Slow Demise of Legacy Media?

Perhaps the biggest takeaway from the presidential election is how irrelevant the left-biased legacy media is becoming. For all the talk about how Trump is a fascist, a Nazis, a threat to democracy, the majority of Americans still decided to support him.  As much as this reveals about these media types, it concurrently reveals just as much about alternative ones. The rise of podcasts, social media, and Youtube for information is making the traditional forms of news, i.e., print, broadcast networks, CNN, and MSNBC, become outdated. And considering how young people now consume media, is it just a matter of time before the legacy media actually does become just a legacy?

Witnessing their decline is pretty enjoyable. They’ve had a monopoly on the news since their inception because there’s never been real competition for them until now. Fox News and talk radio have been able to make a mark for themselves, but the “drive-by media,” as Rush would say, is so vast that these two lone voices were mere dents in the media machine. The totality of ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, print media, etc. allowed them to dominate the news and thus tell the American people whatever they wanted to without any real consequences. And I believe this has affected how they perceive and treat their audience—operating like a restaurant that is the only one in town. They’ve taken their audience for granted—we the people—and furthermore have viewed us as mere pawns. They've blatantly lied to us for their own self-interest rather than serve us by simply reporting. But people are finally starting to become awake.

Trust in these media outlets has reached a historic low and their decline is indicative of that. For the week on November 11-17, Fox took the top spot in cable and hit a historic high in ratings, while MSNBC fell to its lowest ratings in key categories in 25 years. Both MSNBC and CNN couldn’t even beat the Hallmark channel that week. What’s interesting is that they continue to operate with the same playbook of smears and lies in spite of this. They are like the beauty queen that got by only because of her looks yet continues to carry herself the same way fifty years later. Perhaps the smears and lies are the only things they ever had. They got by with it before, but now because of technology, that stronghold is over. People are on social media, watching Youtube, and listening to podcasts. They hear of talks of Trump being a racist, a fascist, and a Nazis by MSNBC and then see countless videos of black men supporting him on TikTok. They hear of talks of Biden (before he dropped out) being in perfectly good health, and then see video after video of him bumbling and stumbling on Youtube. They know they are being lied to.

Where does that leave these legacy types in the new era of mass media? I believe this will force them to compete in an open market of actual ideas instead of smears and lies. And as their core audience continues to get older and young people increasingly use non-traditional forms, they are going to have to compete on these new ones. But do they have someone that can compete with the likes of Joe Rogan, Tucker Carlson, Jordan Peterson, etc.? I can’t think of anyone because their very nature revolves around identity politics, racial division, gender division, and class warfare, which only appeals to their core demographic. Whereas those like Rogan are widely successful because they connect on a human level irrespective of such superficialities. We all know how Air America fared in the realm of talk radio but I guess we shall see.