Stephanopoulos' divided we fall '20/20' special (a lump of BS)

[ProSense]

Friday, June 30, 2006

Stephanopoulos shows how divided we fall in '20/20' special

Our differences as Americans are dividing us as never before in modern history and keeping us from getting much done about major issues facing the nation.

That's the "State of the Union" that news commentator and "This Week" host George Stephanopoulos takes up on a special edition of "20/20" on ABC at 10 tonight.

Snip...

The program notes that we frequently talk of red states and blue states, but the ABC report says the split is more like neighborhood by neighborhood, town by town. There are pockets of dissenting opinion in every state, even ones that are written off by the other political party.

Snip...

The "20/20" show attempts to illustrate what happened with two experiments. The first is conducted by a University of Chicago law professor who says that when like-minded people get together they are pushed toward more extreme positions no matter what their politics. This has profound and troubling implications for solving common problems, which always demand compromise.

Snip...

A new and further polarizing factor is Internet political blogs. ABC says about 8 million people a day log into one or more of these, which are gathering places devoted to demonizing each other.

more...

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060630/COLUMNISTS15/606300315

All the blogs and bloggers are the same. Hillary Clinton just hired the "polarizing" Peter Dauo.

Questions for Stephanopoulos:

When is the media going to start doing its job, and stop blaming blogs for being divisive?

Does this co-called blog divisiveness impair network/cable journalists' judgment and cause them to become complicit when it comes to reporting real news?