United States Politics: ∆τ_i*ε*φ*m_i<0 where ε=4 and φ=0.25

[benji]

Almost every newspaper in the United States, except USA Today, was originally founded as a partisan one. I would argue that the period of "non-partisan" journalism actually was simply reflecting the partisan position of its class, reflecting a "consensus" of the Boston-DC corridor that momentarily had the say of both parties elites. The South was never part of this, as Democrats they were excluded from this view and have remained so as Republicans. By adhering to this "consensus" the press could find both LBJ and Nixon acceptable even as they represented no ideological strain in their parties. But the South wasn't alone, the media was provincial to those three major cities alone, not even their suburbs.

This corridor gained sway because of radio and then TV, which created a false sense of a non-partisan moment when this never actually represented the mass public's views, as shown by that media's inability to ever understand anywhere else and groups outside of its class. The proliferation of new media has simply been a return to the norm but people who convinced themselves of the illusion as the all-time and proper truth are simply reacting poorly to their sheltered illusions being shattered. They never realized just how partisan and ideological the media was during that period because they never questioned any of its assumptions or premises let alone had experience outside of it.

The Founders, in part because many of them were involved in the media of the time, made it a habit of reading all the papers not just those on their side. One of the funnier stories is that George Washington got so upset with a Republican paper that Jefferson was funding (with State Department funds) to criticize his administration that he actually cancelled his subscription (it was a point of pride that you didn't cancel for criticism of yourself) which led them to make sure to send him multiple free copies. (And he continued to read it and get upset.)

What the media says now about Trump is nothing compared to what the partisan media was writing against Adams and Jefferson. The HBO series included one of the more famous editorials about Adams: