CNN and most of the other news outlets made a bet on yesterday’s story. They went all in. They sent the big guns because if something had gone down, had the waking dragon of white supremacy lashed out, they needed to be there. But a bet is a bet. As it turned out, the damning display of a racist America they placed their chips on crapped out. So what is their loss?

That’s the key question. What do these outlets lose by being wrong about this? What they should lose is a bit of certainty about their underlying assumptions. Everyone who covers politics and culture is wrong a lot. That’s most of the job. The rest of the job is to say when you’re wrong and work through why. Yesterday the big news media got it wrong.

On those nights when only 20 people showed up at our show, I’d sit with my wife and coproducer and we’d say, “What did we do wrong?” It is my sincere hope that Kessler and everyone who marched with him yesterday ask themselves that question and turn towards a better path. But the news media has questions to answer too, and they aren’t easy ones. The drastic decline in attendance for Unite the Right this year is unambiguously good, but there is still good reason to feel uneasy. How should this be covered? At the very least, honestly.