Left, Meet Right:

Kelly McBride, in Poynter Online's Ethics Journal, suggests that an opportunity exists to turn the rancor and misperceptions of the recent take-no-prisoners election campaign into a long overdue conversation about the moral content of politics, right, left and center. She quotes blogger Colin Hansen, "In what will surely come as a shock to mainstream media, more voters cited moral values than either the economy/jobs (20 percent), terrorism (19 percent), or Iraq (17 percent) [as the determing factor in their vote, ed.]." She asserts that "We [journalists] have to introduce one half of the country to the other half."
No--not the moral half to the immoral half--but how the political preferences of each half are shaped by moral principles that can be made comprehensible to the other. This is not a piece of work that can be accomplished through slogans, sound bites, buzz-words and attack ads. It will require persistent, patient, thoughtful, and heartful storytelling--journalism at its best.