Echo chambers for us, fantasy bubbles for the media.

"The media bubble is worse than you think," wrote Jack Shafer and Tucker Doherty. They have analysed why the media got the presidential election in November so wrong. "The overwhelming assumption was that the race was Hillary Clinton's for the taking, and the real question wasn't how sweeping her November victory would be, but how far out to sea her wave would send political parvenue Trump. Today, it's Trump who occupies the White House and Clinton who's drifting out to sea -- an outcome that arrived not just as an embarrassment for the press but an indictment." Previously, newspapers had to be printed close to their readers which meant that offices were spread out all over the country but with internet publishing media offices are concentrated along both coasts, which are extreme Democratic areas. "Nearly 90 per cent of all internet publishing employees work in a county where Clinton won, and 75 per cent of them work in a county that she won by more than 30 percentage points." But, is it so simple? Johannes Wahlstrom wrote of how The New York Times regularly manipulates, suppresses and fabricates news stories in its boardroom where journalists are not permitted. This was where the false story of Iraq's WMDs was created, Muammar Gaddafi was received and the story about NSA's illegal wiretapping was suppressed till 2 years after George Bush was re-elected. Whether deliberately or because of incompetence the mainstream media missed the complete shambles of the Clinton campaign. Having lost Michigan to Bernie Sanders in the primary the Clinton campaign concluded that it was better not to send Hillary Clinton to states where non-college-educated whites were an important part of the electorate, wrote Jon Allen and Arnie Parnes. In effect, they just wrote off certain states. But, it was not just a loss for Clinton, it was a rejection of the policies of Barack Obama. It maybe either because of extreme dislike for Trump or worship of Obama journalists were blind to his lies about the Iran deal. Not only did he release 7 men convicted of smuggling essential parts for building missiles and uranium centrifuges but he also got the Justice Department to drop serious charges against 14 others. Journalists have still not realised that just as non-college-educated whites were instrumental in handing victory to Trump, so African-Americans handed victory to Obama, when 95% voted for him in 2008, while 93% voted for him in 2012. Some people, such as Nate Silver and David Wasserman, worked out how a Trump victory was possible, but did not believe in their own calculations. The media accuses people of living in echo chambers when they are living in fantasy bubbles. We are all human, after all.