One of supposed golden rules of journalism goes like this: "If everybody's mad at your coverage, you must be doing a good job."
That's ridiculous, of course, though it seems comforting. If everybody's mad, it may just mean you're getting everything wrong.
But it’s the kind of muddled thinking that feels right to media people who practice what I’ll call the middle-lane approach to journalism — the smarmy centrism that often benefits nobody, but promises that you won’t offend anyone.
Not the public, certainly, since readers and viewers would benefit from strong viewpoints across the full spectrum of political thought, not just minor variations of the same old stuff.