JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON: Why the Mainstream Media Can’t Hold Trump Accountable.

The incident underscores a troubling lack of curiosity in the press that Trump’s election has done nothing to mitigate. Right now, the media should be asking themselves: Why did Trump win white college graduates? Why did he outperform Mitt Romney among blacks and Hispanics? Why did lifelong Democrats in the Rust Belt vote for him?

If the mainstream press wanted to understand and explain Trump’s appeal, they could talk to any one of the millions of ordinary Americans with non-crazy views who voted for him. Instead, the media have gravitated toward fringe supporters and conspiracy theorists—the New Hampshire lawmakers who claimed that millions of people voted illegally, the handful of white supremacists who praised Trump at a recent conference in Washington DC, the malign influence of Alex Jones and readers of Infowars.

By insisting on an ideological narrative at the expense of honest reporting, and by reacting with hysterics every time Trump tweets something provocative, journalists are undermining their credibility. As fun as it is to laugh at hysterical journalists, we actually need them to be credible because they have an important job to do: hold the incoming Trump administration accountable for real abuses of power.

Ultimately it’s really the peoples’ job to hold politicians accountable; all the press needs to do is report fairly. When they won’t or can’t, as Donald Trump pointed out yesterday, the people and politicians will turn to other outlets.