“Hack theater critics”

techPresident's Zephyr Teachout, via CJR, on today's campaign press corps:

Post-modern political reporters and bloggers act as hack theater critics, judging performances not by how they as individuals respond, but by how they believe the mythical “american people,” “independent voters,” and “women” (and most bizarrely “the media”) will respond. The standard role of the most prominent commentator and reporter is theater critic first, fact-checker second, independent questioner a distant third. (The inverted triangle reflects this-five paragraphs of post-modern critique; two paragraphs of fact-checking; an unanswered question dangled like a preposition going nowhere at the end.)