Thursday, December 2, 2010

Conspiracy Mode

The phrase political knowledge gets a lot of love these days, and not just when describing Sarah Palin (i.e., lack thereof).

Politico, that Bible of those who toil in D.C. politics, uses it often, most recently on a story based on Pew data about how Dems are enjoying the news less these days:
While more than two thirds of liberal Democrats surveyed said they enjoyed news in June of 2008 – as the country was about to sweep in its first Democratic president in eight years – only 45% felt the same this past June. The thrill is gone for moderate Democrats too, though to a lesser degree: their rates of news enjoyment slumped from 58% to 46% in the past two years. 
My googling of nytimes.com finds 939 uses of political knowledge. Fox News?  Only 15 uses of the phrase, most of them old.  Is there a partisan or ideological issue at play here?  Or merely the difference between a cable tv news site and the NYTimes and its deep, broad coverage?  Let's be fair, try a different cable TV channel.  A search of cnn.com turns up 352 instances of political knowledge being used, including this recent one about -- yes -- Palin. 

Perhaps Fox has a problem with discussing what people know. Or maybe the network simply doesn't want to raise the issue too loudly -- thus Political Knowledge and Palin be stuck in people's minds at the same time.

Nah, that can't be it.  I must be in conspiracy mode.

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