1. Treat insularity as a weakness. If you don’t seriously consider your opponents’ best arguments, you’ll be unprepared to answer them. If you don’t engage people whose premises differ from yours, you’ll never learn to persuade them and broaden your movement. If you don’t heed changes in the country’s needs and political climate, you’ll fail to adapt and survive. A conservative who matches wits with the New York Times every day is stronger than one who mainlines Fox.

via slate.com

Great piece over on Slate from William Saletan focused on the notion of “echo chambers” and how to break out of the trap of groupthink. He focuses on the conservative / liberal thinking divide, but the 10 tips on how to escape the chamber apply to all fields of debate.

In the case of public media, and specifically public television, this is why I’ve advocated that we engage the conversation with Revolution PBS. Let’s keep the conversation going. Otherwise we’re just maintaining history without a thought given to why.