We've entered a new age of humanity, and it's a realization that hasn't really reached many, including those in the legacy media. Or, it has, and they're going through the stages of death, hovering somewhere around denial and anger.
There's this recent clip from Late Show host Stephen Colbert going around where he cracks jokes about how the press room at the White House will sound from here on, saying that now the press has to share time and space with the guy from "Fartcoin.biz" and Kanye West. It's a joke that isn't actually a joke, per se, there's some real anger behind it, and it kind of peaks out at the end of Colbert's rant about other outlets not sticking up for the AP when it was fighting for press room supremacy.
Stephen Colbert freaks "Now that Trump and his team have a taste of the blood of journalists, they're ready to go further...the White House has seized control and will decide which outlets cover events with the president, so they'll be able to include more Trump-friendly outlets… pic.twitter.com/v3isS2MUDC
— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) February 27, 2025
It's an elitist attitude, and as I wrote earlier on Thursday, the elite are beyond horrified that the unwashed are now invading these places of influence and power. The idea that Elon Musk is talking directly to us on X in order to take suggestions and be made aware of government overreach and waste is sending them to their fainting couches.
(READ: The Left Is Honestly Horrified the People Now Run the Show)
But it's not just the people being involved in the affairs of Washington, it's being involved in the affairs of media. The truth of the matter is that these legacy media outlets are a relic of the past... they just don't know it yet. This loss of AP's supremacy over the press pool is just more proof of this.
The invention of the internet, and the subsequent popularity of social media, have made everyday citizens like you and me capable of reporting the news as these outlets with deep pockets, studios, producers, and expensive cameras. One kid in Kentucky with a webcam and minimal editing skills can create a video that gets far more attention than anything the legacy media can put out. The speed of the average citizen reporting the news on the ground is far faster than any speed the legacy media can dream of achieving.
We live in a reality where more people go to online influencers for news than they do the legacy media. According to a Pew Research poll taken back in 2023, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and X make up the bulk of sources that people get their news from. The percentage of people who do get their news from influencers goes up the younger the generation is, meaning that boomers and Gen X are primarily the generations who still get their news from legacy media sources.
As boomers die out, the legacy media will become even less important than before. I reported on this already back in October 2024:
Pew Research Center shows that when it comes to boomers, 22 percent trust social media, while 61 percent trust national news and 78 percent trust local news. Meanwhile, in generations 30 and under, 52 percent trust information from social media, while 56 percent trust national news organizations.
Given, there is a huge partisan divide here. Even amongst boomers, 40 percent of Republicans trust national news outlets, while Democrat boomers sit at 78 percent.
Regardless, with each successive generation, a divide widens between the people and the corporate media.
Colbert might make fun of influencers becoming a regular part of the press pool in the White House, but the brutal truth is that these influencers are more famous than him. More people are listening to them than they are watching his show. What happens in D.C. is more likely to get relayed to people through people like Phillip DeFranco, Joe Rogan, Jeremy Griggs, Libs of TikTok, or other random people you might have never heard of.
This is the world now. The elite no longer run the show. They no longer have a monopoly on information. We're in the room now, asking questions alongside them, whether they like it or not. In fact, they need to get out of the way, because the people are doing the real work, delivering the news with far more accuracy and speed than they're willing to.
