By Samuel Short November 8, 2024 at 9:39am
Leftist media outlets are wondering what went wrong Tuesday night. How could President-elect Donald Trump — a man labeled a fascist and the second coming of Adolf Hitler — win both the popular vote and electoral college?
The answer is simple: The establishment media are out of touch. If they — MSNBC, CNN, and ABC to name a few — realized the irrelevancy they have with regular Americans, perhaps they wouldn’t have been so shocked Tuesday night.
In the case of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Axios CEO Jim VandeHei gave that panel of hosts of reminder of how little sway they possess on Friday.
Axios’ @JimVandeHei: “All of us have to come to grips, the legacy media is just not as important as it thinks it is … It’s a relatively small group of people who rely on us for their information … So if you just look empirically at the numbers, Joe Rogan is more important… pic.twitter.com/HqE4ckkFGE
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) November 8, 2024
When host Willie Geist asked, “How do Democrats, and frankly how does legacy media, need to change the way it thinks about getting information?”
Geist admitted in his questioning that the average Trump voter wasn’t his audience or that of his colleagues.
He then posed the question, “How do Democrats need to change the way they communicate to voters?”
“Legacy media is just not as important as it thinks it is,” VandeHei admitted.
Are you done with mainstream media?
In a remark that likely had MSNBC writhing in agony, he told Geist, “Joe Rogan’s more important than any of us.”
That remark is met with a dramatic sign of disapproval from someone on the pane,l indicating they still didn’t understand VandeHei’s perspective.
VandeHei brought up Elon Musk as social media platform X has become a Goliath of information in politics and culture.
“X is what matters.,” he said, referring to Musk as “the most powerful civilian in the country” and calling X “the most powerful platform on the right.”
VandeHei stated, “There’s just a whole new information ecosystem out there,” urging panelists to navigate that ecosystem.
Will this be the wake-up call that causes “Morning Joe” to realize they are — no pun intended — old news?
It’s doubtful.
Even with Gallup Polling from October indicating 36 percent of adults have no trust at all in the media with another 33 percent putting “not very much” trust, old habits will die hard.
The uniformity of networks running chyrons as a man sits behind a desk with an earpiece has been common practice for decades; who could blame millionaire news anchors for wanting to stick to it?
Trump’s 3-hour interview with Joe Rogan should send off sirens. Now is the time to change.
Long unedited conversations are the future.
Real stories provided by X users with factual analysis presented after thorough investigation will overcome narratives and deception.
If Democrats want to win, these are the people they need to engage with. If media outlets want to survive, these are the methods they must use.
Sam Short is an Instructor of History with Motlow State Community College in Smyrna, Tennessee. He holds a BA in History from Middle Tennessee State University and an MA in History from University College London.
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