Shoot the messenger -The class of people who shape public debate can't see our own blind spots.
The false consensus effect is usually studied at the individual level. But what I’m describing is a class-wide and industry-wide version. It’s not just that any one journalist overestimates how representative her experience is; it’s that an entire class of professionals shares a similar set of experiences, confirms those experiences with each other on the same platforms, and then produces a body of public knowledge that reflects those experiences as though they were the norm. And even when people from nontraditional backgrounds join the fray, they are incentivized to conform through social media, company cohesion, editorial norms, and the normal human urge to get along with your peers and be taken seriously by the people you respect.
