What’s going on here?
More and more Americans are turning to non-traditional resources for their news. YouTube influencers, blogs and channels that started life by offering a kind of alternative “Political Commentary Lite” are turning into major news resources.
Palmer Report has long been a leader in alternative places to go for non-traditional printed news. But an emerging — and some might say rebuking — alternative to cable and broadcast news has also been gaining ground in the last few years. The Meidas Touch Network, Brian Tyler Cohen and David Pakman are news alternatives to ABC, CBS, CNN and MSNBC. These new, upstart YouTube channels have attracted 3 million subscribers each — and climbing.
Brian Tyler Cohen became history’s first YouTube influencer to interview a sitting US President when he interviewed Joe Biden this year. The Meidas Touch Network quickly followed suit. Ben Meiselas of Meidas Touch Network has co-opted former Trump fixer Michael Cohen as a member and regular guest host, while Brian Tyler Cohen frequently collaborates with former Washington DC prosecutor and “Justice Matters” host Glenn Kirschner in a regular show they call “The Legal Breakdown.”
So what’s going on here? Why are luminaries of the left and legitimate politicians like Pete Buttigieg, Jamie Raskin and Nancy Pelosi suddenly turning up on “amateur” YouTube channels? Why are more and more Americans turning to these resources as an alternative to the talking heads and stuffed shirts on CNN? Because they’re tired of being conned, perhaps? Because they’re sick and tired of seeing a lunatic like Donald Trump sanity-washed and normalised, maybe?
You’re damned right. Americans have had it with conservative corporate buyouts of traditional major news resources, buyouts that are slowly but inexorably turning our information resources into organs for rightwing insanity. And there isn’t a goddamn thing those traditional resources can do about it. As long as the First Amendment remains the law of the land in the United States, and freedom of expression continues to be the order of the day across the world in other free nations, supporters of democracy will continue to go elsewhere for their news in droves — gathering numbers that are quickly swelling to a majority.
What happens when the radical right tries to invade this territory? Just ask Elon Musk, who turned a 44 billion dollar, once-superb resource for telegraph-style information, Twitter, into a 12 billion dollar (and falling) graveyard called X. Just ask Donald Trump, whose stock for the “Truth” Social alternative to Twitter is rapidly falling to the hard NASDAQ fence line of $20 a share. Just ask Tucker (Tucker who?) Carlson. Just ask Bill O’Reilly. Former disgraced Fox News media stars who are barely competing with these new and upstart relative unknowns.
(A word about Tucker Carlson’s 3 million subscribers. First, it’s a stagnant number. While Meidas Touch, Brian Tyler Cohen and David Pakman are adding subscribers week on week, Tuckems pretty much stays dormant. Also, he entered the fray as a major celebrity, and many of his subscribers are people like me, who need to keep an eye on him. You know, “Keep your friends close but your enemies closer.”)
Americans — and the rest of the world — are voting with their feet. Each day they’re abandoning traditional resources for fresh and new ones. And it’s high time. Slick corporate backgrounds with punchy musical intros and big-haired, stentorian hosts are being replaced by the backdrops of ordinary homes, the banal accoutrements of bookshelves, lamps and curtains and regular guys and gals telling you how it is. Occasionally a cat will jump up on the broadcaster’s lap. It’s informal, homey, and most everyone loves it.
This is a wakeup call for traditional American media. Get in line or get eliminated. Stop shilling for the rightwing. Americans no longer have to resign themselves to the slowly strangulating monopoly of the traditional media. We are, in short, mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it anymore. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.