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The 2024 United States presidential election gave us a lot — and I do mean a lot — of reasons to celebrate. Well, those of us who are fans of liberty, anyway. There were some extra helpings of satisfaction served to those of us who have been working in conservative media for a long time, however. 

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When people like me and my good friend Stephen Green began voicing our political opinions online via something called “weblogs” a couple of decades ago, we were doing it simply because we had something to say. There weren’t any thoughts of having large audiences to write for in those days. I did manage to hustle a paid gig back then, getting a whopping $20 per post — with a one post a week cap — as the political humor editor for a site I can’t even remember the name of. I’m not sure anyone but me or my then spouse ever read anything I wrote.

Things started to pick up for us conservative media types during the Tea Party years. Social media was getting more popular and, along with it, conservative digital media, which was still in its infancy for the most part. Still, the mainstream outlets in print and broadcast television were the Death Star. Yes, conservatives had talk radio and Fox News, but there was a long way to go to greatly reduce the narrative power of the MSM. 

Everyone working in any kind of conservative media kept chipping away. I had been writing about liberal bias in the MSM since my early days, and hitting back hard at that still felt like a Sisyphean undertaking. Things were changing more rapidly, though. Several months after Salem Media acquired PJ Media in 2019, someone asked me how it was going. I replied that I felt that I could now punch back harder. 

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All of conservative media — talk, cable, and digital — landed some good punches this year. Old school MSMers know that their power to create and sustain false narratives isn’t what it used to be. It’s getting rough out there even for the broadcast network behemoths: 

This is all excellent news, to be sure. Had the Dem propagandists in the media been able to replicate with Harris this year what they did with Biden in 2020, we’d all be making gulag plans right now. However, many people are celebrating as if the end of any power the MSM has is nigh. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. 

A big reason for that is the reach of the Big Three nightly news programs, which are still the primary sources of news for many older voters. The “NBC Nightly News,” the “CBS Evening News,” and ABC’s “World News Tonight” still pull in almost 20 million viewers combined every weeknight. That figure has been in decline for a long time but it still dwarfs numbers from cable news. 

The target audience for the Big Three is older and not being replenished by younger viewers. Broadcast television in general is on its way to being a dinosaur for all but the most frugal consumers of entertainment. The inherent attrition is what will eventually weaken and or destroy the Big Three news programs. The networks could institute wholesale changes to attract a new audience. It’s likely that the entire nightly news model is probably too calcified to adjust at this point, however. 

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Print media is a somewhat different story. It has been around a lot longer than television and those involved in it have developed better survival instincts. The New York Times is still the heavyweight (we’re not counting USA Today, which owes most of its circulation to hotels) in print. After a rocky start, the Times adapted well to digital and now has almost nine million online subscribers. The company’s financial health is fine, but it is feeling the sting of losing its grip on narrative power perhaps more than any other news organization. The Big Three network news programs take their cues from the Times. It’s a mixed bag at the Times because it isn’t struggling financially but it also isn’t moving the needle like it used to. That’s a win for conservatives. 

There’s a better chance that the old-fashioned “newspaper” organizations will shake things up a little to survive. We’ve already seen a little of that, with The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times declining to make presidential endorsements this year. Both had issued automatic Dem endorsements for decades. 

After the election, the owner of The Los Angeles Times announced that he would replace the paper’s entire editorial board in an effort to be more in touch with voters. 

Does this signal an eventual shift by WaPo, and maybe even the New York Times? No. But it does show those aforementioned survival instincts. 

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Again, Trump’s overwhelming victory was a thorough repudiation of the American mainstream media’s “prevarication and propaganda” way of doing business. The hacks in the MSM have lied more about Donald Trump than they have about any 10 other American political figures combined. Just 20 years ago, that would have been enough to prevent him from winning the first time. Their insane hatred of Trump has exposed them to a lot of people who never used to pay much attention to the media. 

Now we’ve got another four years of watching them destroy themselves. 

Like I said in the headline — it’ll be a long death rattle.

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