The Political Media Are Failing America

Here are some of the public figures and institutions that Americans hold in higher esteem than the media according to Gallup:

Hospitals, Their child’s school and daycare centers, State governments, Their employer, CDC and NIH, Mike Pence, Donald Trump, Congress.

Only one institution that Gallup asked about, the media, had negative approval rating — sitting 19 points behind its archenemy Donald Trump. And there are likely many other people and places that the public has more trust in than journalists.

This reality is a disaster for a liberal democracy, and much of it is brought on by the press’s own blinkered, sanctimonious, and transparently partisan temperament. On this topic, I could provide a book-length list of grievances. Every day brings an exasperating number of misleading and bad-faith takes by political journalists and “fact-checkers.”