Two columnists I regularly follow who put out high quality content on the regular that are left of center are Matt Yglesias and Ezra Klein.
Both of them previously founded Vox Media and pioneered an era of explanatory journalism. This is where issues are be broken into narratives, and passive consumers can be told what and how to think about topics.
The concept of explanatory journalism and video essays in pursuit of ideas that don’t require much in the way of critically assessing has a couple pros and cons. On one hand, it’s a lot more economical to understand how the news is, and lets people feel smart for understanding things. Generally, removing confounding information makes it a straightforward story that can be put into narratives. Plus, insofar as explanatory journalism is truly data driven, it can lead to good outcomes. I don’t think anyone reads the news to engage with really hard puzzles, they do it to be informed. If explanatory journalism catches people up to speed, one would expect that to be good.
Everything comes with a cost. Each feature contains elements that may also be disadvantageous. For example, explanatory journalism is more dependent on the views of any specific journalist. The effect of this is that much more information can be cherry picked, and it actively discourages critically assessing different perspectives. If journalism as an institution is keeping people with the right attributes to be democratically ruled, explanatory journalism may cut out a lot of the thinking necessary to determine the right approach.
Matt and Ezra are both (I think) self-described market liberals. They want a big government that actually works. This means being much more willing to listen to conservative critics, and willing to take ideas from more places. Typically, both authors are numerate and have wide ranging interests. Matt’s Substack Slow Boring covers anything under the sun. If he started more Slate Pitches, I’d be appreciative, but his success is a testament to independent journalism, as he is no longer affiliated with institutions. Ezra Klein is one of the NYTimes more popular columnists, responsible for a show and an editorial. His beat is a little more political and is aimed at center left and right people to push them towards theoretically better policy.
As someone who doesn’t identify with left wing politics, it can be hard to know how to feel about these guys. On one hand, they’re partisans and generally they make the democratic party less hostile to growth and markets. From a static perspective, this is good. Because growth and markets are targeted less, a democratic administration can enact less anti-growth policies relative to what its base and political constituencies want.
On the other hand, we’re in a competitive system, and the right wing party is much less bad on economic matters. Having journalists like this have prominence may make it less likely for good policy to be passed. In a sense, having these pro-market liberals can sometimes be cover for some of the worst elements of the democratic party. In the same way that right wingers sane-wash Trump, pro-market liberals do that for the Democratic Party.
The game theory behind this view is kind of like a prisoner’s dilemma. If both sides pro-growth, criticize internally, we have less bad politics. If one side is late to the party, we might have worse politics.
It gets a little more interesting when one considers that the game theory optimal approach for winning elections for Republicans will make their policy worse. Paul Ryan getting smooshed by pro-union types within the party may mean long-term worse outcomes.
This in turn makes the Republican side much less desirable for pro-market forces. People like Tom Cotton and JD Vance who appear to like unions for instance. If they win, they may have to deliver worse economic outcomes as a result.
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