Myth #1: ‘Rural’ is synonymous with ‘Midwestern
...In reality, any place outside of an urban area or urban population cluster should be considered “rural,” according to the U.S. Census. As the map above shows, rural areas comprise well over 90 percent of the country’s land area. They’re everywhere. The American rural experience ranges far beyond the confines of the Rust Belt. You can, in fact, find rural areas just outside of any major city, including in New York, California and Massachusetts — places often positioned in opposition to “rural” America.

Myth #2: ‘Rural’ is synonymous with ‘white’
One of the most regrettable Trump era trends in political reporting is the diner safari, in which a big-city reporter is parachuted into a small town in the middle of the country in search of the secret wisdom of diner patrons in overalls and trucker caps (full disclosure: I’ve done one of these, too). Such patrons tend to be, almost without exception, white....

Myth #3: ‘Rural’ is synonymous with ‘conservative’
...Farming and progressive politics went hand in hand in parts of the country for much of the 20th century, to the extent that in Minnesota, the official name of the state Democratic Party remains the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party to this day. Despite this history, and despite millions of rural Democratic votes in 2016, “rural Democrat” and “rural progressive” are categories that are largely absent from today’s political debate. Indeed, in 2019, some media outlets are still convening all-Republican panels of small-town voters and presenting them as representative of attitudes “outside the Beltway.”

Myth #4: Rural Americans don’t care about the news
...This reinforces a damaging stereotype that people in small towns are simple folks, living simple lives set apart from the rhythms of life in big cities. But actual data on rural news consumption paints a very different picture. In 2012, for instance, a Pew Research Center survey found very little difference in news consumption habits between people in rural areas and those living elsewhere. Crucially, the study showed rural Americans were no different from people in other communities when it came to their interest in such major news topics as politics, crime and breaking news.

Myth #5: Rural America is the ‘real’ America
All of this builds up to what may be the most pernicious myth — that life in rural America is more authentic, more American than life anywhere else. The intent of this narrative is to hold rural people up as exemplars of American life and ideals. But adhering to such simplistic avatars denies them much of their messy, complicated humanity. It reduces the rural experience to a crude caricature that advances the interests of a particular political viewpoint — a white, conservative one....