From a John Harris media column on politico.com headlined “How the Trump Years Weakened the Media”:

I was ten years old when Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace amid the Watergate scandal, but I arrived eleven years later as a summer intern at the Washington Post when the echo of that story was still ringing.

At the Post, certainly, but across the profession, journalism was defined above all by a particular trait: confidence. This self-assurance had two dimensions. Among journalists at leading publications there was no reason to doubt that our work was consequential, that it landed with agenda-setting impact. There was also full faith that our work was a form of public service — that a career in journalism meant you were on the side of the good guys