individual merits or plans, regardless of team. The number of voters that dare to split the ticket is well below 10%, outright proving that there's little consideration of 'important issues' ; people pick a side and stick with it.
- tootie 4y agoThat's literally what journalists do. At least good ones. The entire point of this thread seems to be that a lot of journalism is low quality and pandering to emotional responses, which is certainly true. But the solution isn't to just shut yourself off. If you read the NY Times, Washington Post, maybe long-form stuff in the The Atlantic, New Yorker, Economist and listen/read to NPR and local public media you'd be well-informed and only feel outrage if something outrageous happens.
- ineedasername 4y agoI never said that being a responsible member of civic society was simple or required no work. Complaining about needs needs to put effort into finding good sources of informations sounds about the same to me as if a colleague was complaining about having to read the documentation and latest release digests of software they use. That's the job.