In 1964, as television was becoming a dominant feature in American life, Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase “the medium is the message.” This is even truer today and more important to the future of politics and democracy. In fact, anyone who claims to offer advice on how to improve political messaging without accounting for the multitude of platforms is not worth taking seriously.
When McLuhan made this distinction, the primary options for news consumers were newspapers, magazines, radio and television. Now, in addition to new forms of media — internet publications, podcasts, social media, etc. — there are also stark divides within categories.
Fox News and MSNBC are both cable news outlets, but have very different audiences, editorial stances and aesthetics. Truth Social and Bluesky are microblogging platforms but share little else in common.
The often-deployed dichotomy between mainstream and new media no longer makes sense either. On any given day, so-called mainstream cable news outlets have a fraction of the viewers some YouTube creators have covering the same stories and breaking news. In what way is the first more “mainstream?” The same could be said of popular Substack writers whose take on current events dwarf the readership of most national newspapers.
What we have come to call mainstream media is more aptly called legacy media. Like the big three car companies, they are the once giants that historically dominated the media landscape but increasingly are losing out to new entrants.
Some are still quite large, but none are seeing the dynamic growth in the current media landscape. Even the New York Times — the most successful legacy media outlet — is increasingly reliant on non-news “lifestyle” offerings like puzzles, games and recipes to maintain and expand its market.
As legacy media lose viewers, readers and listeners, its defenders continue to promote that idea that they are gatekeepers to something uniquely important — even though the gates have long since been removed. They increasingly elevate to talismanic status an elusive version of “neutrality” and “journalistic ethics” that neither the public nor the marketplace value or even believe exists.
Communicating a pro-democracy message will be essential as we move forward into the next Trump administration. On this, few legacy outlets are prepared to lead. It is essential then, that we build outlets that are not controlled by corporate interests that compromise their ability to be fearlessly pro-democracy in the face of a ruthless Donald Trump.
Democracy Docket is set to be one such outlet — with newsletters, website content, video and events. But there are many others poised to lead as well (keep reading for my recommendations)...
