A host of Democrats called on party chiefs to rethink their media strategy after a slew of humbling losses on Election Day.

When Vice President Kamala Harris lost to President-elect Donald Trump and Republicans claimed a majority in both the House and Senate, some Democrats blamed their stinging defeats in part on “outdated” ways of thinking about how they communicate to voters. 

While Harris largely favored legacy media appearances, Trump often pitched to voters on alternative platforms, taking his message to niche podcasts, YouTube influencers, and more.

But what exactly is so valuable about alternative media, and will Democratic elders follow Trump’s lead by prioritizing outreach on non-traditional media platforms? 

Here’s what a range of communications experts had to say.

The trust factor

Alternative media is uniquely valuable because people trust it more than the legacy press, political communications experts argued. They said the decline of legacy media’s credibility largely stems from the role it has played in constructing and supporting certain narratives in recent years that turned out to be unpopular with voters. 

Martin Gurri is a visiting fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University who specializes in the relationship between politics and media. He said that the legacy media’s COVID-19 coverage in particular promoted narratives about lockdowns, vaccines, and safety protocol that viewers believed lacked credibility. 

“Trust once it’s burned, it’s hard to regain, and I think we are in a moment of particular distrust,” Gurri said. “And the pandemic just blew up what little trust was left.”

Mitchell Jackson, a public relations expert who founded BCC Communications, agreed that the legacy press’s narrative about “school lockdowns” during the pandemic and the subsequent levels of historic learning loss made viewers distrustful of legacy outlets. He also attributed to viewers’ rising skepticism worries legacy media has deep connections to major pharmaceutical advertisers. 

“Big Pharma,” as Jackson put it, pours billions every year into promoting prescription drugs on television. Many viewers associate the industry with COVID-19 vaccines and the opioid crisis, Jackson said, as he argued that perceptions that they work in tandem with legacy media have eroded trust. 

For the first time this year, Gallup found that legacy media is the least trusted institution in the country. The data confirmed a startling decline in trust in legacy media over the past decade and marked a shift from previous years when Congress was viewed as the least credible institution. 

A 2023 Fortune report found half of Americans believe legacy outlets are biased, push an agenda, or deliberately intend to misinform the public. 

The Media Research Center, a conservative media watchdog group, reported that three of the country’s top cable news networks exhibited major bias against Republicans during the election cycle, giving Harris, a Democrat, 78% positive coverage, and Trump, a Republican, 85% negative coverage.

Independent pundits who form the alternative media presence on new platforms hold an advantage over their legacy media counterparts because they are perceived as less biased and exercise more humility, argued Gurri.

Referring to The Joe Rogan Experience, which is the most popular podcast in the country, Gurri said: “He [Rogan] is not telling you Donald Trump is a God, or Donald Trump is the devil. He’s letting you see Donald Trump and letting you make up your mind.”

“That humility in talking about things, you know, will gain you a lot of trust,” he continued. “And I think the Joe Rogans in the world have that. They just kind of say, ‘Well, I don’t know, but I think this.’ I can’t imagine a mainstream media person saying, ‘I don’t know, but I think this.’”

Jackson added that “podcasters seem to be more willing to have a conversation on issues that the mainstream maybe wouldn’t touch,” while arguing that they are not “as beholden” as legacy media to pharmaceutical advertisers. 

The ‘new mainstream media’ factor

Spiro Kiousis, an associate dean and public relations professor at the University of Florida, believes alternative media is valuable because “it broadens your message, the reach of your message, especially during the general election … [and] exposes your message to a wider variety of voters and stakeholders.”

Jackson, the public relations expert, even argued that alternative media is “the new mainstream media” because it has “wider viewership” than legacy outlets. 

Roughly two-thirds of podcast listeners in 2023 come across news on the podcasts they listen to, according to the Pew Research Center.  The number of people listening to podcasts has also skyrocketed. In 2013, 12% of people 12 and older said they had listened to a podcast in the past month. In 2024, the number of people who had listened to a podcast in the past week was 34%, per Edison Research.

Independent journalism has also made steep inroads. A recent Free Press survey found that 51% of people agree that “having more independent news outlets is important to stopping disinformation.” Substack, an independent journalism online platform that was founded in 2017, now boasts 20 million+ subscribers.

Many major alternative voices are based on streaming platforms such as YouTube and Spotify, which have soared in user popularity. Meanwhile, over 106 million people across the country use X, with a 2024 study finding that 53% of them regularly used the platform to access news, per Statista. 

Trump and his allies took notes and ramped up engagements on the platforms during the presidential campaign. Their efforts paid off, particularly with young voters who frequent alternative media more heavily than those older than them. Trump outperformed his 2020 showing with voters ages 18-24 by 11 percentage points to win a second term, according to CNN exit polls. He grew support from people ages 18-29 by 7 percentage points. 

Micah Erfan, who sits on the Executive Committee of the Texas Democratic Party, said utilizing alternative media is essential for his party to reach a wider array of voters to make a political comeback. 

“If Democrats want to win a majority, we have to build a better network on these platforms,” he said. “Politics is in messaging, more broadly, is a game of reaching people and going to where people are looking. And the unfortunate fact, perhaps, for Democrats, is that people are not looking at CNN or MSNBC.”

The future

Erfan is one of the many Democrats, including Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), who has criticized his party for understating the advantages of alternative media during Harris’s campaign. He is urging colleagues to go on platforms such as X and popular podcasts such as the Joe Rogan Experience, spaces that many Democrats view with suspicion and claim are riddled with disinformation and hate speech.  

Harris did not appear on Rogan’s show, and although she appeared on a few other popular podcasts, the vice president mostly played a media strategy that prioritized taking her message to legacy outlets. 

Erfan criticized her decision as “completely out of touch” but sounded loud notes of optimism about the future. Saying that Democrats’ stinging losses earlier this month gave party reformers “leverage,” he argued the results served as “a real wake-up call.” 

“I think you’re going to see a huge shift in the Democratic Party strategy going forward,” he said. 

Other experts were less confident.

Kiousis thinks it “remains to be seen” if Democrats will embrace alternative media. 

“I think there’s a reality where they realize they need to change. … But I don’t, I don’t think they know what they’re doing yet. I think it’s too soon to know what their strategy pivot is gonna be,” Jackson added, saying that “the people from in the DNC comms world tend to be kind of out of it — like they still think Morning Joe is the center of America.”

One of the reasons Harris reportedly decided not to go on Rogan’s show was because progressive staffers protested the move. While lower-level Democrats may protest, future changes in media strategy from party chiefs are improbable as they are likely too attached to progressive climate, transgender, and identity politics policies to go on platforms where their narrative might be questioned or dissent is tolerated, suggested Gurri. 

Whatever communications strategy Democrats decide to play, the future of legacy media at best appears to be uncertain.

The number of U.S. households that subscribe to cable television has declined by 35% since 2010, per Statista. 

One of the world’s largest media companies, Comcast, confirmed this week plans to spin off most of its cable channels, including MSNBC and CNBC, to new ownership, a move the company hopes will position it “to play offense in a changing media landscape.”

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Commenting on the trends, Gurri proposed that Democratic bosses for the most part are facing cognitive dissonance, denying the breakdown of legacy outlets.  

“They lived in a very comfortable world that told them all the things they wanted to hear, and now that’s broken,” he said.