A Look Back at the Demise of the Mainstream News Media in 2018, by Rachel Alexander.
One prevalent theme of 2018 was the further deterioration of the mainstream news media. The meltdown began in late 2016, after President Trump won the election. The media went into full assault mode, bashing Trump and churning out fake news at a breathtaking speed. …
But Trump fought back, taking to Twitter to speak directly to the American people. He got his message out first, before the media could report on it. The media was forced to report afterwards on his tweets, which were difficult to spin when embedded in an article word for word.
Journalists in media were so blinded by their hatred of Trump that they could not see the constant negativity was backfiring. People dropped their subscriptions to biased newspapers and cable TV. People turned to news from bloggers, Facebook friends and conservative outlets in order to avoid the bias of traditional news sources. … Conservative Fox News was the most-watched channel on basic cable for the 29th consecutive month. Usually, when one party is in power, the opposition’s strength grows outside of the office, such as in the media and in tech. So it’s unusual that Fox News is doing as well as it is. …
The phrase “fake news” became wildly popular in 2017 and 2018 as Trump repeatedly caught the media reporting dishonestly. Some of the worst offenders have been the hardest hit. In November’s ratings, CNN failed to place even one show in the top 20 for cable news shows. …
However, the demise of the mainstream media is being slowed by the big tech giants. Google and Facebook are censoring news sources on the right. … At the same time, Google prioritizes left-leaning news sites in its search results. Facebook changed an algorithm in January of this year which resulted in greatly reducing the traffic to conservative pages. …
But while the big tech giants may have stemmed the tide a bit, they are running up against a tidal wave. While lefty journalists depend solely on their writing jobs to make a living, conservatives are much more business minded. They can work a full time job in business while contributing articles on the side to a news publication. As the layoffs of journalists continue, part-time conservative journalists are stepping in to fill the void.
hat-tip Barry Corke
