It’s bad enough that media companies of all kinds are struggling with declining revenue, fragmented audiences and the increasing power of intermediaries like Facebook. Now add to that a president who has shown himself to be actively hostile towards the press and the First Amendment.
What does that future look like? It looks like a pitched battle between a man who made his own media rules and rode them to victory, and a traditional press that has lost much of its power.
Many media outlets are still licking their wounds over their failure to predict that Trump might win, a victory that came despite a wave of fact-checking and reporting on his numerous falsehoods and ethical failures. The only exception to this is cable television, which made so much money from covering him that introspection over the outcome is unlikely.
But even cable giants have to contend with a media landscape that has fractured and heaved to the point where alternative media players and social media arguably played a far larger role in the election than any mainstream media source, including television.
Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017
Continue reading “President Donald Trump vs. the media is going to be an epic battle”
