A dialogue. 

Times:  Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump are deadlocked less than a month before the Democratic and Republican presidential conventions, according to a new national poll that shows the American electorate feeling disappointed in each candidate.

Me: Holy crap! His…strong? stance on Brexit must have really resonated! Go on.

Times: A Quinnipiac University survey released on Wednesday found that 42 percent of voters supported Mrs. Clinton while 40 percent backed Mr. Trump. The poll represents a slight improvement for Mr. Trump, who trailed by four points at the beginning of the month, and has a margin of error of plus or minus two percentage points

Me: OK, so, just like one poll? From a poll that had Trump doing slightly better than average, anyway?

Times: …

Me: What do some of the polling averages say?

Times: …

Me: Oh, RCP still has her up by six? HuffPolitics, used by Sam Wang, has her up by 7?  And Wang himself still has Hillary with a 70-85% chance of winning, depending on if you use random drift or Bayesian projections?

Times: Do you know what that means?

Me: …

Times: …

Me: Look, the point is, there’s really no need to inject drama. We have a dangerously ignorant white nationalist only a few weeks away from accepting the nomination, grubbing it with his greedy hands and shoving an entire political party into his malformed mouth. No matter what happens, he’s awakened a plague of blowflies that can blot out the sun. It’s goddamn dramatic enough. Don’t breathlessly report every poll. In this instance, your duty to the Republic and her people is to militate against Trump. I know the overlap between your readership and his likely voters is slim, but you don’t have to contribute to the narrative.

Times: Fine. You want to get a drink?

Me: It’s 7:30 in the morning!

Times: …

Me: Yeah.