By S.A. McCarthy
The Washington Stand
The legacy media’s stranglehold on news narratives is dying, according to a major mainstream media player. In a column published Monday, Axios founders and authors Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen wrote, “The big media era is over.” They continued, “The mainstream media’s dominance in narrative- and reality-shaping in presidential elections shattered in 2024. … How and where Americans get informed has broken into scores of pieces — from young men on Joe Rogan’s podcasts, to suburban women following Instagram influencers.”
The Axios authors noted that former President Donald Trump has capitalized on the growing trend of non-mainstream media to reach new voters, especially young voters. Over 22 million social media users listened in to Trump’s two-hour audio interview with tech billionaire Elon Musk on X (formerly called Twitter) in August. Trump’s appearance on the “Impaulsive” podcast with YouTuber Logan Paul garnered over six million views, his appearance on “This Past Weekend” with comedian Theo Von earned over 14 million views, and his appearance on comedian Andrew Schulz’s “Flagrant” scored nearly seven million views. Trump’s marathon three-hour interview on comedian and Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) commentator Joe Rogan’s podcast has already racked up over 37 million views, after having just been released on Friday.
Vice President Kamala Harris has also flirted with non-traditional media appearances, appearing on the sex podcast “Call Her Daddy” on October 7, collecting just over 730,000 views to date. She also appeared on the basketball-themed “All the Smoke” podcast (663,000 views) and “The Shade Room” (145,000 views) in an appeal to black male voters. She also appeared on the “Club Shay Shay” podcast on Monday, which has proven more successful with just over 900,000 views. However, Axios noted that Harris “and her staff are much closer — and responsive — to traditional media.”
In a report published Monday, the Media Research Center (MRC) found that mainstream media is overwhelmingly biased in favor of Harris and against Trump. According to MRC, 85% of mainstream media’s coverage of Trump has been negative, while 78% of mainstream media’s coverage of Harris has been positive. MRC noted that the disparity in coverage is far greater than in previous presidential election cycles: Trump was treated to 91% negative coverage in 2016 and his opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was treated to 79% negative coverage; in 2020, Trump was treated to 92% negative coverage and now-incumbent President Joe Biden was only given 66% positive coverage.
MRC explained that the “main reason for the imbalance” is that ABC News, CBS News, and NBC News “have swamped their audiences with more than 230 minutes of airtime — virtually all of it negative — about an array of personal controversies surrounding the former President, yet provided extremely light coverage or altogether ignored many controversies involving Vice President Harris.”
In a Monday morning op-ed for The Washington Post, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (who also owns the Post) wrote that newspapers “must be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but we are failing on the second requirement. Most people believe the media is biased.”
He continued, “Lack of credibility isn’t unique to The Post. Our brethren newspapers have the same issue. And it’s a problem not only for media, but also for the nation.” Noting the burgeoning influence of independent and alternative media, Bezos wrote, “Many people are turning to off-the-cuff podcasts, inaccurate social media posts[,] and other unverified news sources, which can quickly spread misinformation and deepen divisions.”
A recent Gallup poll discovered that Americans’ trust in mainstream media has hit an all-time low and has finally sunk lower than Americans’ trust in other institutions like Congress. According to the survey findings, published this month, 36% of Americans do not trust mainstream media “at all,” 33% of Americans have “not very much” trust in mainstream media, and a meager 31% have either a “great deal” or a “fair amount” of trust in mainstream media, down from 45% just in 2018.
Young Americans in particular have the lowest opinion of mainstream media, which may explain why Trump has turned to podcasts and YouTube channels to bolster his standing among young voters. Overall, only 26% of voters aged 18 to 49 say that have either a “great deal” or a “fair amount” of trust in mainstream media. Among voters aged 50 to 64, that share stands at 33%. Voters aged 65 or older are the most likely (at 43%) to trust mainstream media.
In comments to The Washington Stand, FRC Action Director Matt Carpenter observed, “The advent of social media was the first real opportunity for people to share information that was unwashed in the basins of large corporate media outfits.” He continued, “Since then, independent journalists, news sites, and commentary have gained in credibility and grown their audiences because they have, in large part, pursued the truth over political correctness. Even today, many of the large corporate outlets that promoted outright falsehoods during the first Trump term have refused to acknowledge those errors.”
Carpenter added, “With such a crucial election just days away I’m sure many of the executives in these corporate news outlets secretly wish they had not damaged their own credibility in this way, because their ability to shape public perception of this election has been greatly diminished.”
Originally published at The Washington Stand!
