AllSides Balanced Search

Rather than seeking a centrist compromise, Better Angels is treating division as a given—and trying to foster conversations across it.

As new CNN head Chris Licht looks to revamp a network that has lost its way, he has one thing working in his favor: The "news" network at this point couldn't possibly get worse. That's what you'd think, anyway, as the once-news-heavy network turned into a den of cheap punditry that swiftly turned every breaking story into a rote-format Teatime For Assholes segment featuring a line of partisan

If media wants to challenge the context and politics of Republican arguments, that’s their prerogative. There are plenty of legitimately misleading statements worthy of fact-checkers’ attention. Yet, with a veneer of impartiality, fact-checkers often engage in a uniquely dishonest style of partisanship. And State of Union coverage gave us an abundance of examples of how they do it:

In his farewell address as president Tuesday, Barack Obama warned of the dangers of uncontrolled partisanship. American democracy, he said, is weakened “when we allow our political dialogue to become so corrosive that people of good character are turned off from public service, so coarse with rancor that Americans with whom we disagree are not just misguided, but somehow malevolent.”