In Eau Claire, Tom Giffey, the editorial-page editor at the Leader-Telegram, described the profusion of cut-and-paste e-mails that his page has received during the campaign. \u201cIn the old days, there were Republican or Democratic newspapers, but there was more of a level playing field and both sides had to argue from the same facts,\u201d\u009d Giffey said. \u201cNow we\u2019re in an age when you can simply reinforce your own viewpoints. And it\u2019s hard to have a discussion of the facts when you\u2019re dealing with two separate sets of facts\u201d\u201dtwo sets of talking points that came down from on high. With the Internet, all of us were going to be content producers, but it\u2019s become an echo chamber.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
As Dave Herbert, the building contractor at Bonnie\u2019s Home Cooking, put it, \u201cPartisanship has crept into every crease in this country.\u201d\u009d In 2008, a customer at a breakfast spot in Appalachia, or a worker at a union office in Columbus, is able to repeat the latest dubious campaign sound bites within days, if not hours. Everyone hates the media, and everyone sounds like a talking head.<\/p>\n