Illustration by Ben Hickey
“Nothing symbolizes the changed media landscape of this past election more than Joe Rogan’s casual brush-off. Within a week, his interview with Trump racked up more than 40 million views on YouTube alone, and millions more on other platforms. No single event, apart from the Harris-Trump debate, had a bigger audience this election cycle. By comparison, Harris’s contentious interview with Bret Baier on Fox News, the most popular of the cable networks, drew 8 million viewers to the live broadcast, and another 6.5 million on YouTube.
Those figures demonstrate the absurdity of talking about the “mainstream media” as many still do, especially those who disparage it.”