Media Know They Must Change. They Won’t…

Written by Peter Heck

The numbers speak for themselves. MSNBC is suffering through a ratings catastrophe as the disillusioned loyalists, who kept believing the network’s stable of left-wing hosts who continued to promise that Trump was an unelectable Hitler, have walked away.

Lots of articles on how MSNBC's audience has completely collapsed — disappeared — once Kamala lost and the got disillusioned, but the full extent is shocking.

Their prime-time shows can't even get 75k people watching in the key demo (18-54). Weekend shows don't even get 30k! pic.twitter.com/nFcfAacmHD

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 16, 2024

While it’s not likely that those depressed and disenchanted viewers will stay gone for good, the fact that moderately successful podcasters now dwarf MSNBC’s primetime team in audience has sent both the company’s executives and much of the talent scrambling for solutions:

• Former Biden press secretary and current MSNBC host Jen Psaki recently ripped the insane rant of her colleague Joy Reid (without mentioning her directly) who ridiculously attacked “white women” for costing Kamala Harris the election.

• The network’s supposed policy wonk, Chris Hayes, had to quickly distance himself from his invited guest who slandered Trump Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth for being a “known white supremacist.”

• There are even signs that it’s beginning to dawn on Rachel Maddow, Joe Scarborough, and others there that they have been living in a bubble, and that their “A majority of this country are Nazis” approach is not a sustainable business model.

But it doesn’t stop with MSNBC. They may be the tip of the spear, but the shockwaves have emanated outward into the far reaches of the American media universe. CNN’s former chief media correspondent, Brian Stelter, who after a brief dismissal is back with his old network providing his legendary one-sided analysis, recently volunteered his “concrete ideas.”

https://x.com/brianstelter/status/1857826940180123893

Go ahead and skim your way through the thread. You’ll notice some interesting thoughts and decent suggestions. But what you’ll not see is the most glaringly obvious solution to the massive trust issue that now stalks most major media sources in America: end one-sided, left-wing propaganda cloaked as news.

While Stelter is out scouring the media landscape for clues, the problem is sitting right under his nose. Just days ago on his own network, anchor Abby Phillip shut down and scolded a Republican strategist for using a “slur” towards transgender athletes. The “slur” was the word “boy.” He called male athletes who believe themselves to be female, “boys,” and for that he was reprimanded and accosted as a bigot.

If Brian wants his network to be taken seriously and to be trusted, put a stop to that insanity. Today.

Other outlets and programs could do the same. ABC’s gabfest, “The View,” has reportedly recognized it has a problem with lack of diversity. Not racial or ethnic diversity, but diversity of thought. There are six co-hosts – all six of whom endorsed and openly campaigned on their show for Kamala Harris. The show has always had a leftward tilt – it was created by the late leftist Barbara Walters for heaven’s sake. But even the token conservative voice of yesteryear has given way to strict progressive ideological purity.

ABC executives have signaled that the election results show they need to make changes by bringing on at least one Trump-supporting voice. Who knows if that will actually happen, but history proves the network’s galling reluctance to platform a strong conservative presence. In other words, don’t expect Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin, and Whoopi Goldberg to have to deal with the wit and wisdom of Mollie Hemingway, Mary Katharine Ham, or Megyn Kelly.

Ditto that for America’s dying print media, where conservative voices are compromised at best, non-existent at worst. The Washington Post promotes left-wing converts like Max Boot and Jennifer Rubin as conservatives. The New York Times doesn’t do much better with David Brooks, author of the recent column, “Maybe Bernie Sanders is Right,” or David French who just penned, “Donald Trump is Already Starting to Fail.”

American media is a self-congratulatory ring of folks who get high smelling their own flatulence. It’s an echo chamber of elitism and highbrow condescension that promotes authors who arrogantly insult and demonize normal people and then sit around and try to figure out why normal people don’t like or trust them.

It’s not a difficult disease to diagnose. Just look at the reactionary panic among so many progressive media types who, after the election, bemoaned the Left’s need to find “their own Joe Rogan.” That’s just it – Rogan is anything but conservative or right-wing. His opinions are wildly divergent from conservative orthodoxy; he doesn’t really espouse much of a consistent ideology, but rather gravitates towards takes and perspectives and people who have unique, eccentric, even bizarre views.

He may talk to ideologues, but he isn’t one himself. So people trust him to ask questions they would ask. They trust him to platform people that he doesn’t agree with rather than demanding complete philosophical and political conformity. The Democrat Media Complex doesn’t need their own Joe Rogan; they need to swallow their pride and learn from him.

But I don’t see it happening. Humility isn’t taught in journalism schools.

This article was originally published by NotTheBee.com.

Peter Heck is a writer, speaker, and teacher from Indiana. He is married to Jenny, and is the father of three kids. Peter holds to the infallibility and inerrancy of Scripture in his teaching and writing, and has a passion for biblical literacy and for demonstrating the Bible’s applicability to all of life. 

Peter is the lead opinion writer for “Not the Bee.” His opinions have also been published in the Washington Times, Washington Post, USA Today, and on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. A former radio host, Peter produces a daily podcast and has authored a number of books on Christians and the culture.