Jeff Bezos is right. Americans do not trust the news media, but he misunderstands why.
This from thelibertydaily.com.
Americans are tired of talking heads and the opinions of editorialists masquerading as journalists.
But this should not be confused with declining interest in news or politics; viewers are simply moving to channels where they can get an unfiltered view of the candidates from personalities they trust.
If there is one clear lesson from the 2024 election cycle, it’s that candidates for public office must be prepared to engage in this new media landscape to stay competitive, especially on long-form podcasts.
The last time we had a paradigm shift of this magnitude was 1960 when America saw the first televised presidential debate, between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. The Kennedy-Nixon debate underscored the power of television to shape public perception.
NOTE: Nixon was not as photogenic as Kennedy, which may have contributed to Kennedy’s vote tally and easier theft of the election. But all politicians moving forward knew the critical nature of looking good in front of a camera.
Remember, past is prologue. Take, for example, Donald Trump’s appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience. Already, the interview has racked up approximately 45 million views—just on YouTube alone. Trump’s interview with Theo Von received 14 million views. For her part, [Comrade Kamala’s] appearance on the Call Her Daddy podcast received 733,000 views and she received 665,000 views [from her appearance] on the All the Smoke podcast.
While traditional media audiences are shrinking, these appearances have outperformed the average audiences of these podcasts oftentimes 10 to 1. Remarkably, the candidates’ episodes are even outpacing episodes featuring internationally known Hollywood celebrities.
Voters are hungry to hear from the candidates on an unfiltered, authentic platform, and podcasts are filling that need.
This shift is redefining how viable candidates will approach media going forward. Those who want to succeed in politics but are afraid, or unable, to allow the public a view into who they really are going to have a ceiling on their career if they don’t do long-form interviews.
And the loser as a result of this paradigm shift is the mass propaganda media. Each new element in the way We the People choose to obtain our news corresponds with a one-for-one reduction in mpm viewership.
NOTE: Political campaigns are going to change in two ways due to this dynamic:
– Candidates need to get comfortable in their own skin, open up and answer personal questions about heartache, addiction, and what makes their spouse smile. This open, honest, and unvarnished content mirrors what the public is receiving in their social media feeds already, so it makes sense that they are demanding the same transparency from their political leaders, and
– It’s going to transform the way political professionals engage with the electorate. According to GWI, a consumer research company, the “typical” internet user spends almost 2.5 hours each day using social media platforms, equating to more than one-third of their total time online. As a result, campaign resources should shift to talking to the electorate where they are spending their time, which is on their phone. That is where people are getting their news, listening to podcasts, vegging out, and forming opinions about who they will vote for.
The reason these podcasters and creators carry so much influence is because of the community and trust they build with their audience. As James Clear, author of The New York Times bestseller of Atomic Habits, has said about changing opinions:
Facts don’t change our minds. Friendship does.
What Jeff Bezos was wrong about was his jealous slight at podcasts as being “unresearched.” The public clearly disagrees.
What Bezos needs to understand is that Americans are choosing podcasts over his newspaper as their trusted source of news and information.
Final thoughts: It was Marshall McLuhan in Understanding Media (pub. 1964) who stated, “The medium is the message,” meaning: The approach is as important as the message itself.
Trump and Vance have demonstrated a mastery of the new podcast medium. The successor of what survives out of the current communist/globalist crime syndicate will need to show improvement before the next election or they’ll have their a**es handed to them again.
