The Media is Dead. Long Live New Media

How personalities and podcasts beat traditional news outlets in 2024, signaling a shift in the media marketplace

It’s long been documented that while established, often older audiences still get their news from traditional media, younger generations rely almost entirely on digital means. Yet, the dominant influence of alternative media has never been as pronounced as it became last year, when Trump won the presidency by harnessing podcasts and social media to reach his base.

It’s easy to see what happened in the news media ahead of Trump’s victory in November as a seismic shift in the media landscape. But really this shift has been coming for a long time. It’s just the next step in the evolution of news media, and it’s a good thing.

I saw the signs back in August of 2023 after the first Republican presidential debate, when I wrote that Elon Musk — then the newly-minted owner of X — and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson had won the night. Fox News had broadcasted a poorly moderated debate, for which candidates were provided questions ahead of time. Meanwhile, X aired Tucker’s pre-recorded interview with Trump, and the viewership trounced that of his former Fox colleagues.

The day after the debate, Fox News announced their broadcast reached an audience of 12.8 million.

When I wrote my analysis of the first GOP debate, Tucker’s 46-minute X video had been viewed over 186.4 million times.

Fox’s broadcast didn’t even beat its own viewer ratings from 2016, when it averaged 15 million viewers over 12 events.

Fast forward to August of 2024, and that’s how many viewers Theo Von’s interview with Trump got on Youtube. (Meanwhile, Von’s interview with Vance amassed 5.5 million views.) Then Joe Rogan interviewed Trump in October, and that video was viewed on Youtube over 53 million times — much better than the 43 million viewers who tuned in to CNN to watch Trump debate Biden in June.

Trump’s reach on independent shows dwarfed the reach of cable news.

Kamala Harris also tried to reach audiences not typically in tune to politics, albeit less successfully. She sat down for an interview with female podcasting powerhouse Alex Cooper (3.3 million followers on instagram). Harris’ interview with Cooper was especially significant due to her unwillingness to appear on most mainstream media outlets. My former colleagues at the New York Post noted that at one point in the 2024 race, Harris was on track to “grant the fewest interviews of any major party’s presidential nominee ever.” Her interview with Cooper reached just shy of 1 million views.

Throughout the whole presidential race influencers had the same if not better access to political leaders than traditional media outlets. Take the Democratic National Convention, for instance, where Real Housewives of Potomac star, former Johns Hopkins Professor, and MSNBC contributor Wendy Osefo attended the DNC not with her big network ties, but as a content creator. Osefo boasts over 700k followers on Instagram.

The age of legacy media has been ending for a while now, but Trump’s victory in November signalled that the new age of the influencer has finally begun. How did we get here, and where do we go from here, both as journalists and a nation? The answer is wrapped up in the problem of bias and the question of how audiences and journalists alike deal with it.

Mainstream and traditional media outlets have long attempted to hide their biases behind the promises of journalistic integrity and the pledge that journalists take to follow the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics.

Yet, in recent years, we have seen TV stations refuse to cover negative stories about the COVID-19 virus due to being funded by big pharma advertising. We’ve seen newspapers describe global terrorists as esteemed leaders.

Mainstream media is out of touch with their viewers — especially conservative viewers. This has contributed to plummeting confidence in legacy media and has opened the door for personalities, podcasters, and meme pages to fill the gap in the media market.

And that’s exactly what they’ve done. Content creators — some conservative, others only tangentially aligned with conservative ideals, like low-tox living bloggers turned MAHA mom-fluencers — capitalized on this general distrust of traditional media to grow their audiences. Over the course of the 2024 election cycle, they became a boon to Trump’s campaign by sharing pro-Trump messaging with their enormous audiences.

Thanks to the advice of people like his 18-year-old son Barron, Trump capitalized on his popularity with alternative media to propel his campaign to victory.

It worked great for Trump, whose brashness is already better suited to the casualness of social media and podcasts, rather than the more professional tone of traditional journalism. Through off-the-cuff interviews with the likes of Rogan, Von and Shawn Ryan, Trump managed to bring himself even closer to his audience, solidifying his image as a man for the people.

Trump’s personality as a political outsider was a major part of his initial appeal to the American people during his 2016 run and throughout his first term as President. He wasn’t afraid to call out members of the mainstream media for coverage which he perceived to be extremely biased, which of course did not win him any favors.

Contrarily, on the sets of shows like the Joe Rogan Experience and Von’s This Past Weekend, Trump and Vance were able to be portrayed as “just one of the boys,” tapping into the old adage about candidates and friendly beers, despite Trump himself not actually drinking.

In the end, Trump walked away on election day with the largest percentage of the under 30 vote garnered by a Republican since 2008, per NBC News exit polling.

The role podcasters and media influencers played in the Trump-Vance victory of 2024 showcased a radical shift in the journalism landscape. Contrary to what j-schools teach, journalists who embrace their personalities, lived experiences, and the inherent biases that those bring will have more staying power in this digital world, adapting quickly as audience preferences evolve.

Even those who do not want to create their own media outlets or platforms can connect with readers on a more personal level via social media content and external media appearances. I myself experienced this while covering the 2024 election.

During my time working as a campaign reporter for the New York Post, I was able to build my brand outside of my day to day work using some techniques learned from major content creators such as those discussed in this piece. As interesting as the stories I published at the Post were, it was the personal touch behind my portfolio of published work that I was able to share through both short global TV hits as well lengthier more niche podcast appearances that helped set me apart from other journalists on the campaign trail.

Since my time at the Post ended, I have launched my own space here on Substack, as well as a complimentary podcast. I intend to grow my own platforms and audiences in the coming months, taking a leaf out of the book of these major media personalities. I expect other journalists to embrace the power of independent content creation as well.

It’s an exciting time to be in journalism. The gatekeepers of traditional media have been cast down. There are few barriers to becoming a content creator. As Musk says, “You are the media.” This democratization of news will lead to a proliferation of information and perspectives, allowing free speech and human curiosity to flourish.

And for anyone who thinks this shift away from legacy media is dangerous, keep in mind that there used to be only three news channels. The journalism landscape has been changing for years. This is just the latest evolution. The growth of independent creators is a win for democracy and free markets that empowers consumers and smaller content creators to find each other.

Victoria Snitsar Churchill is a conservative journalist and political commentator based in the Washington, D.C. region. Find her unfiltered musings here on Substack at Freedom Shots.