I have this weird theory about why MSM is so trusting of official sources. I thought of it when observing my daughter participate in middle school debate. I'm sure a lot of the journalists who work for WSJ, NYT, Wapo, etc, also did things like debate & journalism in high school and college.

And the theory is that our kids are being trained to prioritize sources over logic. In debate, if you can't back up your claim with sources (and the more authoritative the better), you will tend to lose the debate. Even if your arguments are logically sound, unless you can cite an authority to back you up, you still tend to lose.

And of course, what are the most "authoritative" sources, in the eyes of debate judges? Usually something from .gov or .edu.

In a way, this makes sense. Because who would trust the claims of a middle schooler over a much more established source? But the problem becomes that we have lots of people whose educational training conditions them to seek out and trust .gov and .edu over everything else - even their own logic.

And, to explain the situation that made me realize this: my daughter had to debate rent control and she had the negative side. But since most media and academia are liberal, she had a really hard time finding sources that were anti rent control. So she had a really hard time debating the position, compared to her opponent who was able to find a lot of sources favorable to rent control.

This theory is consistent with #651137 which @Undisciplined posted today, about how the media just gives people a justification or a talking point to reinforce what they already believe, whether or not the argument even makes sense.