The revolution will not be televised.
This 2024 election might go down in history as the year that YouTube and podcasts supplanted the mainstream media/television model of broadcasting. Maybe that’s not quite fair, but what we are seeing is that presidential candidates are increasingly relying on influencers, podcasters, talk radio hosts and friendly cable news shows to campaign.
In the last week or so, Donald Trump has appeared on Fox News’s “The Ingraham Angle,” Hugh Hewitt’s radio show, “The Ben Shapiro Show” podcast and the “Flagrant” comedy podcast. He declined to appear on “60 Minutes.”
In recent months, Trump has talked to several others. According to NPR, this includes “Logan Paul — who has a combined following of 46 million across TikTok and Instagram — and Theo Von, who has collectively 14 million followers on the same platforms.”
Meanwhile, Harris appeared on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” ABC’s “The View,” “The Howard Stern Show,” the “All The Smoke” basketball podcast and the “Call Her Daddy” podcast. Harris’s running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, did interviews with “Fox News Sunday” and ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
On the one hand, the contrast between the candidates is telling. As liberal writer Bill Scher noted in Washington Monthly, “Harris is trying to reach broad audiences across demographic spectrums,” while “Trump is strictly focused on animating conservatives — with an emphasis on young male podcast listeners — and spreading misinformation.”
On the other hand, Trump and Harris are both making media choices that would have raised eyebrows a few years ago. And a few years before that, these outlets may not have even existed.
To be sure, politicians have always sought to capitalize on changing media trends. This sometimes requires balancing the desire to uphold the dignity of the office with the need for attention and the desire to come across as a regular person. Eventually, the pols always go where they can get the most attention — think of Richard Nixon saying “Sock it to me” on “Laugh-In” — and today’s media fragmentation, coupled with emerging technology, has led many Americans to YouTube and podcasts.
Although “60 Minutes” can still draw close to 10 million viewers, few TV shows come close to those numbers these days. What is more, appearing on a show like “Call Her Daddy” doesn’t just allow Harris to reach millions of listeners, it also allows her to communicate with a targeted demographic that is predisposed to her message — young women likely receptive to her position on abortion.
This has been a long time coming. I was among the early conservative bloggers who experienced the charm offensive put forth by politicians such as Sen. John McCain. As part of the effort to win the 2008 GOP primary, bloggers (who could never have made it past the mainstream media gatekeepers) were granted all sorts of access and attention — most of which we probably didn’t deserve.
As alternative media matured and professionalized, President Barack Obama upped the ante. He appeared with a YouTube star who drinks cereal out of bathtubs, went on the “WTF with Marc Maron” podcast, filled out NCAA brackets on ESPN and appeared on “Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis,” just to name a few highlights (or lowlights).
But this year feels like a tipping point. Rather than dabbling in podcasts and YouTube to create a cool image for broadcast TV, these alternative outlets are now the destination.
Yes, some politicians will embrace this brave new world to avoid accountability and ensure softball interviews. At the same time, so-called friendly interviews can sometimes be insightful. Trump, specifically, seems much more likely to say interesting things when he doesn’t feel like he is facing a hostile interrogator.
What’s more, so-called “friendly” settings can also inadvertently set traps. When it comes to committing gaffes, softball interviews are often more perilous than interviews perceived as hostile.
The bigger danger is that voters self-segregate — that conservatives and progressives cloister into their own echo chambers, listening to their own favorite podcast hosts interview their favorite candidates, and rarely, if ever, being challenged.
This, of course, is already happening. In some cases, politicians have eliminated the middleman by launching their own podcasts — see Ted Cruz.
The question is whether enough of us will demand that presidential candidates subject themselves to a handful of mainstream vetting interviews as a rite of passage.
It now seems likely that Harris and Trump will debate each other only once (Trump continues to refuse to debate again). President Joe Biden skipped the traditional Super Bowl interview in February. Harris hasn’t held a press conference since August. And Trump just bucked the “60 Minutes” interview tradition.
I am a YouTuber and podcaster myself. I consume hours of podcast content each day. There are plenty of serious professionals and journalists in this medium. In many ways, technology and alternate media have enriched our lives and provided us with more quality and diversity of information.
The transition toward YouTube and podcasts doesn’t have to look like “Idiocracy.” The question is what we the people are willing to accept from our leaders.
Matt K. Lewis is a columnist, podcaster and author of the books “Too Dumb to Fail” and “Filthy Rich Politicians.”