> I'd actually be really interested in knowing what percentage of people read opposing rhetoric.
It depends what you mean by "opposing" - different sides in a power struggle or genuinely different ideas? I think the number of people who read both WAPO, NY Times and WSJ (even National Review and Reason) is probably quite high, now more than ever thanks to the internet. They'll be familiar with the different sides in the nation's power struggle. And after a while, they'll probably know roughly what those papers' editorials will say before they even read them. It's vanity to think that those readers are often engaging in a some kind of big struggle of ideas, I think, although there's a lot of value in just knowing what is going on.
The number of people who seek out outlets like newspapers representing the views of the Communists, Green Party, Syndicalists, Illinois Nazis, Anarchists or whatever is probably vanishingly small.
It depends what you mean by "opposing" - different sides in a power struggle or genuinely different ideas? I think the number of people who read both WAPO, NY Times and WSJ (even National Review and Reason) is probably quite high, now more than ever thanks to the internet. They'll be familiar with the different sides in the nation's power struggle. And after a while, they'll probably know roughly what those papers' editorials will say before they even read them. It's vanity to think that those readers are often engaging in a some kind of big struggle of ideas, I think, although there's a lot of value in just knowing what is going on.
The number of people who seek out outlets like newspapers representing the views of the Communists, Green Party, Syndicalists, Illinois Nazis, Anarchists or whatever is probably vanishingly small.