From where we sit, the biggest danger to journalism today is the gentry liberal groupthink one can call the “Acela cocoon.” It’s particularly problematic for journalism right now because it mutes press criticism of the current Administration. On a handful of issues—civil liberties, drones, the environment, Iran—the Acela cocoon is significantly to the left of the Obama administration and so has been criticizing the Administration a little harder now that the election is out of the way. But on so many big issues of the day the Administration and much of the press are so closely allied that the press genuinely has a hard time criticizing power.

That would change under a GOP president, of course; the press would turn from lapdogs to pit bulls almost overnight. From the standpoint of the public interest, we need a strong right wing press corps to go after Democratic and liberal presidents and a strong liberal press corps to keep Republican and conservative politicians on their toes. That way, no matter who controls Washington the public’s interest in press oversight will be served, and we can also count on the left and right wingers in the press to check each other’s work. All this would be significantly better than the overrepresentation of the Acela consensus in the contemporary press; competition and rivalry is what the press needs.