When the Washington Post hired Margaret Sullivan as a media critic in 2016, no one knew that she would become what every single other media “critic” in the national press is: an apologist for everything wrong about the industry she’s supposed to be critiquing.

A case in point is Sullivan’s latest column, which accuses President Trump of “ramping it up” with his “attacks on the news media” ahead of the 2020 election. She describes these "attacks" as “ugly and destructive.” At no point does she address the shocking amount of lies and deliberate misrepresentations by the media (including in her own paper) about Trump and the administration.

Here’s just one blatant falsehood the Post spread in early August about Trump’s visit to a hospital right after the mass shooting in El Paso:

As Trump exchanges pleasantries with doctors and others at the University Medical Center of El Paso, the video shows him pausing to reminisce about dueling rallies that he and [Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’rourke] staged in El Paso in February focused on immigration and border security.

“That was some crowd,” Trump says of his event. “We had twice the number outside. And then you had this crazy Beto. Beto had like 400 people in a parking lot, and they said his crowd was wonderful.”

The video shows no one responding to Trump’s assertion before convening for group photos.

In fact, this is untrue. For as long as the audio is on, you can hear the people off camera laughing at Trump’s remarks, which were clearly made in jest. Immediately thereafter, you see one of the hospital personnel lift up his pant leg at the ankle to show his sock embroidered with “TRUMP.” (See it for yourself here.)

When the Post misrepresents even a harmless dialogue like this for the sole purpose of embarrassing Trump, it isn't hard to understand why he feels the way he does. So why is the story always about Trump’s “attacks” on the media, rather than his response to demonstrably false reporting?

The national media march in lockstep with the same story lines and opinions opposing this White House. They talk to the same “experts.” They even cower and change their coverage when #TheResistance mob gets mad.

Even their supposedly dissenting voices are apologists for overwhelming media narratives. New York Times conservative Ross Douthat began his Wednesday column rebutting the “white supremacy” hysteria thusly: “The American right in the Trump era has a racism problem.”

That’s the pro-conservative voice of our nation’s premier newspaper.

Sullivan could be right that Trump is “ramping it up” against the news media. But where is there a media critic in the national press to say there’s a legitimate reason for that?