*This article was originally published in The Topeka Capital-Journal, May 21, 2016.
A few days ago, I was clicking around a few news sites when I had a sudden, disconcerting realization. I’d just read 10 articles from three outlets, and they were all about Donald Trump.
If it had been anyone else, I would’ve noticed long before number 10. “Did I really just read six articles about Chris Christie? That was weird.” Not so with Trump. It felt natural to bounce from his views on sovereign debt to whether the GOP can “survive” his candidacy to the dissolution of the #NeverTrump movement. He’s an all-encompassing force in our lives now, and we can thank ourselves for making it this way. I’ve never been fond of the nebulous way some people use the word “media” — as if every journalist is an appendage of some huge, blob-like organism.
There’s too much political acrimony and polarization in the U.S.? Young people have fickle attention spans? Americans are too easily distracted by trivial issues? “Well, you can thank the ‘media’ for that.” Critics who make sneering, contemptuous remarks like this never think about I.F Stone or Woodward and Bernstein. They picture Wolf Blitzer talking about a missing plane for two months.
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