logo

Washington Post: Partisan Media Outlets Have Widened Political Divide

image
Created: 10 March, 2015
Updated: 21 November, 2022
2 min read

In a recent article on The Washington Post's The Fix, columnist Chris Cillizza discusses the disturbing hyper-partisan trend in American politics and how it has worsened since America's news sources "splintered into a million pieces." The article describes the following paragraph from Dan Pfeiffer as the single-most depressing paragraph about American politics:

“There’s very little we can do to change the Republicans’ political situation because they are worried about a cohort of voters who disagree with most of what the president says. We don’t have the ability to communicate with them—we can’t even break into the tight communication circles to convince them that climate change is real. They are talking to people who agree with them, they are listening to news outlets that reinforce that point of view, and the president is probably the person with the least ability to break into that because of the partisan bias there.”

Cillizza made the point that you could substitute 'Republican' for 'Democrat' and the truth of the statement would remain unaffected.

"The fracturing of the media means many things for how people consume information but one of the most important is that partisans can now read, watch and listen to only news and assorted punditry that agrees with their point of view," he writes.  "That development probably doesn't impact people who were hard partisans to start with; they distrusted (and ignored) the other side long before the media splintered into a million pieces.  But who it does impact are people who are, for lack of a better word, soft partisans; people who generally side with one party but, in the days before the silo-ing of the partisan media, would regularly be exposed to arguments from the other side. Those soft partisans are now, almost exclusively, hard partisans."

Read the full article here.

Photo Credit: Picsfive / shutterstock.com

Latest articles

votes
Wyoming Purges Nearly 30% of Its Voters from Registration Rolls
It is not uncommon for a state to clean out its voter rolls every couple of years -- especially to r...
27 March, 2024
-
1 min read
ballot box
The Next Big Win in Better Election Reform Could Come Where Voters Least Expect
Idaho isn't a state that gets much attention when people talk about politics in the US. However, this could change in 2024 if Idahoans for Open Primaries and their allies are successful with their proposed initiative....
21 March, 2024
-
3 min read
Courts
Why Do We Accept Partisanship in Judicial Elections?
The AP headline reads, "Ohio primary: Open seat on state supreme court could flip partisan control." This immediately should raise a red flag for voters, and not because of who may benefit but over a question too often ignored....
19 March, 2024
-
9 min read
Nick Troiano
Virtual Discussion: The Primary Solution with Unite America's Nick Troiano
In the latest virtual discussion from Open Primaries, the group's president, John Opdycke, sat down ...
19 March, 2024
-
1 min read
Sinema
Sinema's Exit Could Be Bad News for Democrats -- Here's Why
To many, the 2024 presidential primary has been like the movie Titanic - overly long and ending in a disaster we all saw coming from the start. After months of campaigning and five televised primary debates, Americans are now faced with a rematch between two candidates polling shows a majority of them didn’t want....
19 March, 2024
-
7 min read