A friend who is a retired AP staffer and an astute observer of journalistic trends drew my attention to an article in the Washington Post.
In it, columnist Marc Fisher reveals at least one reason our politics are so divisive.
"Polarized news market has altered the political process in South Carolina primary," declares the headline in the web edition.
Fisher followed three people in South Carolina and documented how they get their news on public issues. Not surprisingly, accessing campaign news and commentary is not particularly challenging. South Carolina is at the business end of a fire hose of campaign rhetoric.
Much of it splashes onto voters' own PCs and smart phones. Fisher followed one voter who awoke to more than 100 postings from Facebook friends, forwarding stories they thought she'd like. And, of course, the web gives South Carolinians access to campaign news from around the world.
But all those news sources have one thing in common -- they all tend to share the voter's own worldview. "More and more citizens are tucking themselves inside information silos where they see mainly what they already agree with," Fisher writes.
''The result," he says, "is an electorate in which conservatives and liberals often have not only their own opinions but also their own sets of facts, making it harder than ever to approach common ground." A raft of studies support Fisher's observation.
"The more clearly defined a voter’s political leanings, the more likely that person is to identify a few trusted news sources," Fisher writes. "Moderates and independents are much more likely to view a relatively broad array of news outlets as trustworthy. And, according to surveys of news consumption, the less ideologically rigid voters are, the more likely they are to take in news that may not match their point of view."
Since people with a well-defined political ideology are also more likely to dominate the political process, I guess we can look forward to ten more months of this. At least.
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