Media watching is a frightening hobby these days. You can listen to NPR, read the New York Times, US World Report or any of the other media outlets that place value on objectivity (although this is becoming less and less frequent) and listen to AM talk radio, watch FOX News and read the Weekly Standard which ignore objectivity in favor of a hat tip to something called "balance" (well not in the case of the rabid foaming mouths on the AM dial or the Weekly Standard, really) and come away thinking these people are not living in the same the world let alone the same country.

The right has been beating the media over the head with charges of "Liberal Bias" since the early 1970s. In order to counter these claims major media outlets like the New York Times have, in order to provide "balance", offered places on their editorial pages to prominent conservatives like William Safire and David Brooks. The conservative media has not responded in kind. In the meantime the right wing, financed with the deep pockets of ideologues like Richard Mellon Scaife and batshit nutjobs like the Reverend Sun Yung Moon have build a network of thinktanks (think Heritage Foundation) and ultraconservative media outlets like the The Washington Times which constantly pump conservative messages and spin. There are media outlets and progressive thinktanks on the left, but nothing even close to their counterparts on the other side of the political spectrum.

This wouldn't necessarily be a problem except for the fact that is has become far easier people on both sides to tune in to media outlets that constantly reinforce their political viewpoint. There is no longer a common understanding of events that we had back when objectivity was the law of journalism and media was much more limited. These days people can, and do, get their news solely from Rush Limbaugh or even John Stewart. They can surf blogs all day that act as an echo chamber for opinions that may or may not be based in fact but that constantly reassure them that their ideas are correct while demonizing anyone who thinks differently.

And it's only going to get worse because of this increasing polarization of the media combined with the persistent attack on the main stream media that the right has been engaged in since the Nixon administration and is now being carried on quite visibly by the current administration with their attack on Newsweek. The result of all this is that a certain segment of the population will only believe news from Rush, O'Reilly, Hannity et al and will discount anything that the MSM reports, if they even hear it all. It's very scary. I don't see it reversing, but getting much, much worse. As long small percentage of ideologues in this country have enough money to support right wing mouthpieces indefinitely and as long as they spew their misinformation to a population of overzealous undereducated Americans, the situation will not only persist, but spiral out of control.