A strong analysis of why some of the smallest storylines have blown up in the last few weeks of this campaign.

Insider soul searching over the media's bias towards a good story; also of interest to all students writing about whether Romney got a fair shake from the media. Also on this topic, see On the Media's "Why Dana Milbank loves Newt Gingrich" which I posted earlier.

While this "Civil Conversations" debate never really takes fire, it does introduce two men, one part of the Fatherhood and Marriage movements and the other a longtime advocate of same-sex marriage, who found a way to agree to disagree and who have worked together to hold civil conversations on the issue.

There's a counterpoint narrative to this story: Fox News reports that "The View" hosts were much more aggressive in their questions to Ann Romney than they were to President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. Link attached to this review.

This story is a few days old, but brings up a very overlooked storyline in the election coverage, that of the third-party candidates who want a seat at the table (and a voice in the debates).

Another local newspaper find by Lisa. As the MPR/KARE 11 series on Minnesota and the marriage amendment suggested, this is a highly polarizing issue in many parts of rural Minnesota.

The New York Times has run profiles of Obama and Romney in recent days; over the weekend the Star Tribune ran both side by side on its politics page. What's intriguing is that neither profile focused on the candidates' policies. Instead, each picked a feature of the candidate (Obama's views on race; Romney's vocabulary) that was supposed to tell us more about each man in a highly scripted campaign. Did it work?

This blog certainly wears its heart on its sleeve with highly charged language that immediately takes one side on the marriage debate, as Kelly's review pointed out. The Star Tribune recently wrote a story on the same topic; I'm including the link with this review for anyone who wants to research this storyline further.

Another emerging storyline about the election. This profile was posted on Buzzfeed prior to Tagg Romney's comments at the second presidential debate about wanting to jump out of his chair and "take a swing" at President Obama.