What Political Media Do You Use?

I used to watch O'Reilly, but two things about his program bother me.  First, he has become more of a bully.  He constantly talks over people, yells at them, and tells them what to think.  His behavior is boorish.  Second, I don't like how his show has become so segmented (Culture Quiz, Body Language, Laurie Dhue's Point, etc).  It's too much of a gimmick.  Just give me a show where people quietly and intelligently discuss issues.

I will occassionally pick up the New York Post in the morning, but for the most part I get my news from the internet.  On a daily basis I check conservativegrapevine.com, http://boortz.com/nuze, and hotair.com.  Between those three sources it is very rare that O'Reilly or anyone on television is talking about something I havent read about yet.

I use a combination of sources.  On TV it's FoxNews and Special Report. 

On the radio it's almost exclusively Michael Medved, the best on talk radio in my opinion. 

The internet is a bit more varied.  Like Charles, I read Neal Boortz's site everyday.  I get daily emails from Townhall.com that includes columns by the commentators that Chris mentioned.  I occasionally stop by Michelle Malkin's site.  I stop by two liberal blogs on the recommendation from a liberal friend, Matthew Yglesias and ThinkProgress, a few times per week.  I've recently made this site a must-stop too. 

No print media for me. 

CNBC accounts for most of my TV viewing (for reasons that are obviously not political).  Anything earth shattering will get at least a mention there.  Sometimes I check Fox News to see if there's anything less than earth shattering.  Special Report is the gold standard of daily news shows.  On Sunday I watch FNS, MTP, and This Week.

Intertubes-wise, Drudge is the first hit, followed by Google News, then some blogs like Hot Air and Ace of Spades and a few other smaller ones.  I get the CQ mid-day update email.  Some in-state flavor at grassrootspa.com. 

Slashdot - not necessarily political, but sometimes.  It does have a politics section if anybody wants to monitor just that.  You are sure to find every knee jerk story about phone tapping and Carnivore-like programs, and some actually good posts on voting machine fraud and first amendment issues like the regulation of blogging as a political activity. 

NRO Corner blog.  If I get that far I may venture into Washingtonpost.com and Realclearpolitics.

If I have time to kill I like to download some Mark Levin mp3s.  Can somebody appoint him to the Supreme Court please?

Morning: Morning Joe on MSNBC

First thing at work: Real Clear Politics, Drudge, Chuck Todd's First Read (to rehash anything I missed from Morning Joe). 

If David Brooks, Peggy Noonan, or EJ Dionne have written anything that day, I read it first.

Throughout the day: FishbowlDC, The Fix, with the occasional trip to Gawker.  If my TV is tuned to cable news, I watch MSNBC or CNN.

Then, I enjoy watching Steven Colbert make fun of everything in the evening.

I tend to get all my news from the web.  Occasionally, I'll catch Special Report with Hume, but outside of that, I catch what Sunday shows I can, but they tend to overlap in my media market.

As for the web stuff, I start out with Lucianne.com, which is the best repository of political news around, IMO.  From there, I go to The Corner at NRO, and once I've caught up on events there, I click over to The Campaign Spot, which is always up on the latest developments.  From there, I travel on over to The Weekly Standard's blog, which is not quite as active as The Corner, but still informative and entertaining.  I also like AmSpec Blog, but don't check in there quite as regularly as others.  And before turning in at night, I usually check in at Commentary Magazine's Contentions blog, which has some great conservative writers.

I also check out Politico and Real Clear Politics several times a day, and make it a point to read up on Jonathan Martin, Ben Smith and Michael Calderone at Politico.

Using all of those, I can pretty much keep up with the stuff that's going on throughout the blogosphere and the major stories in the mainstream outfits.

First thing when I roll out of bed: Drudge Report, Real Clear Politics, and of course The Next Right.

I read pretty much all the Virginia Republican blogs, and a few of the Democratic ones, like Not Larry Sabato.  I also read National Journal's morning roundup of op-eds and editorials (between this and RCP, I really enjoying reading opinion pieces from both sides, and find they do a lot to stimulate my own thinking).  I also read Tech President and Tech Republican as aggregators so I can steal ideas from other campaigns.

Periodically I also check in on Red State, NRO and TownHall.

I also keep a TV on in my office most of the day.  While I flip around between the cable news channels, I mostly keep it on MSNBC, not because I like their coverage, but they focus more on politics than CNN or Fox, who spend a lot of time on last night's American Idol and any car chase they can get on camera.

Drudge to RCP to Right Wing News to The Tennessean to whatever comes next. I like NRO, Townhall, & have really come to appreciate Commentary. I'll read a physical paper if I'm in the doctor's office & haven't looked at it online yet. My magazine choices are in the outdoors/hunting category. Very little TV - news focused would be Fox for Hannity & sometimes special report - TV is mainly used by me for entertainment (Discovery, History, Travel, NGEO, Military).

My mom does like for me to get her some newspapers so that her cats may use them...

I have a series of sites I check about 2x a day.  In the morning and in the evening.  Hotair, newsbusters, RCP, drudge, LGF, politico, redstate, michael yon and I just added this site.  Radio, I like, when I can, to listen to Laura Ingraham and Levin.

Net: RCP. Powerline, RedState, TownHall, plus Yahoo home page

TV: Mostly local news, some FNC, CNN

Print: Hartord Courant website, plus the NYPost on weekends

FNC is all yell yell yell.  But then I dislike all kinds of cable news.  However, in most public places like the airport or restaurants, I have to put up with CNN.  CNN even has a special edition for those in the hospital waiting rooms. 

I also never formed a talk radio habit.  So essentially, I became conservative and held on to it with little traditional reinforcement for the usual conservative outlets.  That makes me a Republican version of a Yellow Dog Democrat, aka, a McCain Republican.  I'd vote for McCain before any Democrat. 

As typical for my age, internet is the main source of info.  I am addicted to polling news.  My first stop has changed from Drudge to rasmussenreports.com.  Then followed by quick stops to gallup.com and surveyusa.com.  Then Instapundit.  Rounded up by stops to Fark.com, consumerist.com, and other not-really-conservative websites. 

There was a recent article on how Drudge is playing the field both ways.  This maybe the reason why he hasn't made any splash as large as the ones he used to get in before 2005.  The hits may keep coming, but checking his site has become more of a forced habit rather than a must-see for me.  He's a great source of anti-Global Warming hysteria news though. 

Also check out aldaily.com.