The 2024 election showcased the rise of new media, with leading presidential candidates sitting for 3-hour podcast interviews, and the host of the "Channel 5" show on YouTube, Andrew Callaghan, said this trend may pose a serious threat to press legitimacy.
"Yes, new media is replacing old media to a certain extent. As far as the podcast longform space goes, new media is definitely replacing old media in that regard. But as far as a primary source of reliable information, I wouldn’t say that new media replacing old media is necessarily a good thing," Callaghan told Fox News Digital.
The online journalist told Fox News Digital that the new media ecosystem is being flooded with "misinformation, AI, [and] reactive, clickbait content." He claims the cause of this is that online content creators aren’t held to the same legal and ethical standards as traditional journalists. This leads to a lack of scrutiny and due diligence, which makes online media spaces far more vulnerable to manipulation than traditional news outlets.
Andrew Callaghan said that new media supplanting traditional news outlets could be dangerous. (Getty)
"I'm not saying that the 24-hour news cycle is perfect, but the new media space is actually easier to manipulate than old media because you don't have - you have very little legal liability for content creators. They're not journalists, they don't have to uphold ethical Fourth Estate standards. There's no printed retractions. There's no fact-checking apparatus," Callaghan told Fox News Digital.
Callaghan himself is currently embroiled in a quasi-legal battle with first lady Melania Trump. Trump threatened former first son Hunter Biden with a $1 billion lawsuit over comments he made during an appearance on Callaghan’s "Channel 5" program.
The former "All Gas No Brakes" host claimed new media – podcasts, social media influencers etc... – are run by pundits, not journalists, who rely on the news broken by traditional outlets as the basis for their commentary. Callaghan argues these pundits have a parasitic relationship with the very industry they’re trying to replace.
Hunter Biden claimed the Trumps were introduced by Jeffrey Epstein during an episode of Callaghan's show. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
"New media people want to make it seem like they are the arbiters of truth that are breaking through the old media, old guard or stronghold, but most new media channels are ran by pundits who react to mainstream news clips," Callaghan said.
One area where new media is surpassing traditional news outlets, in Callaghan’s view, is on-the-street reporting, which is the kind of content he publishes on his own "Channel 5" YouTube channel, which boasts over 3 million subscribers. Callaghan has made a name for himself crisscrossing the country documenting some of the United States’ most serious and eccentric political and social movements.
On "Channel 5," his previous program "All Gas no Brakes," and his HBO documentary "This Place Rules," he’s shone a spotlight on furries, people who believe the Earth is flat, Antifa, the Proud Boys and QAnon. He’s also interviewed politicians and newsmakers, including, most recently, Hunter Biden.
Biden made headlines with explosive comments about George Clooney and several key Obama figures during a wide-ranging Aug. 5 sit-down with Callaghan, which received over 3.7 million views. During a return appearance on Aug. 14, the former first son alleged that President Trump and his wife Melania were introduced to each other by accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, prompting the first lady to threaten legal action.
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Despite achieving widespread success in his medium, Callaghan is acutely aware of the unique challenges faced by traditional media. Traditional news sources are facing a collapse in credibility, with a 2024 Gallup poll finding, for the third year in a row, that there are more Americans who distrust the media than have faith in it.
"Part of the hard part is that everybody became a journalist as soon as smartphones became so widely available. There’s no longer a need for institutional people to show up on the scene and distribute things to the masses, because how it works now is like whoever was there first kind of wins the news race. Everyone’s got the ability to produce a 4K video," Callaghan said.
In order to regain credibility in an era where their traditional advantage has been obliterated by technology, and public trust is at historic lows, Callaghan said the traditional news outlets need to provide a "greater breadth of perspectives" on hot-button issues.
Melania Trump threatened Biden with legal action unless he retracts his statement. (Fox News )
In his opinion, individual journalists are hungry to expand the topics covered in their newspapers or television stations, but financial interests play a role in stifling certain viewpoints from emerging. The structure of newsrooms, where senior editors are often of an older generation than many beat reporters, often creates a cultural disconnect that prevents certain stories from getting covered.
"I don’t think that journalists have lost integrity. Journalists are also just employees of private companies and those companies have interests just like anybody else," Callaghan said.