Part of the problem, it goes without saying, comes down to recruitment. While I don't agree with everything in Hugh Hewitt's Weekly Standard piece about the Columbia School of Journalism (he's too hard on so-called "old media", too sanguine about the blogosphere) he makes a telling point about the echo-chamber effect:
The "blue" nature of the student body is further confirmed by my polling of the class I attended... Six of the 16 were English majors, two studied history, and the balance spread across the humanities. No one had a background in the physical sciences. No one owned a gun. All supported same-sex marriage. Three had been in a house of worship the previous week. Six read blogs. None of them recognized the phrase "Christmas Eve in Cambodia"... 11 had voted for John Kerry, and one for George Bush (three are from abroad and not eligible, and one didn't vote for either candidate). I concluded by asking them if they "think George Bush is something of a dolt." There was unanimous agreement with this proposition...
This isn't going to be convincing to anyone who is also 'blue' (in the US sense). Maybe the kind of people who go in for journalism studies are more enlightened...
Posted by: Robert | Wednesday, January 25, 2006 at 10:43 AM