How the Trump Years Weakened the Media

John Harris: “There’s no question — relative to Trump’s cynicism and lawlessness — that journalists remain on the side of the good guys. But that is hardly a demanding test. What’s more, a passing grade doesn’t mean the profession has reckoned with the ways it has emerged from the Trump experience — or possibly just the first half of the Trump experience — in a diminished or even compromised state.”

“The Trump years, like the Nixon years, came with triumphal language in which journalists portrayed ourselves as soldiers in a righteous army. ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness,’ is the Washington Post’s new portent-filled slogan. But how effective is that army? And how righteous really? Exploring the gap between aspiration and achievement can be uncomfortable.”

“The reality is that the defining ethos of contemporary journalism is not confidence but insecurity — a reality that is expressed in everything from the business models of news organizations to the public personas and career arcs of reporters and editors.”