I totally agree with you, Martin. It’s a very scary situation. You talk about “open contestation” as the answer, but I’m not sure what you mean by that. But setting this clarificatory request aside, I wonder what one can do to push things in the right direction. What exactly need we pursue? Certainly we cannot force the explicitly ideological news programs to shut down. However, we can promote the programs that DO pursue truth in a humble, critical way. I personally respect many of PBS’s programs very much. I am sad Bill Moyers’ Journal is gone. This is one model. Then we have ABC-CBS-NBC-CNN. Those shows have little content however, with the exception on 60 minutes. So must we then promote PBS style programing. Must we convince more people to watch these programs instead of Fox’s or MSNBC’s? I hope America musters the attention span for this. My last roommate was a liberal college professor who found PBS too boring and so watched MSNBC instead (which I can’t stand for its blatant polemicism–is ridiculing the other side really going to change people’s minds and consequently our country? Absolutely not! So what the hell do Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow think they’re doing?! If they understand the consequences of their actions, then they are disgustingly cynical; if they do not, then they’re just not very reflective.).

Regardless of the immense challenges, I see no other solution but that of promoting critical thinking and media that reflects it. Perhaps if we are devoted enough to this endeavor, some far off future generations might inherit a society where intelligent conversations are commonplace and people on different ends of the political spectrum can sit down, discuss civilly, and even come away having learned something.