Is the era of Big Media over?

It's happening. Like no other election in our lifetimes, this one will be shaped by the Internet. As Axios (a Washington D.C. left of center Internet-based organization) laments: "The big media era is over."

"The mainstream media's dominance in narrative- and reality-shaping in presidential elections shattered in 2024," writes Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen.

It's now Theo Von not Jake Tapper, Flagrant rather than Neil Cavuto, MSNBC has been shunned for Impaulsive, and Call Her Daddy has dethroned Soap Operas. These are the new sources of information for most Americans. The old guard of Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, Washington Post, and others have all been tossed into the dustbin of history. And the 2024 Presidential election has proven that traditional media no longer fully controls the narrative.

It's not as if they didn't try to bridge the old to the new. They're failing because new media is transformative not just in what you watch, but where, when, and how long. Rather than appointment TV where the provider sets the viewing time, with digital media the consumer controls the playback. Where commercials were forced upon us, Youtube subscribers can skip over or mute an ad. The result is massive revenue losses as traditional TV platforms are almost entirely made up of people aged 55 and older.

And nowhere is this more apparent than in this election cycle. I don't have a total count, but I'd be willing to bet that both Harris and Trump have done more interviews with Internet Influencers than the old guard News. I can saw without hesitation that tens of millions more got their perspective of both candidates from the Internet than from broadcast television.

The Mass Media Industrial Complex is having an identity crisis. Despite their best efforts, most Americans are choosing to believe their loosely connected family, friends, and Internet influencers.

The Internet "has reordered the information ecosystem at an epic scale," says Axios.

This is why they went berserk when Elon Musk bought Twitter. The Blue Bird had become a fortress of Progressives. They amplified the voices of the Left while suppressing and outright banning voices of the right. So much so, that after taking over, Musk said they deleted over 700,000 lines of code that was nothing more than censorship algorithms. Elon found that Twitter was nothing more than an "informational technology weapon" propagating the Zombie Apocalypse.

In capturing the stronghold of Twitter and transforming it into a free speech platform, even Axios admits that if Trump wins, we may see a "new mass media industrial complex."

Jesus warned us to be on our guard, to not be deceived, to watch out for liars and imposters. Like no other time in history, Christians must engage the God-breathed scriptures that are useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17).