Why We're Polarized

by Ezra Klein

In my experience, it’s true that reporters for mainstream outlets are culturally liberal in their personal politics, though more mixed in their economic and foreign policy views. The newsrooms I know are overwhelmingly pro-choice, but they’re also biased toward deficit hawkery and the national security establishment. The dominant ideology, to the extent there is one, tracks Morning Joe, not the Nation. That said, mainstream newsrooms are built around incentives that are different from, and often contrary to, liberalism as a political movement. The New York Times and ABC News fear a liberal reputation—they want to be understood as neutral arbiters of truth—and reporting oppositionally and inconveniently on the Democratic Party is both part of the self-identity and the business model. Perhaps as important, the intermixing of mainstream and left news sources forces an adherence to professional journalistic practices. MSNBC’s reporters and prime-time hosts want to be respected by the Washington Post’s reporters. Slate’s writers want to do work that will get them hired by the New York Times. As such, the business models and reputational ambitions of the mainstream outlets don’t just discipline their work; they also discipline the work of the more liberal outlets that admire them. Conversely, Breitbart, Limbaugh, and the Blaze are operating in a self-contained conservative ecosystem, where part of the appeal is outright hostility to mainstream institutions. Over and over again, ...