Since the 2016 election, though, “Why do they hate us?” has become absolutely linked to Trump for most reporters. Audiences have similarly hardened. More than ever, we’re stuck in a binary proposition. Either the media is a liberal cult, as Goldberg insists, or audiences are as Sullivan describes them: hopeless ignoramuses who reject their duty to self-inform. Neither take is accurate. The press is first and foremost a business, as commercial as selling cheeseburgers or underpants. We sell content, and what we don’t sell is far more important than what we do. If you want to scan the vast
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