The profusion of media available makes it easy to assume that we’re hearing a diversity of opinion.

This brilliant post makes it clear that this is not so. What’s actually happening is that with less money per outlet (the money is about the same, the number of outlets is 1000 times more than it was a decade ago) there’s a race to find stuff to talk about. And more often than not, people just repeat what they heard.

The most depressing day of the year.

This matters a lot to everyone. Not because human interest stories are misconstrued again and again (though the current controversy over Clint Eastwood’s movie is a fine example) but because every brand, every incident, every individual runs the risk of being echoed until libeled, trivialized or, if you’re very lucky, canonized.