The Fox News Effect

The Fox News Effect: The test found Republicans preferred to get their news from Fox -- even when the news stories were about subjects far removed from politics, such as sports or travel.

As Mr. Spock would say: "Fascinating." He wouldn't say, "Logical." How could he? It makes no logical sense at all.

While it's understandable that people with strong political leanings would feel more comfortable getting their political news from a source that they feel shares their outlook, what possible reason could there be for getting sports and travel news from a source who shares their political outlook?

Can it be, for some, the personal is this political? This same study showed that ... Democrats didn't have as strong a preference on non-political stories, Iyengar found.

And what does this mean?

It means Democrats didn't find non-political stories to have a political slant. Despite all certain thinkers might prefer, Democrats and Republicans are not from radically different gene pools. This means the only explanation is that Republicans, and not Democrats, live in a highly politicized world, wherein even where one vacations, and what sports figure does what, are considered through the lens of party affiliation.

It becomes a "when everything is significant, nothing is" kind of situation. In other words, the rankest and lowest sort of superstition. When one doesn't believe how many home runs were batted by someone if the count is reported by an "unreliable" source... then, by golly, a person has really gone over the edge of paranoia.

Maybe it's so that paranoiacs are right about people being after them. But maybe... it's the people who are supposed to be on their side.