Unsurprisingly, a journalist simply can’t get it through his head that newspapers don’t make you more intelligent. And it’s arguable that being misinformed is actually better than remaining in ignorance:
My lament this Fourth of July is to ask readers to see newspapers as not just another casualty in the churn of business. Sure, reporters say stupid things and write idiotic stories. Everyone stumbles. But on its best days, a newspaper is a marvel of style and wit, of small-type discoveries and large-type overstatements, a diary of our deeds. We may still prove Jefferson’s preference wrong: perhaps a nation can function without newspapers. But it would be a confederacy of dunces.
It’s not a question of “stumbling”, it’s a question of repeatedly, regularly and reliably getting the facts wrong while operating on a predictive model that is proven to be fraudulent, all the while presenting a blatantly dishonest picture about obvious biases and motives. Why should anyone place trust in a lapdog that insists on describing itself as a watchdog even as it is cuddled and caressed by the very entity it is supposed to be watching?