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Idle Chatter: Sumner 'n' Tom, Togeth...   Was This the Source of That 'Vogue' ...
Mar 28 2008 10:06AM EDT

Awkward Questions for...Farhad Manjoo

Why is it everyone seems to think half the media is politically biased, but we can't agree on which half? How can we have access to more information than ever before, yet still buy into preposterous conspiracy theories about who was behind 9/11 and who really won the 2004 election? And what's the fricking deal with Lou Dobbs?

These are the questions Farhad Manjoo tackles in his fascinating new book True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society. A staff writer and blogger for Salon.com, Manjoo mines the fields of psychology, cognitive science, anthropology and more to explain, in convincing and non-partisan fashion, why Americans in the internet era have so much trouble reaching consensus about the most basic details of the reality we inhabit. If you care about understanding why our media culture is the way it is, you should read it.

Earlier this week, I interviewed Manjoo (who, full disclosure, was a college classmate of mine) via webcam from his office in San Francisco. In this first clip, he outlines his basic thesis and explains why disinformation and bias, though not new, are so much more prevalent than ever before.

In this segment, Manjoo explains why media outlets have an incentive to slant the news, since they'll inevitably be accused of bias no matter how "objective" their reporting, and highlights the role that "weak dissonance" plays in providing fodder for cable news pundits.

Here, Manjoo explains why Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Rolling Stone article alleging electoral fraud in 2004 seemed more convincing than it was.

In this final clip, I say something stupid, and Manjoo sets me straight.

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