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The Media’s Biggest Problem Isn’t Bias. It’s Self-Importance.
Jonah Goldberg /

The Media’s Biggest Problem Isn’t Bias. It’s Self-Importance.

The industry is a mess in part because it believed its own hype.
Sunday Morning Newspapers on a City Sidewalk
(Photo by: Arthur Gurmankin/UCG/Universal Images Group/Getty Images)

The American media has a Baptists and bootlegger problem.

Baptists and bootleggers” is one of the most useful concepts in understanding how economic regulation works in the real world. Coined by economist Bruce Yandle, the term describes how groups that are ostensibly opposed to each other have a shared interest in maintaining the status quo.

Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief and co-founder of The Dispatch, based in Washington, D.C. Prior to that, enormous lizards roamed the Earth. More immediately prior to that, Jonah spent two decades at National Review, where he was a senior editor, among other things. He is also a bestselling author, longtime columnist for the Los Angeles Times, commentator for CNN, and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. When he is not writing the G-File or hosting The Remnant podcast, he finds real joy in family time, attending to his dogs and cat, and blaming Steve Hayes for various things.

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