The Pew Research Center recently published the results of a study on where adults are getting their news (and, tangentially, to what extent they’re even seeking it).

In some ways, the results aren’t all that surprising. But in other ways, it’s kind of striking to see the differences among the age demographics. The implications for the various news delivery industries and platforms are clearly huge.

But in the Trump-era bizarro world we currently find ourselves in, there are even bigger issues – from my perspective – than which delivery platforms come out on top.

It’s no secret, nor a conspiracy theory, that the journalists at most of the major media outlets – as well as the faculty at nearly every university where those journalists attended school – overwhelmingly lean left, and favor progressive policies and progressive politicians. So the knives were out pretty much from the time of Trump’s nomination during the primaries. Some of their antagonism toward Trump is justified, but much of it is over-wrought.

And in response, defenders of Trump – and even just those who don’t necessarily like Trump all that much but are annoyed at the behavior of so many journalists on the left – stake out an anti-anti-Trump position, focusing so much on the irresponsible behavior of the left-leaning media outlets and journalists that in the process they under-report or play down the words and actions of Trump that deserve criticism.

In the midst of this divided and tribal media environment, critical thinking is badly needed – perhaps more than ever. And there’s a lot of anecdotal evidence – on both the left and the right – that critical thinking is a skill that’s been largely abandoned by our educational systems for quite some time. Especially in our current day, the educational focus seems to be on what to think, rather than how to think. (Just look at the increasing instances of college students who have to prevent debate, or who need safe spaces and videos of puppies playing in order to deal with the “trauma” of being presented with ideas that differ from theirs).

It also doesn’t help that a general decline of religious belief and practice has left an increasing percentage of the population without any sort of moral compass beyond “what’s good for me” or “what feels good” right now, or “I agree with whatever the popular culture says”.

Trust in media has been hovering around historic lows for a while now. Media outlets appear to be pretty entrenched and unlikely to change their behavior. Regardless of the medium we prefer, let’s all commit to dialing back the outrage, reading beyond the click-bait headlines, and asking critical questions of both sides.