The Media Runs the World

Where you get your news from will likely have a big impact on the way you perceive it. I really don’t know a great number of fellow political junkies or where they get their news. Personally, I steer away from TV and radio. The only news show I care for is the News Hour on PBS, and I watch that rarely at best. I’d like to take a moment to review the more prominent political magazines on the internet; which is where I get my news, analysis and opinions. This is the future of political grassroots communication.

I am not a lib and I am offended at the characterization. If you paid attention you’d see how critical I’ve been of the Democrats in this cycle. I am, like most Americans, a moderate. I am not registered to either party. I have no agenda. My stances on the issues are entirely devoid of an over-arching ideology.

Alright. Here are my major magazines, ranked in no particular order.

1. The Nation is the flagship magazine of the liberal media. It is well written, thoughtful, and hopelessly biased. I become more disenchanted with them every day, due partially to their blind support for Barack Obama and their repudiation of more serious progressive candidates. They are almost entirely hostile to religious ideas, which makes some of their holier-than-thous hard to swallow. But this is the place to go if you want to hear the latest lefty talking points and a bunch of mindless commentary.

2. The National Review: the magazine that began the conservative movement, the counterweight to the Nation in opinion. You will not find moderate Republican voices here. If you love the free market, support the troops, believe in “family” values and think Scalia isn’t a bad guy, you will find a home here.

3. The New Republic: This is a more moderate liberal magazine that also features some very good arts reviews. They have lately also become enamored with Barack, but still manage to balance things better than the others.
4. Real Clear Politics: This is the most comprehensive political news site out there: you will find polls, numbers, and commentary from all sides, while most of the articles they put out themselves lean to the hard right. If you can’t get enough of this stuff, make it your home page and you won’t be disappointed.

5. The American Conservative: you may be surprised to learn that this is by far my favorite political publication, Buchanan run though it may be. For the longest time I considered myself a Libertarian, and this magazine is one of the strongest voices of that movement that I’ve found. There are no neocons here. The magazine is critical of both Republicans and Democrats, and wishes for a return to a more reasonable government. It’s critical of all 3 major political candidates and their foreign policy ideas, and offers its own solutions. I highly recommend this to anyone who considers themselves independents, or old school conservatives. Sadly, they only update the site once every few weeks, but the content is well worth the wait.

There are of course, hundreds of others, but these 5 are where I get the majority of my information. I don’t care much for Daily Kos or Human Events.

My hope is that more people will decide to become informed through print rather than video or audio: it’s much easier to manipulate the truth through mediums that only require you to sit on your ass and not think about anything.