Trying to make it real... compared to what?

I was going to say: stating the "obvious" is missing sometimes around blogs. This is because political or topical blogging is a reactive medium: basically a giant letters-to-the-editor page, without the newspaper. This reactive discourse always revolves around the tacit assumptions, on the terms and in the frame given by the mainstream, which mainly means the media or politicians. Both avoid basic unconfortable truths, as they are bad for sales/votes (few want to read about this) and often quite boring. Also, opinion-makers are constantly in the quest for some new "angles".

(This could be confused with the idiots ranting about the "MSM" and how it won't report (for example) that all arabs are killers... They use the same type of reasoning to rationalise their ranting about the media.
I suppose common sense is needed (hence the problem) and also a clear motivation. There is a good reason for the BBC to be subservient to the government, and they have a clear incentive for sensationally overselling and hyping up non-stories, while avoiding unpleasant truths (as explained above). I find that the various conspiracies about the "liberal" or PC media are quite lacking in that respect...)

In fact "The Media" is also very reactive: Tv, and (to a lesser extent) newspapers. As has been wildly noted, they sell only news, and often lack basic truths and context. They describe only correctives to an assumed universal base. It also complicated by the political filtering to cater for the political template of their readers. This is also true of blogs of course, in an even more strident way. As the blogs react to media reports, the trends are amplified as much.

I think the main conclusion is that reading only reactive media such as blogs or newspapers will twist your perspective and make you lose objectivity. RTFM!
This is true of the corporate media as well as the lefty indymedias, which portray struggles and under-reported facets of commercial activities: if you only read this kind of thing...

The problem with the internet is that there is so little common sense. All the empty talk about its potential is belied by the vast proportion of asocial people with little contact with the outside world contributing to it intensely and regularly. Hence the disporportionate amount of "Libertarians", and the vacuity and nerdy unreality of many of the political debate.

A random example is the "new you"...controversy!!!: Why does the media report insist on reporting A while B is true, as you can clearly see, and as these google links prove beyond any doubt!?! Why are the police and the BBC lying???!?

So with a demographic biased against common sense, and reading only the hyper-reactive media that is blogs, and filtering out those you don't like... well, you might end up (unconsciously) totally cut-off from reality... and loving it!