This paper argues for the existence in political journalism and certain beighbouring fields, particularly political science, of a cluster of correlated perceptions of politics, of which the most salient is the tendency in political journalism often referred to as ’cynicism’. The paper analyzes the nature of this cynicism and some of its important correlates, using examples drawn from recent political journalism in Denmark. In particular, it is emphasized that the cynicism of political journalism is correlated with the perception that voters in a democracy have fixed political preferences, so that they are in fact impervious to argument, which again implies that deliberative argument is not a central constituent of the definition of democracy. A corollary of this is that deliberative argument as such is not regarded as an impoprtant topic for political journalism.