Iterated Opinion

I found a quote in the Op/Ed page of the Washington Post citing the Op/Ed page of the NY Times here. "But as Paul Krugman of the New York Times has noted..."

This reinforces some ideas I learned in a "Media and Politics" course I took in grad school with Paul Burka. He said that the NY Times "reads" the country through its cultural lenses, formulates their opinion which in turn sets the agenda for the opinion and tone for the rest of the print and electronic media establishment. It was not meant as a critique, but merely as a description of how mass media functions and the ways in which it influences politics. On capital hill everybody reads the op/ed pages of the NY Times, Washington Post, and WSJ. That is just how it is. Occasionally people may glance at the op/ed page of the Chicago Tribune, USA Today, LA Times, or the CS Monitor.

I think I might try a little experiment and comment on the NY Times Op/Ed page this week on my blog to see if gives me "predictive" powers for what I will be watching on headline news in the evening. I will try to use my latest understanding of moral theory to evaluate the normative opinions given therein.