Polls show Americans distrust the media. But talk to them, and it’s a very different story.

Margaret Sullivan:

The July email from Daniel Hastings, a Post reader who lives in Washington, was harsh: “You never have any intention of providing an unbiased or factual representation of the man or his policies,” he wrote. “Ergo, fake news! No one outside your liberal bubble at the Post or the general DC area can take you seriously.”

Hastings was responding to a column I had written about President Trump. I’d argued that Trump was wrong to insist, despite credible evidence to the contrary, that much of the reporting done by national news organizations was just lies. Hastings disagreed — and he had some advice for me: “Take a visit to the heart of the country. Go to a diner or a flea market. Strike up some conversations. Come back and report without malice or deceit.” He seemed sure that most people would back him up.

As the media columnist for The Washington Post, I had long ago become used to hostile mail and phone calls from some readers, mostly those supporting Trump, and to trolling on social media. While I have received a lot of appreciative feedback that practically demands to be printed and displayed on the fridge, I have also heard from someone who suggested that my breasts should be cut off with a butcher knife, and from someone who told me that he had a gun and people like me would soon be eliminated. I’ve often been called the “c-word,” a slut and a bitch. Some writers even signed their names to these venomous notes. One reader, John Hanna, was perfectly civil, but told me by phone that he and his wife — both Washington-area physicians — had voted for Trump (whom he nevertheless called “a buffoon”) because of the candidate’s opposition to the “terribly biased” media, particularly the New York Times and The Washington Post.