Reporters have always made errors, but mistakes should occur independent of ideology. What we’re seeing instead is a pattern—media miscues always occur in the same direction, in favor of the liberal perspective. Over the last two years, countless “bombshell” reports have signaled grave danger for the Trump presidency, up to and including impeachment or resignation. Trump’s son got an early look at the Wikileaks pages; Anthony Scaramucci was tied to a dodgy Russian hedge fund; Michael Cohen met Russians in Prague; Paul Manafort met Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in London; James Comey would testify that Trump was under investigation; and so on. As outrage ebbs from each discredited story, it is relegated to the memory hole in time for the next one to emerge.

Ever since Trump’s arrival on the national stage, the media have devoted themselves to destroying him, and, by extension, the ideologies that supposedly account for his popularity—white supremacy and toxic masculinity. Major media outlets have shed any pretense to rigor or probity, even as they make ostentatious shows of “fact-checking” the president’s statements.

Obsession with white privilege focuses maximal scrutiny on any incident that tracks with the right narrative.