Big Corn, Dumb Reporters
By 
We often vilify agribusiness and rightfully so. But the actual farmers growing the crops of agribusiness are just people trying to make a living in a capitalist system that constantly makes their lives more difficult, forcing consolidation that ends a way of life whether in Iowa, Mexico, or India. Grist profiles and humanizes some of these Iowa farmers, a useful short read.
Speaking of food and Iowa, the new frontrunner for the stupidest article about the presidential race award, outside of every Maureen Dowd column, is this one wondering whether Jeb Bush’s weight loss will make him out of touch with the fat people in Iowa and other flyover states he needs to win.
One of the worst trait of political reporters is to think their contempt for flyover country means they understand it, instead of just meaning that that they hate the great unwashed they perpetually pretend they’re giving voice to.
It’s like when Candy Crowley flipped her shit because John Kerry, prostate cancer sufferer, dared to try to order Green Tea. If you live in Real America you know that every supermarket sells a variety of types of tea, and that either restaurants have or don’t have a basket of random tea options. Either they do or they don’t. People in kabumfuck Iowa might have actually experienced something other than deep fried Twinkies with a side of Coke in their lives, and it’s journalists, not politicians, who are being elitist assholes for assuming otherwise.
The complete lack of understanding so many journalists have about what life outside of the coasts is like is amazing until you realize they never actually go to these places except during primary season.