Mainstream media on a path to irrelevance

Instead of carping about TikTok, news outlets need to fix themselves

The clock is TikToking on traditional media.

The Democratic Party credentialed more than 200 content creators for last week’s convention in Chicago, giving them “access parallel to legacy media,” as Politico put it.

While these influencers enjoyed a creator lounge and a spot on the convention floor to make videos, mainstream journalists seemed annoyed with their own amenities and access. “These are the worst working conditions of the 20 conventions I have covered,” griped Jonathan D. Salant of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Since Joe Biden passed the torch to Kamala Harris a month ago, her campaign has generally kept major media at arm’s length. No one-on-one interviews with Harris. No full-length news conferences. And yet, it’s been one of the most successful and inspirational months in modern Democratic Party history. 

You might think the Democrats’ surge occurred in spite of their posture toward legacy media. Or you might think it happened because of it. 

Clearly, political strategists don’t need traditional media as much as they once did. And the media have richly earned this drop in status. Too many political journalists are marinating in the Washington cocktail culture, writing for each other and for their sources – in service to the political industry, not the public. 

They’ve lost touch with their audiences, especially the audiences they’ll need in the future. A recent survey found that 78% of Americans age 65 or older get most political and election news from journalists and news organizations. But that figure drops to 55% for people ages 30-49 and to 45% for those 18-29. 

Social media platforms such as TikTok and Twitter/X have changed the political game. 

This threat to the influence of traditional media isn’t entirely the media’s fault. Smartphones and social media have transformed consumer habits. But another factor is how right-wing disinformation has flummoxed mainstream journalists – and how those journalists have failed to learn from their mistakes, adjust their tactics, and play to their strengths.

Donald Trump shouldn’t have taken the media by surprise in the 2016 campaign. Just eight years earlier had come the birther hoax against Barack Obama. And before that, the Swiftboating of John Kerry. In both cases, the media had been dupes for right-wing hoaxes.

And they were dupes again in 2016. Major media had their audiences and their ratings formulas and they weren’t inclined to risk their profit margins to confront the right’s increasingly brazen assaults on the truth. It was the triumph of the earning curve over the learning curve.

But with Trump’s successful campaign of lies eight years ago should have come an aggressive reassessment by the media. Only in limited cases has that happened. Networks are still letting a deranged criminal traitor tell outrageous falsehoods on live television with no pushback. They’re amplifying disinformation and pretending that amounts to “fairness.” 

We don't need journalists to simply turn on the microphones and broadcast whatever politicians say. A machine could do that. The value added of journalism is doing investigations that matter, putting news events in context, confronting prominent liars, and drawing fair conclusions that inform the public. 

Major media need to lean into that role and stop dismissing the impact of social media. Just last week, the New York Times’ font of hubris, David Brooks, complained about the Harris campaign’s “excessive faith in social media.” But social media clearly has a role. About half of TikTok’s users under age 30 say they rely on the platform to keep up with politics. 

Mainstream journalists could learn a few things from social media, such as writing clear headlines instead of the cowardly, obtuse headlines that often appear in news outlets like the New York Times. 

And they should respect the fact that quality journalism can come from nontraditional sources – including fact-based outlets that lead with their values instead of adopting a false posture of objectivity. Among these startups is Courier Newsroom, the center-left news outlet that sponsors this Substack newsletter and brings pro-democracy news to under-reached audiences via social media. And there’s Meidas Touch, which broke a story last week about CNN including a longtime Trump supporter on its panel of “undecided” voters even though the voter’s social media made his Trump affection clear.

While smart legacy outlets have embraced email newsletters to increase reader engagement, independent newsletters serve as a way to bypass mainstream news. An example is The Racket newsletter by former Associated Press reporter Jonathan M. Katz. Last March, when Katz broke a major story about dishonesty in Sen. Katie Britt’s response to Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, he did so on TikTok, Yes, TikTok.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not ready to write an obituary for mainstream media. Viewership of the networks’ nightly news broadcasts has been steady in recent years. And the New York Times has more than 10 million subscribers. Legacy news outlets are still hugely influential, though not as much as they may think they are.

I’m also not saying it’s a good thing for politicians to bypass interviews and news conferences with big news outlets. I understand politicians’ wariness, given the clickbait focus of some journalists, but it’s important for candidates to face hard questions. 

What I am saying is that mainstream news outlets should be alarmed by the trends. In 1976, 72% of Americans trusted mass media to fairly report the news; 32% feel that way today. While the right wing dismisses mainstream journalism as “fake news,” many of us criticize the media for kowtowing to the “fake news” crowd and refusing to acknowledge the threat it poses.

As legacy news outlets get battered by both sides, their best way out is to fearlessly tell the whole truth. If they keep normalizing fascists and trying to find a safe space between facts and lies, they’ll be paving a path to their own irrelevance.