(Edited 5/24) Jake Tapper on tour: “Alex and I are here to say that conservative media was right and conservative media was correct and that there should be a lot of soul-searching, not just among me, but among the legacy media.”
This happens every time, and Jake was clever enough to target this to One Big Thing that journalists got wrong. He's first-to-market this time, having been a liberal journalist for many years. This was the song that was sung in 2001, 2005, 2009... but he missed those chances, darn it, because people like Evan Thomas got in first. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Watergate's Jeb Magruder was probably the best at that. But it's not about being wrong in general, because he will quickly revert to everything else being basically right on the legacy media front: Trump, environment, Women's Issue(s), Russia/Ukraine, Israel - this is not about damaging the media, but limiting the damage and getting credit for bucking the trend. He's not bucking it, he's leading it.
Tapper hasn't got the credentials, or the chops, to be a token conservative who is willing to become a liberal for the big outlets. The David Brooks/Jennifer Rubin niche gigs are hard to get. But he can still be the courageous! forthright! old-school journalist! dammit, and he's currently King of the Castle for that.
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