![]() I get the impulse to say, “The Washington Post endorses Hillary Clinton? So what. In theory, the arguments in an endorsement should be judged on their own merits, regardless of where it appears. Third, recognize the way that this year’s endorsements are different. If you read carefully and with an open mind, you’ll spot the good stuff. Don’t be blind to what he gets wrong or right. His bias may lead to an error, or he may be totally on point. Glean facts! But stay alert, just as you would reading a New York sportswriter covering the Boston Red Sox. ![]() If a news article is well-sourced, or an opinion column is accurate and well-reasoned, don’t dismiss it. That should inform how you read our work. Second, you’re absolutely right to perceive that the vast majority of journalists want Donald Trump to lose this election. Don’t let the pizza stand at the train station convince you all the food is bad. First, just as quality food can be found in a strange city if you venture away from the tourist traps and do a bit of searching, exceptional journalism can be found about the candidates in this election, if you seek it out. ![]() If you’ll indulge a few more paragraphs, I have three points I’d ask you to mull over. Still, election day nears, so you’re paying more attention than usual to the news media, even if you do hate it. But when I watch TV, I sometimes catch myself thinking, “God, I hate the media.” As a journalist, it is a pet peeve of mine when people say, “I hate the media,” as if TMZ, Penthouse, The Christian Science Monitor, CNN, National Review, and NPR are coherently evaluated together. But every time I’m compelled by my job to watch cable news, whether left, right, or center, I nearly always come away, unless I catch one of the very few hosts I respect, thinking that cable news is a wasteland of vapid thought that reflects poorly on most of those who produce it. And each week, I curate a newsletter full of journalism I admire, produced by print and audio journalists who make me jealous. I even get hating “the media.” Oh, I love my colleagues. So I get why tens of millions of Americans don’t give a damn what distant network news anchors with seven-figure net worths think about this election, or that the New York Times, which always endorses the Democratic nominee, endorsed Hillary Clinton. And neither my upbringing among Republicans I respect deeply nor my many differences with leftism gives me insight into what daily life is like in the vast swaths of the country where I’ve never lived or the many jobs I’ve never worked. Simply by living 3,000 miles from the East Coast, leaning more libertarian than progressive, and opposing President Obama’s reelection, I am an outlier in my field. Like other professionals, journalists run the gamut from hugely talented individuals doing great work to hacks producing crap, but journalism is unusual in its dearth of ideological diversity. There is a lot of truth to the stereotype that the American media is centered in New York City and Washington, D.C., staffed by Democrats, and hostile to Republicans.
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