If Trump wins this election it will spell an official end to any remaining credibility, any remaining trust, and any remaining goodwill for the legacy media not only from the right – the effect will certainly spill over to the left as well. The polls all show Trump behind (some in double digits). The media has been running non-stop hit pieces on him for four years now. How could Trump win? In fact, it’s becoming more likely that Biden will landslide now according to the New York Times.
If Trump wins and especially if he wins by greater margins than he did in 2016 this is absolutely going to shake some people out of their mainstream media stupor that they’re in. Not conservatives, either, as we already know how deceitful and devious the mainstream media is. No, this will shake liberals awake. They’ll begin to question how after 2016 – exactly how did it happen again? Which will be a simple answer for most people to arrive at. It’s the media they consume.
We live in a networked society now where the barriers not only to information but also to each other have been shattered. If you want to start a podcast you very easily can. If you want to start a YouTube channel you very easily can. If you want to write articles for Flappr you very easily can. (Seriously, DM @Flappr_ if you have any interest.) And after you do one of these things now people that you have people that you never would have connected with hearing, seeing, or reading your thoughts. This is why stunts like NPR ignoring the Biden laptop story are such a mistake. 40 years ago if the media didn’t want to report on something they could and you would never know about it. Now? No, they lost that power permanently.
So when these people that have been shook awake start to look around because they realize they’ve been lied to by mainstream media there will be no lack of other options to choose from. In fact, the only problem will be that there is so much out there that it will be hard to filter what content you might be interested in at first. What blogs do you want to read on Medium? What channels do you want to watch on YouTube? What genre of podcast do you want to listen to on Spotify?
I get all of my news from independent websites, blogs, and YouTube channels. I simply don’t trust any of the established mainstream outlets anymore. None. Not one. I used to love NPR when I was younger. I used to think the New York Times was great with really in-depth well-done articles. I used to watch 60 Minutes. Now I see Lesley Stahl with circular logic and she looks like an absolute moronic loon. “Why can’t it be verified?” Trump asks. “Because it can’t be verified”. Why did I ever think these people were smart?
I was one of those people shook awake and now I’m one of the independent voices out there connecting with people that I simply couldn’t have previously - and that is a pretty ominous warning for the establishment media. They’ve shredded their credibility. And we will all be better off when they collapse.