A Look Inside the Media Sausage Factory: Alternative Facts from ProPublica

Do respected media outlets like, say, The New Yorker or ProPublica merit the respect they get, from other media outlets or from media consumers? The answer depends on whether you think they are what they claim to be, high-minded purveyors of fair, thoughtful reporting? Or are they activists using the guise of fair reporting to advance an agenda that they won't admit, perhaps not even to themselves?

I ask because we get fed into the machinery of these organs, and it makes a difference when so...