"You Haven't Learned Anything"

It was a regular comment about the news media made during the era of the last guy, as if the election in 2016 caused any soul searching (it didn't), as if everything that happened in the last four years caused any soul searching (it didn't). The conceit of elite political journalism isn't simply that they can do no wrong - though they can't - it's that nothing they do matters at all, that they aren't major political actors with every coverage choice they make.

I'm not saying they really believe this, necessarily, but they take no responsibility for the consequences of what they do. They can cover the BORDER INVASION one month solid before the 2018 election, drop it the day after the election, and pick it up the next time Republicans decide it's politically useful (correctly or not).

If you look at the UK tabloids, almost every day they run cover stories with headlines of the format, "OUTRAGE OVER [something you never heard of]." No one is outraged before the story has been run, because no one is aware of it, but you've already been informed that everyone is outraged and you should be too.

The objectitudinal serious journalists of our great respected publications aren't quite so crass, but they basically do the same thing. And what are we outraged about today, Chuck? Whatever the people on Chuck's group text tell him we're outraged about. And those people are mostly Republicans or the most ridiculously gross, rich, and stupid people on Earth.

Washington Post leads today's political coverage with news that "White House faces criticism..." -- that criticism starting with a poorly reported and over-caffeinated article in the Washington Post. This is how the sausage gets made, people pic.twitter.com/TVnWGDa5Hs

— Will Bunch Sign Up For My Newsletter (@Will_Bunch) March 22, 2021

Agenda-setting: All three broadcast morning shows referring to the situation at the border as a "crisis." pic.twitter.com/KLr0gEHGKC

— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) March 22, 2021