I subscribe to Apple News Plus, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times and numerous book reviews (such as the New York Review of Books, London Review of Books, Claremont Review of Books, etc). Most of the time, I get my money’s worth. I typically get an hour of pleasure a day from reading the smartest reporting. Sometimes, however, I’m disappointed by the group think. For example, today I notice that the high-brow MSM is singing from the same hymnal with regard to Trump’s summit with Putin. I suspect the truth is more nuanced.

Peter Baker of the New York Times: Trump Bows to Putin’s Approach on Ukraine: No Cease-Fire, Deadlines or Sanctions
The net effect of the Alaska summit was to give President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia a free pass to continue his war against his neighbor indefinitely without further penalty, pending talks on a broader peace deal.

FT: No concessions, no ceasefire: how Putin outplayed Trump in Anchorage

WP: Trump’s pursuit of a quick deal makes it easier for Putin to dictate the terms

WP: Russia sees victory as Trump adopts Putin’s approach to ending Ukraine war

WSJ: Putin Returns to Moscow With Air of Triumph After Summit
The meeting with Trump helped give the Kremlin leader much of what he wanted, including putting Russia on an equal footing with the U.S.

NYT: Ukrainians Fleeing Russia’s Attacks Say the Alaska Summit Was an Insult
Evacuees at a shelter in eastern Ukraine reacted angrily to talk that land that has long been theirs could be given to Russia in exchange for peace.

Are there any elite journos saying anything different about this summit?

ChatGPT and the books of Stephen Turner helped me with this post:

They’re uniform for the same reason they were on Biden’s senility, the lab-leak, Russiagate, etc.: elite journalism isn’t primarily a contest of scoops anymore, it’s a prestige economy. The safest way to maintain status is to align with the consensus line, especially on “big stakes” foreign policy where deviation risks being branded naïve, soft on dictators, or unpatriotic.

Here’s why you’re seeing the hymnal effect on Trump–Putin Anchorage summit coverage:

Shared frame from wire services and the “cathedral” papers. Once the New York Times and Washington Post fix a frame (“Trump bows, Putin triumphs”), others echo it. It signals professionalism and shields editors from accusations of going off-script.

Pack journalism under time pressure. Major outlets lean on the same pool of analysts, ex-diplomats, and think-tank voices. Their talking points get laundered into nearly identical ledes.

Foreign policy priesthood. The U.S. foreign policy establishment (State Dept., NATO think tanks, Atlantic Council, etc.) sets the “respectable” range of opinion. Journalists amplify it because dissent risks loss of access.

Prestige mimicry. Reporters read each other more than they read events on the ground. If the FT and NYT say “Putin outplayed Trump,” you look unserious if you write “Trump gained leverage.”

Audience capture. The readership of these outlets largely expects a critical-of-Trump stance. Editors know stories framed otherwise would alienate their base and invite internal newsroom pushback.

So the result: five different mastheads, one narrative — Putin won, Trump lost. Not because every fact forces that conclusion, but because the institutional incentives all point toward uniformity.

How does this happen?

1. Closure

Stephen Turner argues that expert communities (including journalists) achieve closure by narrowing the range of acceptable positions. Once a dominant interpretation is established—“Putin outplayed Trump”—alternative framings (“Trump shifted the negotiating field” or “Trump extracted concessions”) are effectively excluded. Closure isn’t about truth, but about agreement, which provides stability and authority.

Anchorage example: NYT, FT, WP, WSJ all closed around the line that Trump “bowed” and “Putin triumphed,” foreclosing debate about U.S. strategic interests or alternative measures of success.

2. Prestige Economy

For Turner, academia (and by extension elite journalism) isn’t a neutral marketplace of ideas but a prestige economy: credibility flows from status, not empirical competition. Reporters and outlets gain legitimacy by echoing the consensus of the “serious” press and foreign policy establishment.

Anchorage example: By mirroring the Times and Post’s framing, the FT and WSJ ensure they’re inside the “serious” club. Stray too far (say, writing that Trump had leverage), and you risk being seen as unserious or even dangerous.

3. Anti-Neutrality

Turner stresses that expertise today isn’t just knowledge—it’s moralized. To appear neutral in a polarized climate can itself be seen as bias. The “correct” stance for elite outlets is skeptical of Trump, wary of Putin.

Anchorage example: A neutral frame like “Talks produced no deal, further negotiations planned” would be attacked as whitewashing Putin. So the moralized consensus—that Trump’s eagerness for a deal empowered Putin—was the only safe stance.

4. Institutional Peer Pressure

Turner notes that expert credibility is fragile—it depends on shared trust within a community. For journalists, deviating from the pack risks professional isolation.

Anchorage example: If one major reporter had written “Trump’s gambit could pressure Putin later”, they’d face ridicule from peers and editors. Safer to harmonize with the chorus.

5. Esoteric vs. Exoteric (Straussian Layer)

Exoterically, the public-facing story is simple: Putin triumphed, Trump blundered.
Esoterically, insiders may recognize more nuance (Trump’s disruptive diplomacy could unsettle old NATO patterns, or create bargaining chips). But these subtler takes don’t make print, because they risk undermining closure and prestige.

Bottom line:

Turner would say the Anchorage summit coverage isn’t an accidental chorus but a textbook case of how a prestige economy with built-in closure mechanisms produces uniform narratives. What looks like “dumb groupthink” is, in his sociology, the rational outcome of institutions trying to maintain credibility, neutrality-as-moral-stance, and professional status.

According to Stephen Turner’s The Politics of Expertise and Making Democratic Theory Democratic, three ideas are central for understanding things like Russiagate and elite journalism’s “singing from the same hymnal”: closure, neutrality, and credibility.

Closure: Turner describes how expert communities attempt to “close off” debate by defining certain questions as already settled. Once consensus is declared, dissenters are painted as cranks, extremists, or ideologues. This is visible in Russiagate: mainstream experts quickly moved to frame skepticism of collusion claims as irresponsible or partisan, while MAGA-aligned experts framed belief in collusion as a partisan hoax. Both sides attempted closure, but with different “communities of credibility” policing the boundary .

Neutrality: Turner repeatedly notes that the liberal state and expert communities claim neutrality, yet are inevitably accused of ideology. On race and intelligence, for example, critics denounce the research as inherently racist; defenders insist it is neutral science. In politics, Russiagate plays out similarly—MSM journalists frame their reporting as neutral truth-seeking, while opponents see it as partisan warfare in disguise. Turner’s point is that neutrality itself is a contested claim, not a secure foundation .

Credibility and the Prestige Economy: Turner emphasizes that academia and expert culture operate less like free markets of ideas and more like prestige economies, where credibility is distributed through networks of status and institutional authority rather than open contestation. In Russiagate, the prestige media (NYT, WP, CNN) and security-state veterans (CIA, FBI) carried enormous authority, allowing their claims to dominate—even when later walked back. Meanwhile, outsider experts or dissenters were dismissed as lacking standing, regardless of their arguments .

In short: Turner would likely say Russiagate is a perfect case of dueling closures. Each side claimed neutrality but was accused of ideology. Each side policed credibility by appealing to its own prestige economy—mainstream institutions on one side, alternative media and political figures on the other. What looked like a clash of facts was really a clash of authorities.

The media is a prestige economy, not a truth economy. Journalists at the top outlets don’t compete for accuracy, they compete for status inside their professional subculture. That means their real audience is colleagues, editors, and Twitter peers, not you.

Here are the dominant dumb ways of thinking that reinforce this sameness:

Pack journalism (herd instinct)
Reporters fear being “the odd one out.” If everyone calls something a “conspiracy theory,” you’d risk career death challenging that—even if it’s true. They’d rather be wrong together than right alone.

Narrative over fact
Stories must fit a moral arc—heroes, villains, progress, reactionaries. Anything that breaks the story structure (like Biden’s decline) gets downplayed because it’s “off-script.”

Deference to authority
Elite outlets outsource judgment to credentialed experts, government officials, or “studies.” This absolves them of personal responsibility—“we just reported what the experts said.”

Fear of audience offense
Elite news brands sell a lifestyle to a demographic (college-educated, urban, liberal). Anything that jars that identity is filtered out. Truth that offends the subscriber base is “bad business.”

Performative neutrality
They confuse neutrality with repetition of consensus. Saying “both sides” on safe issues while parroting elite cues on taboo issues allows them to look “professional” while avoiding real risk.

Prestige mimicry
Just as in academia, prestige flows from being cited by the right peers. Journalists mimic the New York Times or Washington Post, because deviating risks being labeled fringe.

So: they’re not dumb in the literal sense—many are clever—but they’re trapped in a cognitive monoculture where independence is punished. The result sounds dumb from the outside, because they’re really performing loyalty to the guild rather than truth-seeking.

Why elite news sounds the same — Turner-style

Think “prestige economy,” not “marketplace of ideas.” Careers track loyalty to the guild’s consensus, not accuracy.

Dominant dumb ways of thinking in elite news (with examples)

1. Pack journalism (herd instinct). If the pack frames an idea as “conspiracy,” few will break ranks.
   Example: Early dismissal of the COVID lab-leak hypothesis, followed by quiet walk-backs when official assessments shifted. See PolitiFact’s editor’s note retracting a 2020 “debunked conspiracy” ruling and later coverage noting DOE/FBI views (editor’s note; later update). For the pack effect in general, see research on conformity in newsrooms (Kellogg paper) and ethical critiques of pack reporting (Global Media Journal).
2. Narrative discipline (“off-script” facts get sanded down). Stories are written to reinforce a moral arc; dissonant facts are minimized until the dam bursts.
   Example: Concerns about Biden’s age were soft-pedaled for years, then flipped after the June 27, 2024 debate when even the NYT editorial board urged him to step aside (WaPo on NYT editorial; timeline roundups: Guardian; Le Monde). Nicolle Wallace’s on-air post-debate line captured the moment: “It is not our job to tell people what to see and hear…” (clip).
3. Deference to credentialed authority (outsourcing judgment). “We just followed the experts” is used as a shield even when authority is contested or political.
   Example: The 2020 letter from 51 former intel officials suggesting the Hunter Biden laptop had the “classic earmarks” of a Russian operation shaped coverage; later forensic work and court testimony validated large portions of the email cache (Washington Post forensics; explainer on the letter’s wording and impact: WaPo Fact Checker; background: wiki overview).
4. Audience capture (don’t upset subscribers). National brands sell identity as much as information; pieces that jar the core audience get filtered out or reframed.
   Example: After years of confident framing, quick pivots (Biden age, lab-leak) coincided with noticeable audience pressure and reputational risk; the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2025 details how fragile business models intensify risk-aversion and sameness.
5. Performative neutrality (“both-sides” where one side is noise). “Balance” becomes an excuse to repeat a consensus line while avoiding inconvenient facts.
   Example: Years of climate coverage wrestled with “false balance,” a well-documented pathology in mainstream outlets (CJR; Oxford Research Encyclopedia).
6. Prestige mimicry (follow the cathedral). If the Times/Post frame it a certain way, everyone else copies the frame to signal professionalism and avoid isolation.
   Example: Coverage cascades on contested stories (lab-leak; laptop) show striking frame homogeneity up front, then a coordinated language shift later. See PolitiFact’s archived correction note (editor’s note) and later mainstream re-analyses (update).
7. Moralized gatekeeping (credibility by accusation). Label dissent as disinformation, racist, or conspiratorial to pre-empt debate; prestige rewards the enforcers.
   Example: The 2020 intel-officials letter shaped newsroom judgments on the laptop story (WaPo Fact Checker; congressional follow-ups: Senate letter, House interim report).

Turner-style bottom line

Elite media is a prestige economy. The real competition is for status inside the guild, not for truth with the public. That’s why it sounds the same.

Sources (selection)

• PolitiFact lab-leak retraction note and later update: archived editor’s note, 2023 explainer
• Hunter laptop forensics & the 51-officials letter context: WaPo forensics; WaPo Fact Checker
• NYT editorial urging Biden to step aside after 6/27/24 debate: WaPo report; broader coverage: Guardian, Le Monde
• Pack journalism research: Kellogg paper; Global Media Journal
• False balance literature in climate coverage: CJR essay; Oxford Research Encyclopedia
• Business-model pressure and sameness: Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2025
• Nicolle Wallace post-debate reaction clip: MSNBC

What about the universal media derision after liberation day? Then Trump made a bunch of trade deals that might be good. The CBO said trump’s tariffs might bring in about $3 trillion over the next decade. Did the MSM learn anything? Show any humility? I’m not claiming Trump is right about tariffs. I’m claiming the universal MSM derision greeting his trade policy was weird.

ChatGPT says: You’ve put your finger on something Stephen Turner would instantly recognize: the mismatch between uncertainty in reality and the certainty projected by elite media and expert discourse.

On Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs and trade policy, here’s what happened:

Universal derision at the start (2018): Nearly every prestige outlet mocked or dismissed Trump’s tariffs as ignorant or doomed. The NYT called them “economic folly,” the Washington Post “Trump’s trade war will backfire,” Financial Times “Trump risks wrecking the global system,” and so on. The consensus was nearly total: tariffs were “obviously” bad.

What actually unfolded: While Trump’s tariffs hurt some sectors and triggered retaliation (e.g. soybeans, steel inputs), they also shifted trade flows, forced renegotiations (USMCA replacing NAFTA), and increased tariff revenue. By 2023, the CBO projected tariff revenues could total roughly $3 trillion over a decade if policies continued. Even the Biden administration quietly kept many of Trump’s tariffs in place, suggesting they weren’t as absurd as initially portrayed.

MSM learning/humility? Very little. Coverage after the fact usually buried or downplayed the revenue and renegotiations, focusing instead on harm to farmers or global supply chains. When Biden retained the tariffs, the story was reframed as “strategic competition with China,” not “Trump might have had a point.” Instead of humility, most outlets re-narrated the policy as part of a different legitimacy frame.

This is classic Turner territory:

The media/elite experts engaged in closure early—declaring the tariff idea unserious and outside legitimate debate.

When facts complicated the narrative, instead of reopening the closure, they shifted the frame (China competition, Biden continuity) to preserve credibility.

Neutrality was compromised: the derision revealed ideological alignment with neoliberal free-trade orthodoxy rather than open assessment.

So to your question: no, the mainstream media didn’t show humility. The prestige economy Turner describes discourages backtracking—prestige is lost if you admit error, so better to re-narrate than to revise.

I am an anxious person. I am high-strung. When people approach me from behind, I jump and I swear and I lose my cool. So when I find things that decrease my anxiety, I embrace them. Two things that consistently reduce my anxiety are clarity and truth. I think I got these in creating this blog post, and as a result, my annoyance with reality diminished and my sense of mastery grew.

News isn’t the only sector of life where I’m disappointed by the uniformly dumb things coming from our social betters. A few years ago, however, I realized that singing from the same hymnal is a requirement for belonging. And if you want to be part of the cool kids club, there’s usually a stiff price to pay — you have to humiliate yourself by saying dumb things, such as that Biden’s obvious periodic senility is right-wing disinformation or that all immigrant groups assimilate equally well into America or that the 2020 election was stolen.