Just hours before officially clinching a second term in the White House, Donald Trump ceded his victory speech podium to Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White, who praised the president-elect before quickly pivoting to deliver thanks.
He didn’t choose to first thank volunteers, campaign workers, or even the 74 million-plus voters who cast ballots for Trump. Instead, he thanked “the Nelk Boys, Adin Ross, Theo Von, ‘Bussin’ With The Boys,’ and last but not least, the mighty and powerful Joe Rogan” — a group of podcasters, influencers, and independent media personalities that Trump gravitated toward to reach potential voters ahead of the election.
In a shift from prior presidential campaigns, Trump’s victory came despite his largely eschewing interviews with mainstream news outlets such as The New York Times, ABC, and NPR, and instead embracing podcasts and friendly, conservative alternative media. His strategy marked a major change from prior cycles — including his own 2016 successful bid, in which he routinely sought mainstream media interviews — that has raised questions about the role and relevance of legacy news outlets going forward.
“The real threat to the mainstream media as we know it is that there now exists a successful model for avoiding them that didn’t before Nov. 5,” said Michael Socolow, a media historian and professor of journalism at the University of Maine.
Hand-wringing about the traditional media’s role gained steam in the campaign’s final weeks, when both The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times declined to endorse either candidate, prompting firestorms among progressives and resignations of editorial board members who said they had drafted endorsements for Vice President Kamala Harris.
Despite predictions of a tight race, Trump won decisively, including in key battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin that President Biden won in 2020.
To court voters, Trump leaned heavily into the fragmented reality of media. He ditched traditional TV interviews, even backing out of an appearance on CBS’s “60 Minutes,“ and instead relied on podcasts and influencers to speak to voters who don’t tune in to legacy news outlets. That follows where audiences have gone — no longer do a handful of broadcast networks and newspapers set the agenda on news and information.
In the months leading up to the campaign, Trump went on the streaming platform Kick with Adin Ross, sat down with the comedian Von, who hosts the podcast “This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von,” and was interviewed for three hours by Rogan, arguably the most popular podcast host in the country. Just before the election, Rogan endorsed Trump.
Appearing on such podcasts was a strategy that Trump came to over the summer after encouragement from his 18-year-old son, Barron, the Post reported. He also received significant support from Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, which has been transformed into a Trump megaphone.
Trump wasn’t the only candidate leaning into nontraditional media. Harris also spoke to podcasters such as “Call Her Daddy” host Alex Cooper, who draws a sizable audience of largely young women, and former NBA players Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson, who cohost the podcast “All the Smoke,” which caters to young men. But where Trump spoke almost exclusively to friendly, conservative outlets and nonconfrontational programs, Harris also spent time answering questions about her record on mainstream outlets like CNN, MSNBC, and “60 Minutes.”
There are signs that Trump’s focus on young men might have worked. Fifty-two percent of men age 18-44 and 46 percent of all voters age 18-29 voted for Trump, according to an Associated Press survey of more than 120,000 voters.
Daniel Cox, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, said that the fragmented media landscape that Trump navigated with success has existed for years, but that the differences in gender among audiences for podcasts like “The Joe Rogan Experience” or “Call Her Daddy“ reflect something newer.
“For the first time, we’re seeing this heavily segregated gender content online,” Cox said. “That is a big shift.”
While Cox said Trump is a singular figure that future candidates may not be able to emulate, referring to his ability to attract significant media attention for his provocative statements, the 2024 election does indicate political candidates will have to do much more media to reach different audiences.
“You may have to reach out to a far greater range of folks than previous candidates,” he said.
Still, podcasts and influencers don’t typically help politicians woo voters in certain geographic places, and that is one of the ways strong local news organizations remain vital, Cox added. Roughly 74 percent of Americans at least somewhat trust local news, a recent Pew Research Center report found.
“There are opportunities to create a different model for local news now that didn’t exist before,” said Kevin Merida, the former editor of the Los Angeles Times and a former managing editor at the Post. “We need to get to know our communities and neighbors better.”
For mainstream outlets such as The New York Times, the Post, and the Globe, the election of Trump in 2016 led to an increase in subscribers, colloquially known as the “Trump bump.” But it remains to be seen whether there will be another such surge this time around.
Cox thinks not. “From what I’ve seen in the polling, there’s a palpable sense of exhaustion” with Trump, he added.
That doesn’t mean traditional news outlets shouldn’t continue covering Trump aggressively, said Merida, who wasn’t sure if there would be a “Trump bump.” He said it’s important to focus on learning from readership data on stories to preserve their own relevance.
Traditional news organizations will also likely face challenges from Trump, who has previously responded to critical coverage by barring some outlets from his press events, threatening to pull broadcast licenses from networks, and suing outlets.
While some conservative pundits were quick to render legacy news irrelevant after Trump’s victory — the Daily Wire commentator Matt Walsh tweeted that legacy news “is officially dead” — others such as Merida said it’s too early to sound the death knell.
“I don’t believe this is the end of mainstream media,” he said. “But I do think it would do us well to have humility. We should examine our craft, how we’re reaching audiences, how we’re telling stories.”
Aidan Ryan can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @aidanfitzryan.
