The Life and Death of Legacy Media
The backlash against the elite press has been swift and breathtaking
One of the most extraordinary sidebar stories of the 2024 election has been the complete implosion of mainstream media. Of course mainstream news or more exactly, legacy media, was in its death throes long before Trump won in November. The major network news, cable news, the newspapers of record — the Washington Post, the New York Times — NPR radio — all had been bleeding viewers and listeners to varying degrees, up and down, for years. The rise of social media, in particular podcasts, You Tube, and TikTok, were becoming the go to for new consumption and that reached an apotheosis in the election. For sure the cable news networks all had a bump during the pre-election days, with FOX News leading them all, but after, they resumed the struggling path that most cable television has been on since viewers switched to streaming in droves. Even FOX has never regained its glory days.
But that is only half the story. Americans not only lost their faith in news but have seemingly recoiled against the ideological bias of the elite media in ways that have left institutions like the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN and MSNBC and CNN unmoored and left behind. Even more than their obvious preference for platforming liberal left politics, consumers are reacting to the disconnect of these organizations to the real lives and interests of people outside the wealthy bicoastal enclaves of the country. The yawning expanse of understanding between the wealthy and overeducated and the middle and working classes of the country found the former wrapped up in identity politics while the later struggled with the damage done by COVID lockdowns and inflation. When more than half the nation voted Trump the realization came like a punch in the face. Major news orgs like CNN, the Washington Post and NBC, bastions of the liberal center-left, started laying off workers and scrambling to adjust editorially. Moreover, Trump is determined to sideline them in traditional roles in Washington now too, squeezing them out of studio and desk space at the Pentagon and opening up to new media in the White House briefing room.
This is quite the transformation to witness, especially for those like me and my guest today, Khody Akhavi, longtime journalist and video producer, who has lived and worked through the last two decades of traditional media domination. We talk about the breathtaking changes we are seeing in journalism and media and what it means for the culture, politics, and even foreign policy.
Recent videos produced by Khody:
How Foreign Governments & Arms Dealers Try to Shape U.S. Policy