Give me only that which I accept

(via Nieman Watchdog)

Prof. Cass R. Sunstein comments on the dangers of self-selected media:

In 1995, MIT technology specialist Nicholas Negroponte predicted the emergence of The Daily Me—a newspaper that you design personally, with each component carefully screened and chosen in advance. With the increasing range of communications options, Negroponte’s prediction is coming true. With just a few clicks, you can find dozens of Web sites to show you that you are quite right to like what you already like and to think what you already think.

If you want to read essays arguing that your preferred political positions are the right ones, the technology is available to allow you to do exactly that. The world of communications now contains innumerable information cocoons—comfortable spaces in which people can reinforce their own convictions. And to a significant extent in the coverage of politics, members of the media are promoting, rather than counteracting, this trend, which is having a large effect on people’s beliefs and attitudes toward those involved in politics and public life.

 Hardly breaking news, but a worthy reminder that just hitting the stuff you agree with is just setting yourself up to be spectacularly wrong about things.

I'm as guilty as any - but I do try to keep an oar in the troubled waters of Fox, the Washington Times and the like.

It's not like the progressives don't have their share of rabid partisans, willing to say and believe anything so long as their political opponents are made to suffer.