Monday marked the fourth anniversary of the passing of the great Rush Limbaugh. Starting in 1988 with just one radio show, he singlehandedly created an entire new media genre. Soon, there were other radio shows, then there was Fox News, followed by the internet and podcasts. It became apparent very quickly just how biased towards Democrats and liberals mainstream legacy media was. While podcasts have given both liberals and conservatives room to operate, terrestrial talk radio has been dominated by conservatives. Liberals have tried and failed at radio before, but they may be ready to try again.
The county I was born and raised in voted 75% Republican. All the local narratives on local media and internet media is controlled by leftists. Anyone searching information for the area would find a liberal message. We must take control of those outlets to stop their agenda
— USA Trump Man 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@USATRUMPMAN1) February 12, 2025
Recently, a group of Democrat billionaire backers and A-list left-wing media types held a gathering at the office of Laurene Powell Jobs to map out a possible strategy for liberal media going forward. Reps from George Soros' Soros Fund Management and "Crooked Media," an outlet fostered by former Obama administration flunkies, as well as others in attendance, are well aware they were scooped by Republicans during the 2024 election cycle in the area of new media, and realize they need to step up their game in 2028.
READ MORE: Rush Limbaugh: A Retrospective
In typical liberal fashion, they put on workshops about how to beat conservatives at the media game. Soros Fund Management lead investor Michael Del Nin advised the group about acquiring media companies. That push has already started. In February of 2024, Soros acquired a 40 percent share of radio company Audacity, thus giving him control of nearly 220 radio stations across the country.
But the group of billionaires and liberal media glitterati are not the only ones getting a crash course in new media. Brian Tyler Cohen is a YouTube and MSNBC personality. Earlier in February, he met with House and Senate Democrats, giving them a lesson on things like the frequency of social media posts and how to get the upper hand at wielding more influence on social media platforms.
Utilizing new media was clearly a bust for Democrats in 2024. Kamala Harris went on podcasts like "Call Her Daddy" and "Complex," but it was Donald Trump, acting on the advice of his 18-year-old son Barron, who went on podcasts like "The Nelk Boys," Logan Paul, Tim Dillon, and Theo Von to reach younger voters. Trump ultimately appeared on Joe Rogan's wildly popular podcast; his running mate JD Vance went on soon after. Rogan says Harris was invited, but the interview never materialized.
This is probably the single best visual for how bias a media organization is (and which way). Note NYT/WP vs Fox vs NYP. Note every major media outlet (except Fox) has a liberal bias (or bias against conservatives). https://t.co/8tSewFvSAJ
— Jared Fielding (@jaredfielding) January 24, 2025
Another problem for the left is that liberal radio has been tried before. "Air America" launched in 2004 and was billed as the answer to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and the rest of the rapidly growing conservative media universe. It touted names like former Minnesota Sen. Al Franken in his pre-Senate days and Rachel Maddow. But where conservative media set out to change hearts and minds, Air America was preaching to the choir, and they closed up shop in 2010. As a student of the "Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies," I often heard him say that the reason Air America failed, and I am paraphrasing, is that you could find their content in a million other places. There was nothing new about it. Now, the new goal for the liberal radio and podcast sphere is to create their own Joe Rogan. But in case they hadn't noticed, Democrats already had Joe Rogan, but they decided to embrace, again, as Rush would say, the "kook fringe" of the party, running Rogan and a lot of others off.
Democrats and the left are forever wed to the idea that if you just throw more money at it, whatever "it" is, that will work, and they apparently have found more people willing to throw money at, and die on the hill of liberal media. They are no doubt thoroughly convinced that "this time will be different."
This is reality. The media that have been subsidized by our government directly and indirectly, whether with funding or perks, is the leftwing media that serves the interests of the Democrats and big government. There’s nothing independent or objective about them. They should…
— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) February 8, 2025
They should lose their state-conferred privileges.
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