In election time media has strong hold

As this election cycle has gone on, I've found myself strangely addicted to all the twists and turns of the candidates and their staffs as they plug on down the election trial. I've watched news conferences and debates, read countless stories and commentaries and checked for updates on new polling numbers.

All this from someone who doesn't really care about politics. Sure in elections passed I've voted and followed the candidates enough to have an intelligent conversation about their positions on certain issues, but the process — the campaigning, the twisting, the endless spinning of everything — has always just made me tired.

But this year, for whatever reason, I find myself rubbernecking at the whole spectacle, no different than the motorist who slows down to peer at an accident as they drive by.

I'm enthralled by the ups and downs, the low blows and the surprise endorsements.

One commentator has called this the year of umbrage. Whenever one candidate says something, cheap shot or otherwise, the other will respond like a stuffy grandmother in a Charles Dickens novel. "What?" they gasp, eyes wide and mouth agape. "How could you, I'm appalled." Predictable apologies/withdrawls/firings/etc. follow.

So what's my point? It's that I'm voluntarily hooked, but the 24-hour media cycle might not let me escape even if I wanted to. I'm deluged with mail from both parties and I can't check a spring training game score without wading through headlines about something a candidates third cousin said in 1972.

For the casual observer, it would be nearly impossible to find anything meaningful in any of the constant coverage because in order to fill up hours and hours of news, "reporters" have to find a story, even when there's not one.

It is my (admittedly biased) opinion that newspapers are about the only place to get "just the facts, ma'am" anymore.

As people are confronted with more and more media choices they become more and more likely to gravitate to the choice that most echoes their own thoughts. Why read the Wall Street Journal when you could get a similar commentary on the topic at the Huffington Post. Why watch the Nightly News when Bill O'Reilly is saying exactly what you want to hear?

The 24-hour news cycle should be making us all better informed, but really it just makes everything confusing. Every day it's harder to distinguish reporters from commentators and sorting out worthless fluff from important fact is usually near impossible. With election season hitting its full stride, do America a favor and listen to as many different voices as you can before you decide.

— Alex Strickland