Back in September, Gallup presented the findings of an important research project that, in retrospect, ought to have prompted a lot more soul searching among members of the press. What they did was, over an extended period of time, survey people and ask them what they were hearing about the two candidates.

The answer is that with regard to Hillary Clinton, they heard a lot about email. With regard to Trump, they heard about nothing in particular. ...

People heard loud and clear that Clinton was in some kind of trouble related to email whereas the stories about Trump — with the exception of the sexual assault allegations, which came after this study — do not seem to have broken through. Indeed, there’s the alarming possibility that Trump actually benefited from the sheer range of negative stories about him. To cover any one Trump story — his refusal to disclose his income taxes or to commit to putting his business holdings in a blind trust — as extensively as the Clinton email story was covered would have necessarily required that less attention be paid to other important lines of inquiry into Trump.

But by trying to cover all the different negative story lines about Trump, the press created a muddle in which nothing in particular stood out.