McCain hasn’t actually traded his media base for his conservative base, since reporters still like him and many conservatives still have misgivings. But that’s the way things are drifting. There is now a huge premium on reporters disproving McCain’s denials from last week. The stories over the weekend about his campaign’s inaccurate denial of his meeting with Paxson are just a start. The next big goal will be to prove that a confrontation occurred between McCain and “associates” over his ties to Iseman. McCain has said categorically that no such confrontation happened. But the Times, the Post, and Newsweek all have sources who say that it did. Someone is lying or mis-remembering, and journalists aren’t going to let this one go.