Rob Flaherty, who led the Harris campaign’s digital outreach, acknowledged the establishment media are biased toward Democrats.
Americans’ trust in the establishment media to report current events “fully, accurately and fairly” plummeted to a record low in 2024, Gallup polling found in October.
“There’s just no value — with respect to my colleagues in the mainstream press — in a general election, to speaking to the New York Times or speaking to the Washington Post, because those are already with us,” Flaherty admitted to Semafor on Monday.
“The reason folks are seeking alternative sources of media and are turning away from political news is because they don’t trust our institutions,” Flaherty added. “They don’t trust elites, they don’t trust the media, they don’t trust all this stuff.”
“One of the most important moments of the campaign,” said Flaherty, was when the Harris campaign allowed Vice President Kamala Harris to sit for an interview with Fox News anchor Bret Baier.
Flaherty said the interview grew fundraising and social engagement, underscoring the typical political persuasion of CNN, MSNBC, CBS News, NBC News, and ABC News consumers.
The establishment media are often accused of bias, leading many to search for alternative sources of news. The emerging sources appear to be conservative or alternative news sites, podcasts, and personalities on social media, namely X, which is now owned by Elon Musk, who believes in freedom of speech.
One reason why the establishment media appear biased is because of their history of pushing hoaxes.
A catalogued list of media hoaxes includes:
- Russia Collusion Hoax
- Hands Up, Don’t Shoot Hoax
- Jussie Smollett Hoax
- Covington KKKids Hoax
- Very Fine People Hoax
- Seven-Hour Gap Hoax
- Russian Bounties Hoax
- Trump Trashes Troops Hoax
- Policemen Killed at Mostly Peaceful January 6 Protest Hoax
- Rittenhouse Hoax
- Eating While Black Hoax
- Border Agents Whipping Illegals Hoax
- NASCAR Noose Hoax
- The Georgia Jim Crow 2.0 Hoax
- Trump Assaulted Secret Service Agents and Grabbed Steering Wheel of Beast Hoax
- MAGA Assaulted Paul Pelosi Hoax
- COVID Lab Leak Theory Is Racist Hoax
- Hunter Biden’s Laptop Is Russian Disinformation Hoax
- Joe Biden Will Never Ban Gas Stoves Hoax
- COVID Deaths are Over-Counted Is a Conspiracy Theory Hoax
- Mass Graves of Native Children in Canada Hoax
- The Trump Killed All the Fish Hoax
- Trump Told People to Drink Bleach Hoax
- Hamas Hospital Hoax
- If Reelected, Trump Will Execute People Hoax
- The Alfa Bank Hoax
- Libs of TikTok Murdered Non-Binary Teen Hoax
- The Aaron Rodgers Sandy Hook-Truther Hoax
- The ‘Bloodbath’ Hoax
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former RNC War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.
