The Real Numbers

Last week, The Week Magazine had a quote from Steve Chapman in the Chicago Tribune. It made me think....

“Watching Fox News, you get the impression that huge numbers of Americans regard Obama as a Stalinist. Switch on MSNBC, and you would assume that most people want Dick Cheney sent to Guantánamo. You would be mistaken. Fox News averages just 2.6 million viewers on a typical weeknight, or less than 1 percent of Americans. MSNBC does even worse, with 831,000 per night. The three major network newscasts, which offer less overt bias, pull in a combined total of more than 20 million viewers each evening. The average American citizen, contrary to myth, is neither very angry nor very far to the left or the right. In a cluttered media environment, the most extreme voices tend to attract so much attention that it’s easy to forget something important: Most people aren’t listening.”

Of course, if you are one of the partisans on either side you tend to watch the network that better describes your views. The truth of the matter is always that the vast middle ground is far larger than either of the groups to the right or left of them. But that is what makes the political scene so interesting is the ones who are off from the vast middle. Both sides claim, I know, a larger support base than they actually have.

But then both sides believe they are right.

Instead of speaking as if they are so sure of their rightness, it might be better to move toward an opinion-making understanding. It might even make for less hypocrisy.

But there I go again. Dreaming.