The Media Bubble
30th January 2017
Journalists, especially on the national beat, live in an insulated world populated by other journalists and like-minded, self-described policy wonks. Even if they happen to have come from the Midwest or somewhere else people do actual work for a living, they undoubtedly spent their youth yearning to leave. Having hated where they grew up, that economic reality is easy to escape and forget in recession-proof Washington, when you type and talk for a living.
Listening is only for people who “matter,” not those who labor. Industrial areas are places they visit every four years, like the zoo. You don’t listen to the animals at the zoo. They pop in, write their stories about blue-haired old ladies and how quaint it is, then head back to the DC cocktail circuit as a hero who can regale their peers with tales of how they survived some filthy diner lacking a proper brunch menu. “You mean they didn’t have mimosas?” The horror.