When Our News Is Gerrymandered, Too

[Commentary] Political analysts trying to explain the current standoff in Washington are quick to point to redistricting as helping to foster ideological extremism in Congress. Representatives have been skillfully gerrymandered into safe districts of like minds where they can do as they please, listening only to reflections of their own thinking without fear of political consequence. But given that politics in its current form is threatening to produce a crisis that threatens to create financial mayhem on a global scale -- while striking one more blow against claims of American “greatness” -- perhaps something more complicated than sketching out voting districts is at play.

The polarized political map is now accompanied by a media ecosystem that is equally gerrymandered into districts of self-reinforcing discourse. Millions of news consumers select and assemble a world view from sources that may please them, but rarely challenge them. Cable blowhardism would not be such a good business if there hadn’t been a kind of personal redistricting of news coverage by the citizenry. Data from Pew Research Center for the People and the Press on trends in news consumption released in 2012 suggests people are assembling along separate media streams where they find mostly what they want to hear, and little else. Fully 78 percent of Sean Hannity’s audience on Fox News identified as conservative, with most of the rest of the audience identifying as moderate and just 5 present as liberal. Over on MSNBC, conservatives make up just 7 percent of Rachel Maddow’s audience. It isn’t just politicians that are feeding their bases, it is the media outlets, as well. The village common -- you know, that place where we all meet to discuss our problems, relying on the same set of facts -- has shrunk to the size of a postage stamp, surrounded by the huge gated communities of like minds who never venture into the great beyond.