The irony is that The Post and the Times and other mainstream outlets are understood as inherently credible enough that our reporting is often cited to demonstrate some point that isn’t specifically about the media or which doesn’t inherently align with partisan boundaries. Fox News, for example, loved to tout anti-vaccination scold Alex Berenson a “former New York Times” reporter, since the network understood that the title gave him legitimacy even as the network’s hosts would work to undermine that legitimacy.
This sort of cherry-picking of utility happens on both the left and the right. There are critics on the left who offer sweeping criticisms of The Post’s approach to its coverage who then cite that coverage in other contexts. The scale is very different, but there is also a marketplace on the left for criticism of mainstream outlets that sits alongside unstated appreciation of the coverage from the same sources. Challenging the media is always more interesting than agreeing with it. This is how it goes — but it also demands that the media do more on its own behalf. That’s particularly true since so many of the attacks from either side are easily rebuffed, being bad-faith or lazy or generic.
One of the essays that has influenced me the most over the past decade is one I talk about a lot: “Against Transparency,” written by Lawrence Lessig in 2009. Lessig’s point is simple: Providing too much access to pieces of information might “push any faith in our political system over the cliff.” As, to a significant extent, it has.
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