That the media ultimately had little influence on voters should come as little surprise.
Welcome back to Forgotten Fact Checks, a weekly column produced by National Review’s News Desk. This week, we look at the recent upheaval taking place in the mainstream media after President-elect Donald Trump’s win, and we cover more media misses.
Mainstream Media Facing Post-Election Reckoning
Days before Donald Trump would go on to win the presidential election, Axios declared “the big media era is over.”
“The mainstream media’s dominance in narrative- and reality-shaping in presidential elections shattered in 2024,” the outlet said.
That assessment seems particularly prescient in the wake of Election Day, which saw Trump sweep the battleground states and lead in the popular vote, despite the media dedicating years to warning voters that a second Trump administration would signal the end of democracy.
That the media ultimately had little influence on voters should come as little surprise; just 31 percent of respondents in a Gallup poll last month said they have a “great deal” or a “fair amount” of trust in the press — an all-time low.
Now, as columnist John Podhoretz writes, it seems like “tectonic plates are shifting.”
The Washington Post parted ways with its senior politics editor, Dan Eggen, who said he was “crushed” after being informed he will be “removed” from his role. The Wall Street Journal recently laid off politics editor Ben Pershing. The New York Times will also have a new Washington bureau chief, though the paper says the move is being made because current bureau chief, Elisabeth Bumiller, has decided to return to writing.
And then of course, as we reported last week, Scientific American editor in chief Laura Helmuth resigned from her post after facing public backlash over controversial anti-Trump posts she authored on Election Day.
But perhaps the greatest shakeup of all could come at MSNBC, after Comcast announced last week plans to spin off the unabashedly liberal channel and other NBCUniversal cable networks. The change means MSNBC will no longer be affiliated with NBC News. Instead NBCUniversal News Group will now include only NBC News, the NBC News Now streaming service, Telemundo, and owned-and-operated local stations.
As Fox News reports, “[Chairman] Cesar Conde loses oversight of MSNBC and CNBC in the process, and the fate of shared resources — and even the cable network’s name and editorial direction — are in question.”
Perhaps the incoming shakeup helps explain why things have gotten a little unusual at MSNBC as of late.
After years of warning viewers that Trump poses an existential threat to the American way of life, Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski announced last week that they had reopened communications with the president-elect.
The married co-hosts said they flew to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago compound for their first in-person meeting with him in seven years after Americans decisively elected him.
“For nearly 80 million Americans, election denialism, public trials, January 6th were not as important as the issues that moved them to send Donald Trump back to the White House with their vote,” Brzezinski said. “Joe and I realized it’s time to do something different. And that starts with not only talking about Donald Trump but also talking with him.”
The move left viewers understandably confused and outraged, as just last month Scarborough had called Trump an “increasingly desperate person” who is “preparing for civil war.” And on Election Day, they had historian Jon Meachem on the show to discuss how Trump would ban historians from writing books if he returns to office.
Morning Joe’s viewership stats have reflected fans’ disappointment. While the show has averaged 1.1 million total viewers from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. this year, viewership had dropped to 618,000 total viewers days after the hosts revealed their meeting with Trump.
CNN’s Brian Stelter claimed the pair met with Trump only because they are in fear of being targeted by him, as are other journalists.
“There are a number of journalists at places like the AP [Associated Press] and other big news outlets that are concerned about retaliation in the coming months. Anything from IRS audits to lawsuits and things like that,” he said, adding, “There are media outlets bulking up on lawyers, thinking about having more libel insurance, those sorts of things.”
But CNN’s resident voice of reason, Republican Scott Jennings, quickly refuted that claim. “If that’s what happened and if that’s what they truly believed, why did they go on TV and say that?” he said, noting the co-hosts hadn’t expressed any fear on-air.
He suggested they could have told viewers, “We went down there to meet with the president to tell him that, ‘Hey, anyone who’s been critical of you, you know, you should treat us like journalists and not like the enemy.'”
“They didn’t go on TV and say that,” he said. “They went on TV and portrayed it much differently. So, what I hear you saying in your reporting is they had a motive that they weren’t willing to disclose to their audience, which I think should get them more scorn today than they were already getting to begin with.”
After the co-hosts’ admission, Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple wrote a column listing “Five reasons Democrats should turn off ‘Morning Joe.’”
Headline Fail of the Week
It’s apparently way less concerning to the mainstream media when Democrats break election laws and don’t concede an election than when Republicans do it. The New York Times reported on the recent dispute in Pennsylvania with this unusual framing: “In Pennsylvania, the Election Litigation Continues, with a Twist.”
The twist? To the Times own writing: “As a Senate recount plays out, at least four counties are ignoring an order from the State Supreme Court that undated or misdated mail ballots cannot be counted.”
Days after the outlet published its report, the recount was called off, after incumbent Democratic Senator Bob Casey finally conceded to Senator-elect Dave McCormick.
Media Misses