2018 resolution: no more overkill media safari rampages plz

WELCOME BACK, DEEZERS! I missed you like a shitty former Today anchor probably misses his job, oh wait, who cares, because it’s about to be HodaFest2k18!!!

Anyway, having spent an unprecedented 21 days now over the past 3 months in my central Illinois hometown, I’ve been thinking a lot about “Trump country” and how the MSM spent 2017 tripping over itself in an attempt to write The Profile That Perfectly Captures Midwest/Rustbelt/Coal Mine/Non-coastal Essence. You know the ones.

Often landing somewhere between well-intentioned but severely romanticized overkill and one big echo chamber, as the HuffPost’s Ashley Feinberg points out in What I Learned From Reading All The Media Safaris Into ‘Trump Country’ I Could Handle Before Wanting To Die, one can only hope that 2018 will bring a few more nuanced and less heavy-handed approaches. This one from the WaPo on J.C. Penney land is good; now can we have more? Oh, but also can we still go ham on this kind of coverage to OTHER underserved communities, while we’re at it?

Like Deez Links? Forward to the Today & hopefully Forever show.