The Media Apocalypse and the Demise of Truth

In 1970 political media consultant Roger Ailes, working for President Nixon, came up with a plan to create a new TV network that would circumvent what he called the “prejudices of network news” and provide “pro-administration” stories to American television viewers. In a memo to Nixon and his advisors, Ailes explained, “People are lazy. With television you just sit — watch — listen. The thinking is done for you.” Nixon embraced the idea, saying he and his supporters needed “our own news” from a network that would lead “a brutal, vicious attack on the opposition.” Not too much later the Watergate Scandal forced Nixon to resign. The TV station was put on hold.

It would take until 1996 for Ailes’ partisan news-station to come to be, with Rupert Murdoch’s money and the help of many of the same people and organizations driving the conservative agenda today.

In the 70’s I was a child. Whenever I heard the words, “And that’s the way it is” coming from the TV in our family room my spirits would rise. To my young ears this meant it was almost time for the Brady Bunch, Six Million Dollar Man, or Happy Days to come on. Brady Bunch was a favorite, and like the CBS Evening News for my parents, Brady Bunch was a must watch TV show in the 1970s. Cindy was my favorite character as she was closest to my age when it aired.

Until I was thirteen Walter Cronkite’s voice was a staple coming from my, and nearly all my friend’s living rooms most evenings at 6:30pm. Walter Cronkite – once known as “the most trusted man in America” was by far the dominant news source for a large majority of Americans from 1962-1981. Cronkite’s broadcasts reached an estimated 27-29 million viewers every night, when the nation’s population was just over 200 million. No single broadcast journalist’s reach has come even close since.

As a broadcaster, Cronkite built his reputation by doing something that many of today’s broadcasters and media personalities refuse to do–discount personal biases and strive to tell the simple truth in their news coverage.

That does not mean Walter Cronkite did not have his faults. In fact, he was suspended for two weeks by CBS in 1974 when he signed off with “Keep it real, my muthafuckas.” It is true that his fame encouraged and allowed some arrogance, and like all humans he had his personal opinions and passions. It is also pretty well documented that he leaned liberal. But Cronkite was so well-liked, not because he was non-partisan, but because he went above and beyond in his reporting. Even when he was driven by partisanship and a personal agenda Cronkite worked to unearth information and stories that would otherwise have gone unnoticed.

It was a different time. There was no 24/7 cable news, no left and right social media echo chambers, and only three major TV networks broadcasting news. In this environment, Cronkite inspired trust in an entire generation that probably could not be duplicated in today’s vast and siloed, partisan media environment.

It is also true that there was less scrutiny on the media during Cronkite’s time, but despite this he still approached his career as a broadcaster with integrity and a sense of responsibility to his viewers. Given the number of prominent news anchors today who report untrue information in the pursuit of a story that fits with their preconceived agenda, it seems that Cronkite was a different breed from a different time. One that is suspiciously absent on the 24/7 cable stations and programs that have branded themselves as legitimate news, when they are little more than opinion platforms. Cronkite’s approach and integrity with respect to journalism is not gone, but the power of a single voice that delivers the same facts to an entire nation is long past. Unlikely to return with so many avenues into our homes, hearts, and heads, and paired with algorithms designed to target and divide.

Although the US population has grown to over 347 million (a nearly 75% increase) since Walter Cronkite hosted the CBS Evening News, the percent of Americans tuning in to get their news on TV has decreased significantly. No single newscaster since Cronkite’s final sign off in1981 has even come close to his viewership or credibility.

Today ABC’s David Muir is the most watched evening newscaster with a little over 7.4 million average viewers per night in Q1. If you combined the total viewership for all three top broadcasting networks ABC, CBS and NBC it is less than 20 million.

Even if you add PBS Newshour’s 2.7 million viewers and cable news into the mix you still do not come close to approaching the reach and viewership of Walter Cronkite in the 60s and 70s. During Q1 of 2025 the combined viewership for all three of the top cable news stations was fewer than 4 million per night.

Today television competes with a range of digital platforms, and it is no surprise that as the percent of people watching broadcast and cable news decreases, the number of adults turning to digital devices for their news grows.

Walter Cronkite set a high standard for broadcast journalists. The good news is there are many genuine, honest newscasters that have followed in his footsteps, still investigating, reporting and delivering reliable fact-based news today. The bad news is only a fraction of the eligible voters knows who they are, agrees, or worse yet, cares.

When I recently asked ChatGPT who is the most trusted newscaster here’s what AI claimed to be so.

“Lester Holt, the anchor of NBC Nightly News, is widely considered the most trusted television news personality in America, according to recent polls conducted by The Hollywood Reporter and Morning Consult. He consistently ranks high in polls measuring trust and credibility. Other journalists like Anderson Cooper of CNN, Robin Roberts of ABC, and David Muir of ABC are also frequently cited among the most trusted.”

For the most part I agreed, but sadly tens of millions of Americans look at that list and roll their eyes. Including some of my own friends, family and neighbors. If you are under 30, as my gen-Z kids are, you may not even recognize the names listed. According to Pew Research roughly three in five Gen Z individuals (63%) turn to social media at least weekly for their news, meanwhile only 27% consider traditional broadcast worth tuning into at all. For Gen-Z Tik Tok is a leading platform for news, yet only one of many digital options teaming with tens of thousands of news influencers. Far from a single voice we can all count on grounding us in a common set of verifiable truths.

How did we get here, and what are the ramifications?

Over the past half century our media landscape has deregulated and shifted from newspaper and radio to broadcast TV and 24/7 cable. Giving way to omnipresent digital platforms and fragmented and polarizing social media networks. All powered by algorithms that target and divide.

Today there are a plethora of avenues to seek news. All of them competing for our eyes, ears, hearts and heads, and most of them falling outside any sort of regulatory body. Opening the door to blatant partisanship, disinformation and conspiracy theories. Creating a perfect breeding ground for opportunists, conspirators and fraudsters posing as newsworthy truth tellers.

As this evolution in the delivery of our news unfolded the left carried on reporting the news like nothing had changed, while the right embraced the new ecosystem and created the news with deliberate intent to capture minds and votes.

The following events and media-paradigm shifts play a significant role in creating this new ecosystem and paved the way for the erosion of truth and accountability. I’m a believer that we can fix what we have broken, but only if we understand how we got here and why we broke it to start with.

1) Repeal of the Fairness Doctrine on Reagan’s watch.

2) The rise and deregulation of 24/7 cable TV.

3) Explosion of digital news influencers, streamers and podcasters.

The repeal of the Fairness Doctrine and the rise of Rush Limbaugh:

The origins of the fairness doctrine lay in the Radio Act (1927), which limited radio broadcasting to licensed broadcasters and mandated that the licensees serve the public interest. The Federal Communications Act (1934) supplanted the Radio Act, and created the FCC, the chief regulatory body governing the U.S. airwaves, with a mission to “encourage the larger and more effective use of radio in the public interest.” The Communications Act expanded its reach to include television as broadcast TV technology became more widespread.

Broadcast licensees had the duty to devote airtime to fair and balanced coverage of controversial issues that were of interest to their home communities. Individuals who were the subject of editorials or who perceived themselves to be the subject of unfair attacks in news programming were to be granted an opportunity to reply. Also, candidates for public office were entitled to equal airtime.

Walter Cronkite took the Fairness doctrine seriously and in return his reporting was both credible and powerful. He did his best not to let his personal biases define his career, and he actively worked against those biases to determine the truth as objectively as possible. He believed in and practiced investigative journalism to seek legitimate facts that he could prove with evidence. In doing so, he could honestly sign off from each night’s broadcast with the catchphrase, “And that’s the way it is,” and his viewers could believe it to be true.

Cronkite’s 1968 reporting of the Vietnam War – which he called “a stalemate” — was so impactful that President Lyndon Johnson reportedly declared: “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.” This was one of the rare moments Cronkite blatantly included his own opinion into his reporting.

On Feb. 27, 1968, Cronkite concluded his “Report from Vietnam” with an eye-opening editorial:

“To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion.”

Andy Rooney once said of Cronkite, “Every writer, every newsman or woman who’s worth anything secretly hopes he or she will have some good influence on the world. It’s a preposterous wish, of course, but my friend had it. If it can be said about any individual in our business that he’s been a force for good in the world, Walter Cronkite was that person.”

But in the 80’s as Ronald Reagan took over the executive branch of the US government things began to shift and the government’s role in mandating fair and unbiased broadcast news began to unravel.

It is important to note that the effects of the Fairness Doctrine on conservative broadcasting extended to President Reagan long before he stepped into the executive office. He might be better known for his screen presence, but Reagan was an old radio hand. In fact, he delayed formally announcing his initial presidential candidacy for 1980 so that he could keep his daily radio show Viewpoint on the air on 286 stations nationwide as long as possible. Reagan was an actor that intuitively knew the power of media. From 1975-1979 Reagan gave 1027 conservative radio commentaries to an audience of 20-30 million listeners weekly. Building his brand as the “Great Communicator” and laying the groundwork for his presidential run.

Towards the end of Reagan’s second term as California’s governor, Walter Cronkite offered him an opportunity to come on CBS to give his conservative view twice a week, and the liberal side would be given by Eric Sevareid on two other nights. Reagan turned Cronkite down because he knew he could not control what would air around his segment. Recognizing the power of propaganda, Reagan would go on to work with his publicist to create his own daily radio vignette produced by Harry O’Connor.

In 1980 Reagan became the 40^th president. Reagan’s media adviser Michael Devear once told the Los Angeles Times, “In my opinion, Ronald Reagan got elected because he was on the radio every day for nearly five years talking to 50 million people a week.”

Propaganda works, and it certainly didn’t hurt to make sure Reagan’s opinions were not challenged or countered with equal exposure.

In 1983 Roy Cohn, a prominent legal and political fixer in the 80s, arranged a meeting with Rupert Murdoch and President Reagan. according to documents released by Reagan’s presidential library Cohn wrote in a Jan. 27, 1983 letter to senior White House aides the following:

“I had one interest when Tom [Bolan] and I first brought Rupert Murdoch and Governor Reagan together and that was that at least one major publisher in this country would become and remain pro-Reagan.”

In 1984 Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers endorsed Ronald Reagan for his second term. Murdoch, already a successful media mogul was busy buying up TV stations in the US, a portfolio that would ultimately include Fox News. Murdoch actively and loudly advocated against the Fairness Doctrine claiming it stifled free speech and handcuffed the media by forcing it to spend precious time sharing both sides when both sides were not always in the interest of his (conservative) audience(s). Murdoch was a conservative libertarian that would one day sit on the board of Charles Koch’s Cato-Institute. Both Reagan and Murdoch believed the marketplace should determine news content, not the government, and argued that people had plenty of opportunities to find a range of viewpoints if they desired it.

In 1987 halfway into Reagan’s second term, the FCC repealed the Fairness Doctrine after Reagan vetoed a bill by the Democratic congress to codify it before it expired.

There is debate about whether the Fairness Doctrine would have had any effect on cable programming such as Fox News, because the doctrine’s regulatory reach only applied to “broadcast” airwaves, not cable or the internet. However, what it did have a direct impact on was the up-and-coming conservative radio personalities on AM radio. More specifically, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity.

Until the Fairness Doctrine was gutted Rush Limbaugh’s highly partisan radio format in which hosts talk nonstop for hours, pick fights with listeners, and stake out political positions, would not have been possible over radio airwaves. Repealing the Fairness Doctrine enabled the rise of conservative-dominated talk radio with vast political consequences.

Right leaning congressional Republicans like Newt Gingrich, with an interest in moving politics and American constituents to the right knew this. As did the wealthy donors running and funding the conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the Cato-Institute. Murdoch and Ailes were also paying close attention.

The following statement comes directly from the Cato-institute’s library, a Charles Koch libertarian think tank established in 1977 focused on public advocacy, media exposure, and societal influence:

“Without talk radio, it’s hard to imagine the success of Newt Gingrich’s ‘Contract with America’ in 1994 or the impeachment of Bill Clinton. The tens of millions of regular talk radio listeners created a coherent audience that could be targeted later by conservative media entrepreneurs like Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes. For good or for ill, the conservative movement would look dramatically different today if the Fairness Doctrine had not been repealed.”

As a side note, the 1994 ‘Contract with America’ was a conservative roadmap and in many ways the precursor to Project 2025, also developed in partnership with the Heritage Foundation. It outlined 10 bills congress would bring to the floor in the first 100 days of the Bush administration to nationalize the congressional election, reduce the size of government, cut taxes and welfare reform, and focus on law and order among other things. There were 95 programs the contract promised to eliminate in an effort to deregulate and balance the budget. Ironically it also focused on restoring fiscal policy to congress, but that is another topic.

In any case, it is fair to say that the paradigm shift following the repeal of the fairness doctrine in 1987, not only gave voice to Rush Limbaugh, but Limbaugh’s success gave rise to others and provided encouragement for a Fox News launch with Republican strategist Roger Ailes at the helm. Fox News launched with President Bill Clinton in its sights as a perfect target to relentlessly attack. The demise of the Fairness doctrine laid the groundwork for the highly partisan journalism and attack-media that envelopes us today.

24/7 cable news and the unraveling of truth:

Cable news came onto the scene in 1980 with the launch of CNN, but it did not immediately take off. It would be another four years before the Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984 deregulated the cable networks and spawned rapid growth. In addition to pricing and infrastructure deregulation the 1984 act also prohibited cable operators from exerting any type of editorial control over program content and freed them from any potential liability for the content. This opened the door to creative freedom traditional broadcast stations did not encourage. The number of cable subscribers and cable networks increased significantly, and investment in infrastructure and programming surged.

On January 28, 1986, CNN was the only news network covering the Space Shuttle Challenger with a live feed. I was a senior in high school and excited to witness the first teacher in space. I sat with my classmates and watched on live TV as the Space Shuttle exploded 73 seconds after take-off, killing all seven crew members. It was raw, it was emotional, and it was a paradigm shift in how audiences could witness breaking news real time. People took notice and CNN’s audience grew. By 1999, approximately two-thirds of households with televisions were subscribing to cable services.

As a media buyer for an advertising agency in the early 90’s I could still count on reaching a decent share of adults between 25-54 years of age by purchasing a mix of 30 second advertising slots on the top three broadcast networks, ABC, CBS and NBC between 5:30 – 7pm during their evening news broadcasts. If I added a few slots during the more expensive primetime programing like the Cosby Show, Cheers, or Roseanne I was certain to reach a significantly larger share of my targeted audience. Throw in local newspaper ads and I’d reach nearly everyone in that demographic.

To be fair my time as an advertising and media planner for clients like McDonalds, Nordstroms and Hewlett Packard preceded the explosion of the internet by a decade, and even Fox News.

Then in 1996 the Fox News cable channel launched. Created by the media mogul Rupert Murdoch to appeal to a conservative audience, hiring former Republican media consultant and CNBC executive Roger Ailes as its founding CEO. The same Roger Ailes that worked with Nixon and recommended launching a partisan TV station in 1970 as an extension of the Republican party’s communications strategy to “brutally attack the opposition”. This launch coincided with the impeachment of Clinton. Reporting the news was never the priority.

The initial hurdle was to get distribution. Cable companies typically paid networks for the right to broadcast their content. Per Ailes’ recommendation Murdoch flipped the script and paid the cable companies up to $11 per subscriber to carry Fox News, accelerating his adoption and enabling him to launch October 7, 1996, to 17-million cable subscribers.

Fox News debuted with a lineup of anchors that included Neil Cavuto and Tony Snow, but it was the network’s political commentary and opinion programming that became most closely associated with the Fox News brand–melding the successful Rush Limbaugh style conservative talk radio format with live TV. Those shows included the Schneider Report, O’Reilly Factor, Hannity & Colmes, and the Crier Report. Eventually they would add Glenn Beck, famous for his theatrical criticisms of President Barack Obama. Fox and Friends morning show would launch in 1998, and in 2009 Tucker Carlson would join Fox News after building a successful conservative brand for himself as a pundit and host on CNN’s Crossfire, and MSNBC.

In the 90’s and early 2000’s Americans still mostly trusted the news. Guardrails and guidelines seemed to remain in place with respect to journalistic authenticity, and the primetime broadcast journalists went to great lengths to maintain an unbiased, nonpartisan voice. Some of the most prominent journalists included: Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, Dan Rather and Barbara Walters.

CNN gained in popularity during the 1991 Gulf War with their 24/7 coverage, but broadcast networks were where the majority went for local news, and investigative reporting. Sixty minutes and 20/20 were very popular and widely respected for their investigations and deep dives into topics people cared about. If people were looking for breaking news, or updates on national events real-time, cable news was there for you and growing, but seldom your only source.

It was Tom Brokaw that I remember tuning into the morning of, and during the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. My home overlooked the San Diego Bay and the airport, so when we woke up to screaming silence, my husband instinctively turned on the news to find out what was going on. Following the collapse of the second tower, which I watched as it happened live on TV, I vividly recall Brokaw stating plainly: “This is war. This is a declaration and an execution of an attack on the United States.” It was the first time I remember feeling unsafe in my own country, and I didn’t question the reporting coming from my TV screen. I was captured by it, thankful for it, and craving more.

Following the 9/11 attacks cable viewership surged again. Fox News built on their reach overtaking CNN in viewers for the first time in January 2002. Fox News was the first to include a breaking news ticker across the bottom of their screen giving people live updates on topics their hosts and commentators were not covering. Using the breaking events to keep your eyes and ears on them.

MSNBC launched as a partnership between NBC and Microsoft about two months prior to Fox News, in 1996. Promising an innovative, interactive news experience for the next millennium. They hoped to appeal to a young tech-savvy audience, but the viewership was slow to grow. In 2003, lagging significantly behind Fox News and CNN, MSNBC decided to take a different tact and establish its place as a liberal-leaning network in the cable news landscape by launching ‘Countdown with Keith Olbermann’. Initially, MSNBC executives discouraged Olbermann from continuing his rants about President Bush, arguing that the channel should not present opinionated commentary. However, the sentiment changed when the show’s ratings started to rise precisely at the time Olbermann began criticizing the Bush Administration. As a result, the network gained the popularity it needed to compete with other cable channels. Rachel Maddow joined the line up in 2008, and in 2010 MSNBC took on the tagline “Lean Forward,” fully embracing its progressive identity and jumping into partisan news with both feet.

As cable news grew in popularity with few guardrails, broadcast news stations continued to hold their journalists accountable to fair and accurate reporting. In 2005 when Dan Rather shared a false report, he thought to be authentic about President Bush, he was held fully accountable. Dan Rather was removed from the anchor desk at CBS Evening News in 2005 and ultimately left the network in 2006 due to the controversy, bruising both his reputation and the media’s credibility.

However, this same rigor for truth was not applied universally across networks. In the early 2000s Fox News was criticized for lacking accountability in holding its journalists responsible for unbiased reporting. Media watchdog groups, like Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), argued that the network’s reporting was heavily biased, with a strong preference for conservative viewpoints. For example, FAIR analyzed a 19-week period on “Special Report with Brit Hume” and found that conservative guests outnumbered non-conservative guests 25 to 3. Reporting two sides of any issue was not their priority. They were looking for a way to create an emotional connection and influence their audience, not inform them. The station would go on to promote and hire the most radical conservative voices they could find. Promoting Hannity to his own show and adding Glenn Beck then Tucker Carlson to the primetime lineup.

Although campaign bias was not new to mainstream media, the increase in cable news stations made the problem more visible. In 2012 the major broadcast networks ABC, CBS, and NBC worked hard to remained balanced with respect to the upcoming election, while cable stations like Fox News and MSNBC had become overt in their use of bias in framing stories.

By 2020 the partisan bias on cable news stations appealed to their audiences and became core to their brand, worn like a badge by both the program hosts and viewers alike. Although CNN tends to be the least biased of the three main cable stations it has moved to a similar format with most of their programming focused on commentary, punditry, and opinion. Using breaking news to grab attention while giving airtime and legitimacy to propagandists and conspirators.

After Trump’s defeat in the 2020 presidential election, Fox News host Jeanine Pirro promoted baseless allegations on her program that Dominion and its competitor Smartmatic had conspired to rig the election against Trump. Hosts Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo also promoted the allegations on their programs on sister network Fox Business. In November 2020, Sidney Powell appeared on Hannity and asserted Dominion machines had been rigged. There was no proof of this and no push back by the hosts on Fox News. Instead, they chose to amplify the lies and conspiracies by giving it more airtime. Lots and lots of airtime – but no oxygen was given to the abundance of facts coming out in the courts and on competing newscasts proving with reliable fact-finding over and over that this was a conspiracy ungrounded by truth. The Fox News loyalists (viewers) would remain in the dark unless they dared to look left. Most kept their eyes glued to the right, and 85% of Republican voters believed and repeated the ‘Big Lie’.

On March 26, 2021, Dominion filed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News, alleging that Fox and some of its pundits spread conspiracy theories about Dominion, and allowed guests to make false statements about the company. On December 2022 during the investigation Dominion acquired communications between Fox News executives, hosts, and the Trump White House, showing they all knew that what the network was reporting was untrue at the time. Sean Hannity said in his deposition, “I did not believe it for one second.” Very different rhetoric from what Hannity told his millions of viewers. In early 2023, Rupert Murdoch acknowledged in a deposition that some Fox News personalities were endorsing election fraud claims they knew were false. On April 18, 2023, Fox News settled for $787 million.

None of the Fox News hosts or it’s parent company Fox News Media has publicly retracted the 2020 lie. Not a single newscaster or host has publicly apologized to their viewers or come clean on the legitimacy of the 2020 election. Fox News and its team of propagandists would remain on brand, choosing instead to obscure the truth and grow the divide. Again, it was never about reporting the news.

The “big lie” led to the January 6^th insurrection that left five people dead, and more than 140 police officers injured. Millions of Americans are still convinced the “big lie” is rooted in truth rather than conspiracy theories, that have been consistently debunked with research and in court rooms across the country. According to a PRRI’s 2023 American Values Survey the vast majority of Americans who most trust far-right television news (92%) and two-thirds of those who most trust Fox News (65%) still believe the election was stolen three years later. Sixty three percent of all Republicans still believe the lie.

Today cable news programming is designed to be little more than political theater rather than to reliably and honestly inform. In this new media ecosystem, opinion from a favorite pundit or commentator is better than truth. The dearth of regulations and the race for viewership (aka monetization) is an invitation for up-and-coming cable news stations to join the partisan party.

The fastest growing station today is Newsmax. Newsmax’s CEO Chris Ruddy is and has been a close friend to Donald Trump for over 30 years. In an interview Ruddy recently said the success of Newsmax is due to the fact that they are providing Christian-Conservative focused news. Today they are top 5 due to growth, in 100 countries. It is unclear to me how Christianity and conservatism equates to news, but in today’s partisan world it apparently equates to success, and has very little to do with honesty.

It is up to the public to recognize the dangers of blatant partisanship and the biases flavoring our news. It is up to us to proactively seek legitimate sources of information and facts. A herculean task in a sea of propaganda all vying for our attention with no obligation to truth and a commitment to obscuring the facts. It would require each of us to step away from, and set aside, our own biases to seek unfiltered truth. It is easier to go where we feel most comfortable, and today the truth is anything but easy or comfortable.

But cable plays just a small role in the erosion of truth. What is important to understand, and what Simon Owens, a media industry journalist and consultant astutely points out in his Substack newsletters, is that the right didn’t just create Fox News. The right created an ecosystem: Cable news sets the agenda, memes simplify it, podcasts exploit it, telegram groups radicalize it, and local influencers and streamers validate it.

·Infiltration of influencers, streamers and podcasters across our social platforms:

As cable news was taking off in the 90’s the internet-bubble was driving an equally motivated tech-bubble that would lead to massive investment in popularization of the World Wide Web. Expanding our world online and giving rise to another paradigm shift for media and communication. An untamed lawless frontier, a virtual wild west where anyone could strike it rich or cause chaos uninhibited by rules or regulations. All you needed was (is) an audience.

Obama was one of the first politicians to harness the power of the internet. Obama’s success in the 2008 election, in large part due to his internet and social media strategy, set a new standard for political campaigns and has influenced how other politicians communicate with the public. The conservative right ecosystem noticed.

As devices and screens became smarter, more personal, and mobile the race for accessible eyeballs and clicks ramped up. Suddenly anybody, any company, any entity good or evil had an infinite number of avenues to reach people anywhere, anytime. Nobody was out of reach. Social media platforms became the next frontier for news influencers to reach through our screens and into our heads and hearts, to radicalize and monetize. Conservatives took note and began creating digital assets, grooming talent and investing in infrastructure. This investment paid off and by 2024 nine out of the top ten online shows by audience size were right-leaning.

According to Media Matters right-leaning online shows had at least 480.6 million total followers and subscribers — nearly five times as many as left-leaning.

Digital influencers, podcasters and streamers never limit themselves to a single social media platform. These propagandists use memes and clip-farming, attention grabbing clips from their longer video stream, as a strategic way to virally distribute their messages and capture audiences across a wide range of platforms. Tailoring their content to both the audience and the mediums they want to appeal to most.

The rise of echo chambers and disinformation has made constructive dialogue difficult if not impossible. To break through, the left must get busy and start fighting like hell for attention. It will require an equal if not larger number of left and centered influencers, streamers and podcasters to capture attention and the mindshare necessary to effectively counter and reprogram the indoctrinated on the right. A war for truth we should all be engaged in anytime we comment, post, share or create.

Today the alt-right media ecosystem is deep and broad, infiltrating every single social media platform. Recently my Gen-Z son pointed me toward Twitch, a social gaming platform that does not typically cater to gen-X women in menopause. It does however have 35 million daily active users. After spending about three hours clicking on and listening to dozens of “just chat” channels it became obvious to me the platform is inundated with right-leaning influencers posing as streamers on topics that have little to nothing to do with gaming. Often hawking alpha beta masculinity messages and alt-right talking points without even recognizing they are amplifying conservative ideology, steeped in racism, xenophobia and misogyny. Some reaching as many as 50 – 100k people at any given time and stockpiling an endless library of content they can tap into later to clip-farm and propagate.

Paired with cable TV and right leaning newspapers and editorial departments reinforcing the conservative messages, the right has built a powerful propaganda machine unmatched by any significant effort to effectively counter it. If this machine continues to win over the minds of American voters, young and old, our democracy will become the next Hungary. A Christian nationalist dictatorship. We have a team in the executive office armed with the roadmap, Project 2025, actively marching us down the path today, and an army of congressional Republicans holding the door wide open.

In the meantime, the Democrats sat by idly watching it happen without a plan. Wtf.

So, what next:

As for who is in power, the tide will shift, and likely as early as 2026 if we, the majority, stay engaged and make our voices heard. In a sadistic way you could consider it lucky that the machine on the right picked a moron to lead their team this season, who surrounded himself with even more morons.

The current administration’s incompetence is so palpable that even the MAGA-media is having a hard time sane washing and obscuring reality. We are all witnessing the destruction of infrastructure Americans need to stay safe, healthy and employed whether we lean left or right. If you don’t recognize it today you will surely feel the pain tomorrow.

The policies of this regime are extremely unpopular with a majority confirming their dissatisfaction in every single poll since January 20, 2025. The lies and incompetence are being exposed in our bank and retirement accounts, an impossible reality to hide with propaganda.

Due process outlined in our constitution, in addition to the co-equal power of the three branches of our government, is being subverted and ignored by those in power. The press that does not blatantly lean right is being unfunded and shutout by this administration, but so far, they are not silenced, and many are moving to independent platforms to shout the truth. Americans are noticing, and those taking the time to listen are seeking and successfully finding truth. People are taking to the streets in numbers not seen since the 1960s to make their voices heard and remind this regime and its followers of the power of ‘the people’ and who the American government works for. We need to keep this up, using our collective voice and first amendment rights to shout loud and often.

But when this regime has lost power and exited the stage, unless we get serious about fixing and strengthening the fourth estate we are in danger of repeating history. Make no mistake, the propaganda machine that the right has been building for half a century to successfully hawk outrage, and fear using immigrants and minorities as scapegoats is still standing and growing in strength. The Christian nationalists and the oligarchs are still motivated by their insatiable hunger for power with their bibles, checkbooks and cryptocurrencies on hand and ready to buy whoever they need. The conspiracy hucksters like Dan Bongino, Candice Owen, Hannity, Charlie Kirk, Joe Rogan, Ben Shapiro, Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson to name just a few will still be engaging and amplifying lies and disinformation. The Chinese, Russian and Iranian bots will still be trolling the platforms we refuse to regulate.

It is well past time for all of us (the people) to rise with our collective voice, Democrats, Independents, and centered Republicans to mandate the pursuit of truth over partisanship, corruption and greed. It is time to do whatever is necessary to expose the liars, imposters and fraudsters funding the radicalization of our news to line their own pockets and push their religious, racist, xenophobic agendas. We must seek truth and lift the voices of those journalists that are committed to truth-telling through fact-finding, by turning away from and more importantly exposing those that are selling nothing more than opinions, lies and hate. Congress must pass laws to regulate the algorithms, hold those posing as newscasters accountable to truth, and protect the voters rights.

Rebuilding a non-partisan, fourth estate as credible and powerful as the founders envisioned in the First Amendment is paramount to retaining our democracy. ‘We the People’ need to empower and support the journalists that – like Walter Cronkite – will work to uncover the stories that matter to ‘the People’ and make certain all truth reaches all the people. A well-informed citizenry is still our best defense against tyranny.

The truth is neither conservative nor liberal. Truth is independent of individual perceptions, it is grounded in facts, aligned with reality, and verifiably provable, “And that’s the way it is.”

I leave you with the five recommendations Mark Jacobs, an author and the former editor of the Chicago Tribune, has for the press plus one of my own that we can all work on together:

1) Lose the weasel wording and say it like it is.

2) Cover the mass protests as the major news they are – massive patriotic resistance.

3) Treat the current White House briefings as the travesty they are – stop going.

4) Bring to life this regime’s political vandalism by putting a spotlight on those hurt and why.

5) Emphasize the facts that show fascism is bad for the economy.

6) Expose the lies and the liars anywhere and everywhere.

And finally, in Mark Jacob’s words:

“The point of journalism is to deliver facts that improve people’s lives. Tolerance for dishonesty, corruption, and authoritarianism does just the opposite. When the nation’s founders put press freedom in the Constitution, they created both a right and an obligation for journalists. It’s getting late for corporate media to do their duty.”

Time for all of us to use the power of our collective voice.

Stay educated, think critically. Every truth matters.

Sources:

https://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/week-of-march-24-and-q1-2025-evening-show-ratings

https://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/first-quarter-2025-cable-news-ratings

https://www.tvinsider.com/1184508/abc-nbc-cbs-evening-news-ratings-revealed-whos-on-top