Trump's Presidential Power might Pose Significant Challenges to Media Credibility

Donald Trump’s return to power is a pivot point for the American media - in ways big, small and to be resolved. His defeat of Kamala Harris is unpredictable, raising questions about the media’s credibility, dominance, and people’s support. Some of the questions might not get answered for years. 

But journalists are arguing with each other: What does this "red wave” election say about the information environment in the United States? 

In the hours after Trump won reelection Tuesday, some of his loyalists stated that his victory is a  complete renouncement of the news media. For a time on Wednesday morning, The Federalist’s lead headline was not about Trump, it was about the “corporate media industrial complex” being “2024’s biggest loser”.

Legacy media “ is officially dead”, Matt Walsh wrote on X overnight.” Their ability to set the narrative has been destroyed. Trump declared war on the media in 2016. Tonight he vanquished them completely. They will never be relevant again”.

Those wishful thoughts on Walsh’s part-Tuesday’s marathon election coverage was a testament to the media's significance but the pitch is that many Trump voters share his wish. They believe the national news media plays a huge part of what bothers America. Not only do they distrust what they read, they often don’t read it in the first place. Can we expect any changes that could happen?

A quote in a recent New York magazine column conveyed the question. The quote, from an unidentified TV executive, was posted on social media Wednesday morning. “If half the country has decided that Trump is qualified to be president, that means they’re not reading any of his media, and we’ve lost this audience completely,” the executive said. ”A Trump victory means the mainstream media is dead in its current form. And the question is what does it look like after”.           

“Dead” is gross hyperbole, of course, but the comment reflected real concerns that many members of the media have. A severe trust deficit exists between the Trump base and big institutional media outlets. In a text message, a Trump campaign aide suggested that the press should show more humility. 

That raises other questions: Do major networks and publications have enough columnists and commentators who reflect the Trump majority’s views?

“Maybe we have a point,” the aide remarked. “Maybe ‘misinformation’ is a lazy word that was never applied to press coverage of Biden’s health or the border. Maybe ‘offensive’ things aren’t offensive to most.”    

The mainstream media “has held less clout every four years,” Semafor’s Dave Weigel wrote Wednesday morning. “On Harris-friendly cable news, ex-Republicans broadcast their horror at who Trump was and what he’d done; in the new social media and podcasts favored by Republicans, all of that was whining disconnected from what voters really cared about.”

CNN political commentator Scott Jennings hit that opinion hard during the 3 a.m hour of CNN’s election coverage. He said Trump‘s win was “something of an indictment of the political information complex.”

“We have been sitting around for the last couple weeks and the story that was portrayed was not true,” Jennings said. “We were told Puerto Rico was going to change the election. Liz Cheney, Nikki Haley voters, women lying to their husbands. Before that it was Tim Walz and the camo hats. Night after night after night we were told all these things and gimmicks were going to somehow push Harris over the line. And we were just ignoring the fundamentals. Inflation; people feeling like they are barely able to tread water at best; those were the fundamentals of the election.”

Jennings added: “I think for all of us who cover elections and talk about elections and do this on a day-to-day basis, we have to figure out how to understand talk to and listen to the half of the country that rose up tonight and said, ‘We have had enough.’”

Liberal commentator Ashley Allison responded: “I think we have to listen to everybody, actually.” She said, “the people who voted for Kamala Harris are struggling too. They are feeling ignored too. A Republican’s pain is no greater or less than a Democrat’s pain.”