The landscape of news media in general has gone in one of two directions for people. You have the legacy media, who continue pumping nonsensical hit pieces daily against virtually anything Republican. Then you have the rest of media, who still report with objectivity.
The former has turned people off the mainstream media almost entirely, leaving people to find new news sources. Republicans of course have felt the same, and new numbers show there are only two media sources that more than 30 percent of Republicans trust.
That would be Fox News at 56 percent, which is no surprise. But the other, coming in at 31 percent, is the Joe Rogan Podcast. That one is surprising, considering Joe Rogan is not an actual news source or organization.
Nick Fondacaro of Newsbusters says the news aspect is not what draws people to Rogan.
"He has interesting people on for interesting conversations, and people like that, they like that genuineness there...same with FOX news, people feel there is a genuineness there," he says.
You could argue that President Trump's appearance on the Joe Rogan Podcast was one of many factors as to why the won the election. People are drawn to hearing unfiltered opinions and fact, even if it is not hard news in the traditional sense.
Meanwhile, as you might expect, Democrats favor 13 different sources, all the usual suspects. CNN, MSNBC, NPR, PBS, they all flock to those stations, mostly because they reinforce what they want to hear.
That is one of the biggest problems in this new age of media. Not only is there blatant lying, but there is also a reinforcement of this to people, so they believe it. Then they get caught in an echo chamber full of false information. It is part of why President Trump is aiming to defund outlets like NPR and PBS.
"Liberals like that outlet because it tells them what they want to hear...which shows public broadcasting is not living up to their partisan mandate," says Fondacaro.
At any given time, those mainstream liberal outlets will push any story they want, as long as it is anti-Trump or anti-Republican. It has worn on people to the point where they do not care anymore. Their message of fascist this, dictator that has started hurting them and making the Democrats irrelevant.
You would think they would change course and get back to real news once again. But that would be asking il and water to mix together; it just will never work.
"They view themselves as heroes in this fantasy tale they are telling about the country being in all this danger," Fondacaro says.
He adds this is why we need the other side of media, those with no agenda, to call them out on their bias.
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