This shift in the media role has roots in both class and geography. Journalism used to be a “craft,” rather than a credentialed profession. You learned the business by covering local news and working at small papers. Reporters often owned homes in the suburbs, had families and maintained connections with people outside the intelligentsia.

Today’s mainstream news media seem to reflect increasingly the values of our increasingly doctrinally progressive academic institutions. Last year, some 96 percent of media outlet political donations, according to the Center for Public Integrity, went to Hillary Clinton.

Increasingly, top journalists, as Obama speechwriter Ben Rhodes noted, are often young, highly educated ingenues who “literally know nothing” and can be easily misled by attractive figures like President Obama. Nate Silver’s concept of a “liberal media bubble” reflects the increasing concentration of media in fewer places and the related collapse of local journalism. More than half of all media jobs are now located in counties where Clinton won by over 30 points, notes Politico. In 2008, these counties had less than a third of all media jobs. To many in newsrooms, the Trump constituency seems to them to be people from another, inhospitable planet.