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00000173-d94c-dc06-a17f-ddddb4a70000This Election Day, we kept you covered until the polls closed, and even later. We want you to tell us: What issues brought you to vote, or why did you choose not to? We're looking for your comments for this week's Florida Roundup, hashtag #FloridaRoundup.See a recap of Election Night here, and last night's updates from across the state here.Below, read and hear the stories we've produced this year as part of our midterm election coverage.

Making Sense of Where We Get Our News

npr.org
Credit npr.org

Would you be surprised to learn that liberals and conservatives don't get their news from the same sources?

That's one of the findings in a big Pew Research study called Political Polarization and Media Habits.

Before you say, "Well, duh," Kelly McBride of the Poynter Institute's Sense-Making Projectsays there are some things to be learned from this study.

"Sure, maybe we knew that liberals and conservatives were going to completely different sources of news. But we didn't know how they were doing it," McBride explained. "This study really fleshes that out."

For instance, Fox News may be the conservative choice for news, but there's no equivalent news outlet for those of a liberal bent.

"People who are consistently conservative turn to Fox News, but there is no correlation for the consistently liberal," said McBride. "In fact, the people who are consistently liberal turn to four different sources of news. They turn to NPR, The New York Times, MSNBC and CNN -- all in relatively similar amounts. So there isn't a giant counterweight to Fox News for the liberal consumer."

Fox News actually found what it said was proof of liberal intolerance in the Pew study. That's because the Pew study shows that liberals tend to block conservative messages that show up in their Facebookfeeds.

"That's a very interesting take," McBride said. "What the study actually said was, 'yes, that part is true but conservatives are much more likely to hear opinions that are similar to their own on Facebook so they wouldn't have anybody to block.'"

There is some common ground when it comes to what sources people turn to for news, despite their political leanings.

"Everybody across the spectrum trusts The Wall Street Journal," said McBride. "Most people trust The Economist, they trust the BBC, they trust ABC News, they trust USA Today, they trust Google News. All of those sources are only distrusted by people who are consistently conservative."

And, while everybody seems to check out Buzzfeed from time to time on the internet, it's apparently not because they trust the website as a news source.

"Yeah, nobody trusts Buzzfeed,"McBride said.

Copyright 2020 WUSF Public Media - WUSF 89.7. To see more, visit WUSF Public Media - WUSF 89.7.

Craig Kopp is relatively new to Florida and the Tampa Bay area. The veteran broadcaster and writer spent the majority of his 30 year career in Ohio.
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