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John Edwards . . . argues that most voters do not place candidates on a neat left-right continuum. But they are really good at sensing who shares their values. They are really good at knowing who respects them and who doesn't. Edwards's theory is that the Democrats' besetting sin over the past few decades has been snobbery.

The concensus of journalism--what defines journalism's outlook--is driven by commercial (but remarkably little by any particular advertiser) considerations. That commercial interest of journalism as a whole produces a cult of celebrity in which all who attain notoriety are welcome to participate.
Those who do not participate--go along to get along--pay a heavy price. The price of admission is to never see anything which is outside of journalism's superficial, negative outlook. That is, you cannot have a celebrity good guy image projected by journalism without being a liberal. And since the individual journalist is simply a celebrity, that restriction emphatically applies to the individual journalist. Whoso would break out of that concensus does not become a more conservative journalist, nor even a former journalist--they become an unperson who never was a journalist.
The liberal politician, that is, is a celebrity good guy by vitue of being useful to journalism in precisely the same way that any individual journalist is useful to journalism--by edifying the impression of the public that journalism is the ~~gospel~~ objective truth.
Even granting the truth of journalistic reports, journalism can be no more than a portion of the truth. The entertainment value of a report lies not in its historical significance but, far more typically, in its atypicality ("Man Bites Dog") or putative cause for concern ("Is Your Drinking Water Safe?"). Journalism is anticonservative precisely because its filter passes to the public only entertaining reports. The everyday blessings of God are great--and conservative--truths. But they don't make "good copy" and are simply not information of interest to journalists.
All of which is the long way of saying that although liberals are not paragons of wisdom they have the system for appearing wise down pat. Liberals are "elitists" only in the sense that they project that appearance; in fact they are sophists ("wise" in their own conceit) rather than philosophers ("lovers of wisdom"). They are indeed therefore better characterized not as "noble" but as "lacking nobilty."
In the context of a school largely for the education of the sons of noblemen, those lacking title of nobility were designated as such. As the French word for "without" is "sans", the customary abbreviation for such youth--notorious for putting on airs to compensate for being considered out of place--was "s. nob".
It is the nature of a liberal to be a snob.
The record of the journalistic manipulations in the Nixon and Clinton impeachments--and in covering for vote fraud in the 1960 Kennedy victory and making Florida 2000 as close and judicially contested as it was--is perfectly clear to liberals. Think of it! Liberals heard, without any hint of exception from the journalism establishment, the son of a noted machine politician declaiming in the middle of Election Night that the Democrats actually had won Florida. Mr. Daily's declaration as fact of something which, as a matter of law, he had neither ability nor legal right to know would have created an uproar if said by a Republican operative in remotely similar circumstance--and liberals approved.
Liberals consistenly manifest a cavalier attitude toward (essentially uniformly Democrat) vote fraud. Liberals know and approve of the fact that journalism will go all out to install Democratic presidents and defeat Republican ones. Ultimately liberals consider the PR power of the journalism establishment, and not individual voter decisions reflected in election results, to be the center of political legitimacy.
Although liberal contempt for ballot integrity is directed at Republicans in the first instance, contempt for ballot integrity is contempt for the vote itself--as much exploitation of the Democratic voter as cheating of the Republican. It is contempt for the voter.
Rescuing the Democrats
New York Times | 10/21/03 | DAVID BROOKS

Journalism is a genre of nonfiction entertainment.

Journalism's business essence is to prevent people from walking past the newstand without buying the paper.

To prevent that journalism assaults the passerby with challenges on the order of, "Is Your Drinking Water Safe?" And although the everyday blessings of God are great, they almost never make "good copy." The business imperative of journalism, IOW, is to project a know-it-all, anticonservative image. And journalists do that, not just once but day after day. A conservative who could do that well would be a freak of nature, which explains the paucity of conservative reporters.

Notwithstanding the obvious facts above, appologists of journalism (Marvin Kalb, poster child) style journalism "the first draft of history." That begs the question of what kind of history can be made in a second draft of CNN's Baghdad Bureau coverage,

which admittedly was systematically silent
about historically significant information in its possession. Or what edits historians can make of what Novak did not say about the identity of the source of that notorious CIA leak.

Nonetheless it is the testimony (Treason) of Ann Coulter that history is in fact sometimes written as merely the second draft of journalism. Coulter was referring to the journalistic witch hunt against Senator Joseph M^cCarthy, but the CBS hit piece on Mr. Reagan is cast from precisely the same mold. It is a lie in service of the larger "truth" that journalism is the gospel truth, and all of it.

What a Surprise (</sarcasm> CBS's miniseries on Ronald Reagan]
Investor's Business Daily | October 23, 2003 | Editorial