Candidates agree: News media have done them wrong

The vast field of presidential candidates doesn’t agree on much else, but on this there is broad consensus: The news media has done them wrong.

Democrat or Republican, front-runner or also-ran, almost every candidate has had something critical to say about the media during this campaign. In particular, Donald Trump, whose candidacy owes much to his pervasive news coverage, has repeatedly bitten the hands that have fed him. Beating on the press is as old as Spiro Agnew’s political career, so there’s nothing new about candidates dishing out an occasional head slap to the media. What’s new in this cycle is the number and kind of attacks — complaints about biased coverage, about hostile coverage, about inaccurate or superficial coverage. Or just not enough coverage. Everyone seems to be playing.