The Media Blame

How the Broken Media Helped Break the Government - David Rohde - The Atlantic:

...I'm not suggesting a false equivalence between Fox and MSNBC, or the far right and left — which James Fallows has rightly criticized in The Atlantic. Hard-line Republicans egged on by Fox are responsible for the government shutdown. They have taken the government hostage in their obsession to end Obamacare. Yet if one watches only Fox, radical steps are needed to prevent the cataclysm that conservatives believe Obamacare represents.

There are some reasons for hope. The emergence of non-profit news outlets and the web’s breadth of information and instant accountability are promising. But simplistic, reassuring narratives are more profitable than dispassionate descriptions of complex public policy problems. For a collapsing, digital-age news industry desperate for income, partisanship is an economic lifeline...