Free Republic

Yada, yada, yada. ~~snip~~ The growing power of rumor is part of a much larger transformation in the way that voters receive information about politics. The old model was a vertical one, where professional journalists delivered their reports to a largely passive audience through television or newspapers. The new model is horizontal, where folks get information from each other and actively pass it on, through e-mail, text messages and viral videos. Everyone is a potential broadcaster. This "democratization of information" has many benefits - more sources, more perspectives, more choices. In a forum Steve moderated for The International Journal of...

In the celebration of American independence this weekend, along with the parades, fireworks and hot dogs, come patriotic pride and prayers of thanksgiving. When we count our blessings as a country, we think first of the women and men in the military, willing to put themselves in harm's way to defend the rest of us. And we also think of all of the other Americans giving of themselves in some way in order to improve the community, in the remarkable tradition of service that characterizes this country.

Two Washington press corps veterans have conceded that the news media have a bias against religious believers. On CNN's Reliable Sources on Sunday, New Republic Senior Editor Michelle Cottle asserted that journalists "behave as though the people who believe" in widely-held Christian values "are on the fringe." Steve Roberts, who noted how he "worked for the New York Times for 25 years," revealed: "I could probably count on one hand, in the Washington bureau of the New York Times, people who would describe themselves as people of faith." That disconnect hurt the media, Roberts suggested, in how "there was so...