The New York Times promised to do better after it was shocked Hillary Clinton didn’t win last November's presidential election. But guess what? It’s not happening. In fact, op-ed columnist David Leonhardt is funneling readers to millennial news outlets, and obviously very liberal ones, if there are complex issues they’re confused about.

“A confession,” Leonhardt writes in his daily e-mail. “When I’m reading a news article, I frequently have the frustration of feeling a little stupid.”

“The article will report a major development in foreign affairs, finance or another complex area, and I will struggle to understand exactly why the development happened or why it mattered,” he continues. “If someone asked me to turn around and explain it to someone else, I would struggle. I finish the article knowing more than I had but less than I would have liked.”

So, he suggests turning to “explanatory journalism” for a range of issues such as the Middle East and the “dispute between Qatar and Saudi Arabia.” And where does he suggest getting the best explanation? 

“Today, established organizations like The Times, The Washington Post and The Atlantic often take a similar approach, as do newer operations like Vox, Politico and… Slate,” Leonhardt says:

Today, you have more, and better, options. To use the Gulf crisis as an example, you have well-done explainers. You have smart analytical pieces written with clear prose and no assumption of prior knowledge. And you have sharp news stories, written by correspondents with decades of reporting experience, in a straightforward style influenced by the rise of explanatory journalism.

But you also have young social justice warriors and identity politikers with exactly zero knowledge of the real world and certainly less perspective across world history.

In a 2014 piece by Mark Hemingway at The Weekly Standard, the writer warned of the death of explanatory journalism:

The problem is that we live in an environment where you can become a "senior political economy reporter" for a major news organization at age 28. (You might bristle at Huffington Post being described as a "major news organization," but like it or not, its reach is vast and they get their questions answered at White House press briefings.) It's hard to fault [Zach Carter of HuffPo] for taking advantage of what he tells [Hugh] Hewitt is the "best job title in the world," despite lacking some of the experience and knowledge that might justify pontificating on subjects outside his area of alleged expertise.

For instance, Hemingway noted: “Hewitt asked a series of questions establishing that Carter doesn't even have an acceptable baseline of knowledge to spout off on the topic. Some of the questions, such as whether Carter has read specific books, might seem pedantic. Others seemed to be a pretty basic litmus test about knowledge of al Qaeda and the U.S.'s involvement in Iraq. The 31-year-old Carter was unaware Clinton had bombed Iraq in 1998, and had no idea who A.Q. Khan was. Carter's inability to respond to Hewitt's inquiries is damning.”

“For reporters, basic information gathering was a tedious process even a few decades ago,” Hemingway continued. “Now it can literally be done at the speed of electrons. But while the ability to get information is instantaneous, the capacity for reporters to synthesize this information is still limited by their own basic intelligence and lack of curiosity.”

Hemingway concluded:

[R]iffing on anything and everything as if you have a definitive opinion to offer at the drop of a hat appears to be Vox.com's "explanatory journalism" business model. The site actually has a regular feature broaching complex policy topics under the header, "everything you need to know." Of course, it should be obvious that "most issues worth understanding are far too complex to fully explain in the kind of bite-sized, shareable content nugget that’s become the standard currency of the social media age."

But go ahead, NYT, in all of your profound wisdom. Keep telling us that explanatory journalism is getting better and where we should go for the best takes.