In the hot summer days of 2020, when Donald Trump was considering a second term, his advisers engaged in a quiet conversation with members of the emerging digital media about a bold idea.

The goal was to bypass the traditional news media that monopolized White House Correspondents Association the White House press room and established “conventional wisdom” such as the false Russian collusion narrative.

In its place, aides wanted to create a new press room in the old executive office building, where the new free-group media, minded by the legacy press, could have briefings, access to the president and flourish .

If there was a sticking point in that summer of discontent, it was how the public might react to such a notion.

Four years, four impeachments, two assassination attempts, an impeachment based on January 6th, and a heavy dose of false and biased coverage later, the American voting public seems to be demanding such a change.

Especially with a steady stream of revelations about stories that were suppressed, like concerns about Joe Biden’s mental acuity early in the election or Hunter Biden’s laptop.

“There was a time in my lifetime, in your lifetime, when reporters were proud to tell the stories and be the first to inform their listeners,” said Rep. Glen Grothman, R-Wis. Just the news on monday. “That’s not what’s happening. Now, the reporter’s goal seems to be to hide the stories. And you know, our country can’t go on with this.”

The congressman, whose state has been a hotly contested battleground in this election, said he sensed on the campaign trail that ordinary Americans feel the way he does.

“In the last week, I’ve been to two Donald Trump rallies. The line that gets the most applause is when Donald Trump calls out fake news, meaning the mainstream media,” Grothman noted. “If it wasn’t true when I was a kid, the media should care what people think about it, maybe they don’t.

Polls confirm the lack of trust in the media

A The Gallup poll revealed last month that a record low of just 31 percent of voters expressed a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in the media to report the news “fully, accurately and fairly,” while a higher percentage of 36% expressed no confidence in traditional traditions. newspaper, TV and radio coverage, another third expressed “not very much” trust in the professional media. Gallup noted that the trend of an increasingly unpopular media has been going on for years, dating back to the Trump era, if not earlier.

The 2024 election gave traditional media reporters a chance to reverse the recession. Instead they doubled on a cover so anti-Trump (85% according to the Media Research Center) and slanted and inaccurate that it soured public sentiment.

It anchors “verified” candidates with inaccurate information. The headlines, town halls and stories revealed a clear bias toward Democrats and against Republicans. And the reporters made one of the biggest turnarounds in American election history when — after months of insisting that President Biden was not cognitively impaired — they finally had to admit that Old Joe was, well, old. forgetful and confused after a disastrous June debate with Atu.

Documents unearthed by Congress over the past year also showed that media censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story in late 2020 was based on false information and an influence campaign directly tied to Joe Biden’s campaign advisers , which gathers “intelligence specialists” like puppets. NewsGuard’s General Hayden to unapologetically play tricks. And the rest of the legacy media went along with it without examining such warning signs.

In other words, the October 2020 surprise was exposed as so bogus that it likely immunized the electorate to another “surprise” four years later in this election cycle.

Perhaps most consequentially, the polls say, there is some evidence that voters are moving beyond legacy media to a new era of data and narrative consumption that gives traditional reporters a shorter window of time.

“I think for the legacy media, this is the election that we’re going to look back on and say that’s where they lost the narrative,” said veteran pollster Scott Rasmussen. Just the news. “You know, for a lot of my life … there was a sense that there were a few networks that really dominated, a few media outlets that really dominated the coverage, and that just doesn’t happen anymore.

Preaching to the choir

“The New York Times they can say whatever they want and regardless of the readers who have already agreed with them, they have no ability to influence and control the narrative,” he added. “And I think that’s going to be the bottom line and the media in general. There is very little confidence in him at present.”

The news media’s danger signs have surfaced in recent days at two famous newsrooms, where reporters rioted and threw tantrums when their owners or bosses wouldn’t let them have their way in shaping the narrative.

First it was The Washington Post – the place where America’s famous Watergate scandal was exposed – has been turned into a place where reporters riot in mass to the decision not to support Kamala Harris or any candidate he prefers for that matter.

The furor cost the paper 250,000 subscribers but did not sway its owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who responded by publishing an opinion piece in his own newspaper who provided a direct assessment of his troops to his troops. “Americans don’t trust the media,” Bezos’ headline rang out.

“What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias,” Bezos wrote. “A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision and it’s the right one.”

Over the objection of reporters who believe they are anointed “kingmakers”, the editors of other major newspapers such as USA Today and The Los Angeles Times made similar decisions to withhold approvals.

Reporters kowtowing to far-left influencers

to The New York Timesa separate furor took place in a newsroom meeting in which Joe Kahn, the executive editor, refused to tell his reporting staff that his paper had not been tough enough on Trump.

Most strikingly, the reporters’ anger was not born of concerns expressed in middle America, but rather of the far left of the Democratic Party, according to a the transcript of the noisy meeting in the newsroom published on Monday by Semafor.

“Criticism from the left — basically saying, ‘You’re not being direct enough about what Trump is saying and doing — has been very strong in recent weeks,'” staffer Jodi Kantor said. “We wanted to ask you more directly: does this criticism matter to you and how do you interpret the criticism The New York Timeswhen is it useful?” she asked.

“No, honestly, just no,” Kahn replied. “I get all these receptions very strongly in my inbox and in many conversations I have. And I understand that was a criticism of us.” He continued: “This is not about responding to criticism from the left.”

The exchange poignantly captured a dynamic many experts say is affecting traditional media outlets: Their current generation of reporters is being taught more by journalism schools about personal branding instead of the duty to “seek the truth and report it” and as such have been captured by leftist elites. As a result, they have failed to engage independents and conservatives on issues that matter to them. Even conservatives who have a profession that requires them to deal with the news media are fed up with the dynamic.

“The media has lost a lot of credibility in general,” said John McLaughlin of New York, whose clients include Trump, J.listen to the news.

“But there are some people, you know, they’re looking for the truth and just the news. And there’s a lot of other media outlets that try to show up, that try to be fair, you know, and that’s all there is. They want fairness,” McLaughlin added in an interview with John Solomon reports podcast.

The failure—or at least the perception of failure—to provide this kind of fairness or open-mindedness may convince historians that the legacy news media was the election’s biggest loser. It could also encourage Trump — should he win — to follow through on that plan in the summer of 2020.