My experiment in low information living has revealed a couple of interesting dynamics. In spite of not reading a paper, watching cable news or surfing the blogs, I've still been getting the news. What I've been hearing and how I've been hearing it is the key to understanding why the Obama administration is at war with Fox News.

I'm getting the "news" from my friends, who are often getting it from their friends, who may or may not be getting it from a "legitimate" news source. I recently saw a post on my Facebook page of a political nature and out of curiosity, I decided to trace it back to its origins. Turns out that it was reposted three times before it found me with over 3,000 friends in the direct audience. I can't even begin to calculate how many other people got this "news" outside of the Facebook loop. Pretty impressive.

What is suggests in an incredible multiplier effect for media outlets like Fox News (or for that matter, MSNBC). The average audience for a prime-time Fox show is between a half-million and two million, but with the multiplier effect, the national reach is undoubted measured in the tens of millions, perhaps north of 100 million.

Its not only the word-of-mouth methodology for communicating the news, but what finally gets communicated.

A good example of this is the White House's exclusion of Fox from an interview with one of Obama's commissars. I found this distinctly amusing because of the role reversal. The incident, as reported, simply reinforced impressions a lot of people already had of the White House--impressions that they created with their statements about Fox and attempts to coerce other media outlets to boycott Fox stories. The goose-stepping sinestrosphere seethed with anger over the "unfairness" of the story, spinning various details into an exoneration.

A useless reaction, because all that got through the pipe was "White House denies Fox access to administration official".

Ultimately, in spite of our technology, we haven't progressed much beyond the medieval village in terms of our so-called journalism. Its still basically over-the-fence gossip that feeds the villagers biases. Politicians use that dynamic to advance their agendas, but they also get hoisted on their own petards.

I'm just happy that conservatives are learning to play the game.