For those looking for commentary on the American election from a centre-left perspective, Will Straw is writing a regular column at Progress Online.

Martin Kettle writes in the Guardian about the perceived and real political power of newspapers.

Salon’s Glenn Greenwald discusses the motivations of web journalists and sites like The Politico. In summary, the answer is ‘they all love attention and ad revenue’ but that doesn’t do justice to the article, or the supporting evidence.

An HIER paper by Glaeser and Sunstein suggests that people are

Credulous Bayesians, who insufficiently adjust for idiosyncratic features of particular environments and put excessive weight on the statements of others where there are 1) common sources of information; 2) highly unrepresentative group membership; 3) statements that are made to obtain approval; and 4) statements that are designed to manipulate. Credulous Bayesianism can produce extremism and significant blunders.

The paper “discusses the implications of Credulous Bayesianism for law and politics, including media policy and cognitive diversity on administrative agencies and courts”.

(Note that the PDF incorrectly describes the paper as a preliminary draft.)

An interesting new book is out, called Flat Earth News. It accuses journalists of sloppy research and poor fact-checking - essentially, of letting down the entire purpose of their profession. These are obviously serious allegations, for all the cynicism about journalism makes them seem everyday. They are all the more serious because they are based on academic research rather than a politically partisan viewpoint.

The author, Nick Davies, makes his case in this piece on Comment is Free. Roy Greenslade, in his blog at the Guardian, collates some of the reviews and reactions.

Roy Greenslade, at his blog on the Guardian site, expresses concern that, of those who never read a newspaper, only 3% regularly look at online news (the finding is from the latest British Social Attitudes survey). That’s quite a lot of slack for TV/Radio news to pick up.